How Can The Tebow Era Already Be Over? It’s Hardly Begun

By: Toby Christie

One week after being the toast of the town in Denver, Colorado after leading a furocious comeback against the Miami Dolphins, Tim Tebow is now taking huge shots from the media.

Tebow lined up against a 5-2 Detroit Lions defense, which is anchored by Ndamukong Suh. Suh and the Lions were extremely focused after a couple of losses, so pretty much anybody in their path this weekend were going to be doomed.

Now I will admit that Tebow’s performance in a 45-10 loss was not stellar, but I would hardly say that the Tebow era is “over” or that he has no future as an NFL quarterback as ESPN.com’s Bill Williamson wants so badly to believe. Tebow’s boxscore Sunday read as: 18 of 39 passing for 172 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. He also had six rushes for 63 yards. Like I said not stellar, but it’s also not bad considering the Broncos over the past few seasons have traded away every viable offensive target that they had.

Brandon Marshall, Tony Scheffler and Brandon Lloyd have all been shipped away leaving Tebow on a dysfunctional offense that was designed around a conventional pocket-passer (Kyle Orton).

Tebow is the type of the quarterback that you have to decide to live, and die by the sword. Sure he’s explosive, he’s in your face, and he plays the game with a lot of heart, but some weekends you won’t win the game – but isn’t that true about every quarterback out there today? Seriously, name me a quarterback in the NFL right now who has never lost a game… You can’t, because there isn’t one.

Forgotten in the shuffle of the Broncos being walked all over this weekend is the fact that Tebow has started just five games thus far in his young NFL career. Equally forgotten in the shuffle is that in those five starts Tebow has already amassed just as many wins (two) as the rookie everyone is in love with – Cam Newton. Add in the fact that Newton has started more games than Tebow, and the fact that Newton has a much more talented roster to work with and you see why the media needs to lay off of Tebow.

Tebow doesn’t play pretty football. It’s unorthodox, it’s bruising, heck it’s down-right ugly sometimes, but that is exactly what makes Tebow’s game so beautiful… It’s different. The media has hated him from day one, and its hard to explain why. He’s great in interviews, he’s an amazing role model, he is a natural born leader, and he has all of the intangibles that you want in your quarterback.

The only reason I can see why they hate him is that he ruffles the very feathers of the people who have lobbied the NFL to change the game past the point of recognition. In the NFL today quarterbacks are no longer allowed to be hit, and defenses aren’t allowed to stand their ground. Effectively the game today is nothing more than glorified pitch and catch, and big money television deals with ESPN, NBC, FOX and CBS are as big to blame as anything else for the changes. 

Newsflash, the NFL doesn’t care about keeping players safe (as is apparent by the alarming number of players on IR already this season), it’s just the quarterbacks that are important. They are the marquee names that are advertised all week leading up to the game. If they can’t play it’s bad business.

Tebow is a throwback to a simpler day when players didn’t shy away from contact, and they weren’t afraid to gut it out to win a game, the league and television networks don’t like that.

Give the man some time, let the Broncos build around him. Don’t praise him after a last-second comeback just to bash him the following the week when he is trounced by a team that started the 2011 season 5-0.