I will say simply that Tim Tebow looked strikingly different from the quarterbacks we have grown accustomed to watching on television. He lacks those quarterback things that we love, or that we're conditioned to love by analysts such as Jon Gruden: tight footwork, efficient throwing motion, precision craftsmanship, pocket presence, predictability. Tebow is a study in the opposites: bad mechanics, slow delivery, happy feet, poor defensive-recognition abilities, wobbly balls.Obviously turning to Slate for sports analysis is like asking the set decorators at FOX to help you prep your living room for a World of Interiors shoot, but this is really too much. The football world is afraid of Tim Tebow in the same way that Marc-André Fleury is afraid of Johnny Weir's backhand; they may play on the same surface, but it is an altogether different sport. Tebow does indeed lack "those quarterback things that we love." What he does not do, unlike, say, a certain lumbering rape-yeti who, between seventeen sacks, four broken toes (fortunately, he has sixteen), and a lawsuit per game, has managed a career impressive both in analyst-statistician land and in the ledger of Superbowl victories. What I mean to say is that the problem with Tim Tebow is not his unorthodox style of play. He is not an unorthodox quarterback. He is a bad quarterback. Insofar as he strikes fear into the hearts of NFL fans, it's that we fear he represents the quality and type of quarterback coming out of the hopelessly bonkers world of college ball.
Tebow is not a Jon Gruden kind of player. Sure, he might trumpet Tebow's competitiveness and his will to win and all those intangibles, but I'd bet that a large part of him is rooting for Tebow to fail. After all, a quarterback like Tebow is a living affront to that secret knowledge, possessed primarily by a fraternity of former coaches and players who now talk on TV for a living, of what it takes to succeed in the NFL. A successful Tebow is a quarterback who craps all over the conventional football wisdom, and this has the football world very afraid.
-Nate Jackson at Slate
What gets me is that Jackson could have written exactly the same column substituting the words "Cam Newton" for "Tim Tebow" and come off as something less that a total moron. Sure the Panthers stink, but Newton looks like a real prospect rather than a regrettable but now-inescapable mistake.
66 comments:
Newton, unlike Tebow, can throw the ball.
The notion that Tebow is a bad quarterback is so detached from reality that it's hard to even address it. Tebow's problem, as well as the NFL's in general, is that coaching in the NFL is just really, incredibly shitty. This is why the Grudens of the world don't have to worry about anything: they would never even try to run an offense that would make use of Tebow's talents, so he'll never succeed.
"The conventional wisdom says this. But is the conventional wisdom wrong? We found a guy who says so." - Slate.com
Tebow failing is an emotional blow to the magic morale of the Colorado jackboot Christianists who've hotwired Colorado Springs for Armageddon. That's worth something.
from wiki-tim tebow:
In 2010, a new rule for the next NCAA football season, dubbed "The Tebow Rule"[76][77][78] by media because it would have affected him, banned messages on eye paint.[78] During his college football career, Tebow frequently wore biblical verses on his eye black. In the 2009 BCS Championship Game, he wore John 3:16 on his eye paint, and as a result, 92 million people searched "John 3:16" on Google during or shortly after the game
I dislike Tebow simply because I dislike the Gators, and more specifically their fans. But he strikes me as an early Vick. Before his jail stint, Vick was mostly hype as a QB. Yeah, he was a great athlete and great football player, but in no way stood out as a QB per se. Delivering on the occasional clutch play is nice, but is the equivalent of my USF Bulls consistently beating the occasional top 10 ranked teams they play while losing to everyone else. Plus I'm still convinced they're going to find some skeletons (big ones) in his closet. Pedophilic bestiality or something. Lamb-fucker.
What the NFL fears is every team with a Tim Tebow. The revenue losses will mount with every game a promotional giveaway.
Each fan in the first twenty rows will receive a free game ball at some point in the game.
Tebow will flail around with Denver for a few years, then someone like Belichick will pick him up cheap and make him into a tight end or a Hines Ward-type possession receiver. That's how he stays in the NFL, if he wants to.
General Mobius, when Hitchens goes to that great Intelligence Squared debate in the sky, you should send your resume to Slate.
NOW EVEN IOZ HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT TEBOW?? Fuck me. And nothing new to add at that!
As a long-time Broncos fan, I admit to devastating depression on the day they drafted him. HE CAN'T FUCKING THROW AND HE LOVES JESUS TOO MUCH. But I soon realized that I wasn't reacting against the player so much as the way the media obsesses over him.
The dude has just as much chance of making it in the NFL as any other college star who succeeded as a pro despite experts predicting otherwise, and in the meantime he's incredibly fun to watch. But it makes me physically ill to see article after article attempting to predict his yet-to-be-determined-future-because-nobody-really-has-a-fucking-clue as if there's nothing else in the NFL one could possibly talk about. Thanks for piling on, asshole!
Happy Jack is spreading the happy around.
Your bait-and-switch depriving me of Tiptoe Through the Tulips really rankles me, Sir!
As a long-time Broncos fan.
Gesundheit.
