Tuesday Hangover

All Tebow All The Time

Apparently a memo was sent out late Sunday night that said all sportswriters and pundits must do nothing but talk/write about Tim Tebow today. I must not be on the mailing list because I didn’t get it , but how can you not write about the guy. Tebow’s 59-yard field goal to send this weekend’s game to overtime looked like it would have been good from 69. Tebow’s 51-yard field goal to win the game was about as clutch as it gets. Who can’t be impressed with Tebow after he held perennial All-Pro quarterback Caleb Hanie to just 115 yards passing. With all the talk of Tebow’s fourth quarter heroics, most have overlooked his nine solo tackles (Tebow doesn’t need assists even in his stat column) two sacks and four tackles for loss. Perhaps most impressive was him forcing Marion Barber to run out of bounds so the Bears couldn’t run out the clock and then stripping Barber of the ball in overtime when the Bears were in field goal range. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. This was all Tebow.

Sure those contributions were done by players known as Matt Prater, D.J. Williams and Wesley Woodyard, but before Tebow these players didn’t really care about winning. They didn’t believe. The Broncos 7-1 record over the last eight weeks is based solely on Tebow’s erratic passing and will to win. Everybody knows that talent on the field has little to do with the outcome of a game when one player really, really wants to win. Every pre-game show should ignore the x’s and o’s and just tell us on a scale of 1-10 how badly each team wants to win. I’ve even decided to adopt this winning philosophy in my professional life. Prior to Tebow I always wanted to win a Pulitzer, now I really, really want to win a Pulitzer so I figure I am now a lock to win one. My mom is going to be so proud of me.

Snark aside, I’m not up for a debate on what type of quarterback Tim Tebow will be two or three years for now. I’ll leave that to others, but Tebowmania needs a heavy dose of reality. Just three of Tebow’s wins have come against teams with winning records and two of those teams (Chicago and Oakland) were without not just their No. 1 quarterback but their No. 1 running back as well. Tebow’s passer rating in the first three quarters is lower than Blaine Gabbert and Curtis Painter. While the Broncos are 7-1 since Tebow was inserted into the line-up the Broncos have outscored their opponents only 164-162 and those opponents have a combined record of 39-52. Yes, the Broncos are winning, but they are struggling to win against some pretty weak teams. The Broncos defense, running game and special teams are keeping the Broncos in the game despite Tebow. That should be the story, but in a league built around quarterbacks and the passing game we get Tebow and his will to win and failure to quit. If only somebody had told Jack Del Rio, Toddy Haley and Tony Sparano about this magical elixir they might not spend this Christmas looking for jobs.

Oh and for all you Tebow fans out there, I don’t hate him. I don’t dislike him because he is a Christian and wants to tell me about it every time a camera is within the same zip code. I hate the distortion that is “Tebowmania” and those who feed off of it.