Permit me for weighing in on the Tim Tebow Thing. And sharing a perspective that will have almost nothing to do with whether Tebow actually will be a successful NFL quarterback (my bet: not bloody likely).
Something hasn't stopped bugging me about the Tebow Thing the last few days. And, like you'd expect, it involves Notre Dame. If you tend to think any opinion held by an ND fan on matters involving college football is invalid - and I know more than a couple of people who do - you probably just ought to stop reading. Unlike most opinions I hold, this one's not all that strong, and I'm posting this blog more to explore the topic than because I really believe in anything I'm writing.
Mainly, the Tebow Thing has made me wonder if any good player - anyone who desires to be a pro - really ought to go to Notre Dame. More specifically, anyone at a skill position, and particularly at quarterback. Because of one big reason.
Basically, because Brady Quinn was sort of Tim Tebow before Tebow was Tebow.
No, this is not a direct comparison. It may not even be a good one. But to a guy who followed Quinn's career as closely as anyone's career, it seems that there are similarities.
Both players entered their schools in the early years of a new coaching regime (although in Quinn's case, that regime ended quickly). Both were beloved by their fans just as much, if not more so, for the way they carried themselves and the effort they gave as for the results they brought. Both received mountains of hype. Both had visceral haters emerge in response to that hype. Both were leaders. Both were demonstrative. Both were men of faith (Tebow more overtly so, of course). Both returned for their senior year when there was a chance they could have gone pro after successful junior seasons.
The main differences between them are obvious: They possessed different skill sets, with Quinn being a passer and Tebow being more of a hybrid. And of course, Tebow won national championships on loaded teams, while Quinn led flawed teams that didn't merit the hype they received, falling well short of the goal of a title.
Before they ever joined the professional ranks, each player had the NFL spotlight trained firmly upon them. But I noticed something about the run-up to each draft, the 2007 and 2010 drafts respectively. The two were not treated the same.
Everyone was after Quinn's flaws in '07. His lack of arm strength. His inability to 'win the big one'*. And...well, that was pretty much it, it seemed like. Any criticism of Quinn seemed to be vague.
* - Leaving aside the fact that the media seemed to determine retroactively which games were 'the big ones', leaving aside the fact that ND's defense gave up 30+ points in each of these media-appointed 'big ones' and leaving aside the fact that the same media who crucified Quinn for coming up short in big games were blasting ND for being an overrated team which couldn't recruit top-tier talent. There was no apparent cognitive dissonance in the media's collective mind on that point.
Criticizing Quinn wouldn't in itself have been noteworthy except for the fact that the guy being propped up at Quinn's expense was a man named JaMarcus Russell. Now, for some who might forget, JaMarcus Russell was a very large man who had never exhibited the kind of drive for football necessary to win in the pros. He also had a big arm - big enough to throw long bombs to his LSU teammates who would run wide open past slow secondaries. Slow secondaries like Notre Dame's. In the Sugar Bowl. Although Russell could make no other throws of note, everyone quickly tossed Quinn aside for Russell on the strength of Russell's performance against a horrible defense, and on the strength of Quinn's poor performance against a dynamite defense (with a pitiful offensive line, no less).
Russell, of course, was an unmitigated disaster in the pros for the Oakland Raiders. He didn't win. He wasn't accurate. He didn't care to improve himself. He basically ate himself out of the league. By the time his THIRD SEASON was over - absolutely unheard of for a guy who had as much invested in him as Russell did - he was done. Out of the league. No team had any interest in him. (Now, granted, Quinn has been a failure in the pros too, considering his draft status. No question of this. But Quinn is still in the league, which makes him the best QB selected in that 2007 first round, which is my only point.)
Alright. At this point the blog appears to have a fixation on Quinn. Quinn is my favorite collegiate athlete of all time to this point, so this happens a lot. I'm going to try, with monumental effort, to move to the topic at hand.
...and...here we go.
The 2010 draft. Tim Tebow.
Now, I had a vested interest in the media's opinion of Tebow as well, as it so happened that Jimmy Clausen, Quinn's successor at ND and a solid college QB in his own right, albeit one trapped on horribly coached Charlie Weis teams, was in that draft, a projected first-rounder. I was following all the QBs in that draft because of this.
I was utterly shocked at how Tebow's flaws were swept under the rug. His ridiculous throwing motion, which he claimed to have revamped (his NFL game tape shows this was a complete farce). His horrible accuracy. His happy feet. All in the name of "he's a winner!!!". His flaws were so blatantly ignored that he ended up being a first-round pick, as Denver's moronic coach Josh McDaniels (fired a year later, by the way) traded a bunch of picks to move up and get him, out of fear that he'd have been drafted by someone else...apparently, even though there was no indication another team was looking to take Tebow that high. Clausen, meanwhile, fell to the 2nd round for no other apparent reason than 'character concerns' that were vaguely expressed by no one with enough guts to put their name behind them - except of course Todd McShay, who was being less gutsy than legally retarded by doing so. Of course, Clausen appears to have crapped out as well, getting my Carolina Panthers Cam Newton in the process.
I will never stop wondering why Tebow, an overtly religious man, a demonstrative individual, and the same kind of intangibles-laden hype machine that Quinn was in college, was - and is - practically beatified by the football community when I have no doubt that Tebow's act would have earned him nothing but vitriol had he been wearing ND blue and gold.
Think about it. Consider an alternate reality where Clausen does what he probably should have done and just goes to USC, where you can do whatever you want and no one will evidently care, and your pro prospects won't be derailed by vague whispers about character even though you have a nearly-spotless record in all respects except the part where you're not supposed to think you're good even if you are.
Consider an alternate reality in which Tebow (who admittedly never considered ND to my knowledge) decides that with Clausen not going to South Bend, his chance is clear to become a star after Quinn graduates. Tebow has the exact same career, winning two titles (again, alternate reality, folks) and generating a cult of personality in South Bend instead of Gainesville.
Is there any way - ANY way - that Tebow's sanctimonious overt religion, his viewing of himself as a pseudo-prophet even though he plays football, his demonstrative behavior on the sidelines, and all the hype about the 'spark' and 'energy' he brings to the ND team does NOT result in him being universally loathed, not to mention lambasted by the ESPN machine?
I say no. And this is the sad conclusion (or happy if you hate ND): Why would any quarterback hoping to achieve NFL fame go to a place that seems so doomed to inspire so much vitriol? People who achieve the position of ND quarterback are so festooned with hatred that it seems a scarlet letter. I don't know why it is, but it seems clear that it does.
Just a thought or two - and again, don't take me seriously, because this is just a theory, and a half-baked, ridiculously biased theory at that.