In his ~5 game career, he has an 85 qb rating, 15 tds against 3 turnovers, and a 2-2 record starting for a team with the worst record in the NFL over the last 32 games. Clearly, he has much to improve upon- but talk of position changes & lasting in NFL already seem pretty absurd. (This coming from another donkeys fan who hated the pick initially.)
So when are the Broncos gonna abort Tebow?
Low blow, Enron. The only abortions in Denver are those D + C's Tebow chucks in the air.
Would Slate let me say "shit" and "fuck"? Because, if so, that's not a half-bad idea. I've been looking for a way to get paid for the shit I currently make up for free.
I wonder if he'll alienate his teammates with the overt Jesus is Magic stuff. There are a fair number of Christianist players, but I'd never seen players hold a prayer circle during a field goal attempt until Timmeh did it last week. Suppose they'll put up with it if he keeps winning.
If he keeps winning? He ought to start praying to Diamond J that Matt Prater doesn't go 1-for-3 again.
Newton looks like a real prospect rather than a regrettable but now-inescapable mistake.
And by what evaluative metric is this claim made?
Dude, his numbers are pretty decent so far, especially in the touchdown and turnover categories (e.g., compare Newton's 9 interceptions to Tebow's 3, with each throwing for 8 touchdowns). You may not like his arm, but so far there's little evidence to show that Tebow's been anything other than an above-average young quarterback.
I think we all know who's responsible for sending forth that football through the uprights, yea even unto the stands, Blessed Be He.
You may not like his arm, but so far there's little evidence to show that Tebow's been anything other than an above-average young quarterback.
Yuh other than his 45% completions(!) and sub-Kevin Kolb 6.5 yd-per-pass stat?
Yuh other than his 45% completions(!) and sub-Kevin Kolb 6.5 yd-per-pass stat?
Dude, get yo stats corrected: it's 7.51 yd-per-pass (should we compare it to the celebrated Matt Stafford's 6.35?) Also, 85.9 quarterback rating. But you can hang your entire argument on completion percentage if you want to.
The difference is that Tebow is a white, Christian southern boy and Newton is a black kid from urban Georgia. Pat White's football career is over. I guarantee you Robert Griffin III will never see the light of day as a QB in the NFL. I don't have anything against Tebow and maybe he COULD play QB at a professional level, but I'm hard pressed to remember a time when someone with as little glaringly obvious upside was given so many opportunities. Warren Moon was right, this is one of the last acceptable forms of blatant racism in America.
Tebow Agonistes...
Next Best Thing To Rapture...
Moon owned the Steelers in the bad late-eighties. I miss the Oilers.
'but I'm hard pressed to remember a time when someone with as little glaringly obvious upside was given so many opportunities'
you are lucky to have already forgotten the kyle orton era of broncos football.
We need the Rooney Rule for QB's NOW!
when tebow wins the super bowl next year, will all you athiest queers just read the bible already?
Tebow does much better in fantasy than in real life, at least in my league (where QBs get 6 points for running TDs and 4 points for passing TDs). I'm starting him over Stafford this weekend.
One thing fantasy football has taught me is how to be a good capitalist owner. About the last thing on my mind was this tool's religion when I picked him up last week.
Anonymous 4:16 is convinced that the Master of the Vast Universe will intervene in a football game just to show up all them "atheist queers" on the internet.
Of course, given how petty Yahweh shows himself to be in the Babble...maybe he is right. LOL
Brian M is the Tim Tebow of recognizing jokes.
Bubby Brister had some good games against the Broncos BITD; the only problem was Elway had better games. But the 2005 AFC Championship made up for all that.
What are you blathering about?
"What are you blathering about?"
20 years/180 degrees ago.
J-Ho
You are wrong about Robert Griffin III. If he comes out, he is going to be a top 10 pick. For all the Luck hype, RGIII ceiling may be even higher.
stop turning me gay for you
--cutler fan
"Tiny Tim"?
How do you know, hoss?
J-Ho--
You said it---even in 2011 all too many NFL GMs and coaches would rather be racists than win. Donovan McNabb is still getting benched for what Rush Limbaugh said, and JaMarcus Russell was essentially purged from the league because of his race. Mike Vick versus Kevin Kolb bespeaks a deeper still arch-racist cabal, with Vince Young just another victim. The lessons of Doug Williams have not been learned.
"Obviously turning to Slate for sports analysis is like asking the set decorators at FOX to help you prep your living room for a World of Interiors shoot..."
The irony of course is that turning to IOZ is a much better solution.
I predict that tebow will be the first openly gay NFL player
So you're saying what's in ex-QBs' heads is unimportant and what happens on the field is what tells you if someone's a good QB? Alright, but this is like saying let's not talk about the IQ test makers' interests, let's just see how you do on the test. IQ does not measure intelligence, of course, it measures how good someone is at playing a particular game with rules determined top-down by an institution. And when someone finds a way around those rules, some higher-ups don't like it, for various reasons. They often respond with new rules to solve the "problem." When undesirables start acing IQ tests, you gotta change the test. The author's point seems to mirror this observation by Kevin Carson:
"How do you prevent a professional culture from representing an institutional mindset? At any given time, a professional culture has a lot invested emotionally in defending the existing paradigm against challenges..."
And as for this:
"He is not an unorthodox quarterback. He is a bad quarterback."
The more rigidly hierarchical the system, the more "unorthodox" and "bad" come to mean the same thing. Tebow was an excellent, orthodox college QB. In the NFL, his accuracy problems and slow, telegraphing delivery make his ceiling look more Vince than Steve Young, not that I'd wager against Jesus.
Anonymous 10:47 PM. Let's see if he sets up in a wide stance.
"Tebow is not a Jon Gruden kind of player"
Nor, apparently, a Herm Edwards kind of player. You play to win the game!
fuck the spread option
Moon is right, of course. I got to see him play for my hometown Eskimos around 1980, and of course he deserved to be in the NFL. I sure liked watching him tear it up in the CFL, though, so thanks, NFL racists.
it's that we fear he represents the quality and type of quarterback coming out of the hopelessly bonkers world of college ball.
Um... I'd take college ball over pro ball any day of the week. It's a much more exciting game.
"When undesirables start acing IQ tests, you gotta change the test."
I think the only reason Leonard hasn't responded is because his brain exploded upon reading this. Progressives will pretend to believe anything in order to maintain their creation story. Which is cool, everyone needs faith, just stop making fun of the Faux news Rethuglicans for their religion.
A scale does not measure weight, of course, it measures how good an object is at playing a particular game with rules determined top-down by an institution (the Office of Weights and Measures).
Dr. Lenda, PhD, Critical (American) Football Studies:
Lets not forget the interests in the owners in manufacturing a scarcity of W's. I mean, the game's all about the fans, right? And wouldn't more fans be happier if their team won? And yet, the rigid hierarchy of winners and losers maintains the fiction that the team with more points at the end of the game deserves to be elevated above the team with fewer points. And don't even get me started on that exclusive old boys club known as the playoffs. Indeed, high school never ends.
All the prayer in the world isn't gonna help Tebow when my boy Ndomakong Suh gets up in his grill.
Gabe,
I assume you're going after a strawman, since I don't recognize my position in what you're mocking.
Football is fiction, yes. Excellent fiction, in my view. It's always being tinkered with to make it better fiction, at least in the minds of the tinkerers. Can't touch the QB, can't touch the receivers, so now it's more of a passing league than ever before. Several passing records will be smashed this year.
Hierarchy is everywhere, in every decision you make, for example, this over that. Life without it would be boring. I wasn't arguing against hierarchy as such. That would be to argue against existence. I wasn't arguing against sports either, or the existence of the NFL.
Meant to say, life without hierarchy wouldn't even be boring, it wouldn't be at all.
Anon @ 11:08---
And David took up his sling, and chose four smooth stones....
You lost me. Whatevs, God bless us, every one.
http://tebowing.com/
All the sanctimonious experts and commentators don't like Tebow because he hd the audacity to shoot an anti-abortion video that he majority of proles happen to agree with. His faith is secondary. Lots of athletes wear their belief on their sleeve.
"Meant to say, life without hierarchy wouldn't even be boring, it wouldn't be at all."
So glad I read this thread for that. I suppose if anyone presses you on this point, you could back it up with an evolutionary, food chain argument, and assume that there is a leap from the biological world to the social realm of human society.
But, you know, overlaying a hierarchichal relationship in an attempt to understand ecosystems is a choice, its not immutable, and its a choice in organization that we make. Its also not a very good choice, as ecosystems are not top down hiearchies in practice, but homeostatic complex systems with feedback loops within feedback loops. A predator is more existentially dependant upon its prey than the other way around, and even the hierarchichal conception could be credibly and defensibly placed below rather than above prey.
Tebow. He's a chess guy, right? Checkers? Knitting?
Who is he again? Don't answer. I don't care.
yeah, what's a foot ball?
derisively,
a smart ass
Brady....
The rest
I agree with everything you said, Justin, I think.
Something I wrote a few weeks ago: http://devinlenda.blogspot.com/2011/10/in-support-of-hierarchy.html
I think the Lions just proved you right. And I like the new "tebow pose" that the defensive lineman do when they sack him.
I am really diggin the Lions this year. If ever a team deserved it, it's Detroit.
And David took up his sling, and chose four smooth stones....
And verily, he promptly dropped one of the four smooth stones. And then he threw one to the sidelines. And then he threw one over the head of an open receiver. And then he threw one into the waiting hands of the Philistine Houston, having it returned 100 yards for the pick-six.
(Long-suffering Lions fans welcome your love, IOZ, just as we relish the vitriol of the haters.)
He has the worst mechanics of any QB currently in the NFL. And not bad in a Bernie Kosar, somehow he kinda makes it work way. Bad in a way that will get him killed by NFL defenses. He has a hideously slow wind-up throwing motion which gives defensive lineman time to swat the ball out of his hands and DB's time to react for easy interceptions. He routinely turns his back on the defensive line when the pocket collapses. Name one QB who came into the league with such serious flaws and made it anyway.
Bob
King Tebow's record with those first four stones? A very respectable 3-1......
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