Tim Tebow’s ill-fated NFL return was about cronyism rather than talent
Over the past 15 years, for the majority of this millennium, Tim Tebow has gotten a whole bunch of opportunities. He’s earned them, made the most of them, for a few seasons or games or improbable seconds. But the same can’t be said for his latest misadventure, the summer-long charade in which he played the part of an aspiring NFL tight end.
It wasn’t particularly convincing. Urban Meyer, the thrice-unretired coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, cut Tebow on Tuesday for one very good reason: he isn’t particularly good at football anymore. The decision came three days after the former quarterback played 16 uninspiring snaps in a preseason loss to the Browns, and it was a bummer, I guess, for the legions of fans in Florida who went wild for teal No 85 jerseys back in May. On Twitter, Tebow thanked the Jaguars and said he was “grateful for the chance to have pursued a dream” – a sentiment as innocuous as it is infuriating.
We can agree that’s all this really was, right? Tebow making an NFL roster as a tight end at age 34, nearly nine years after he last competed in a game, would’ve been a fever dream, a hallucination. The Jaguars let him entertain the possibility, a benefit most players in his position would be denied – players with dreams just as big and better odds of making them reality, who could actually use a paycheck and a moment in the spotlight.
There’s the fury. And to be clear, I’m not directing it at Tebow. As a 20-yearold with Bible verses scratched into his eye black, his on-field heroics earned him a cult following and a chance at pro football despite his unorthodox skill set. His flashes of brilliance kept him in the league, then got him a look from the New York Mets, a microphone from the SEC Network. For a while he called games and reported to tiny parks in upstate New York and South Carolina. By all appearances, he worked hard, earned the benefit of the doubt – even though most players with such modest baseball skills are unlikely to be picked up by a team.
So no, don’t blame him for seeking out yet another opportunity, one that might have made sense a decade ago. Blame the Jaguars (and Meyer, who coached Tebow at college) for not saying no to a ridiculous proposition, for not considering – or caring about – the statement they made with that simple yes.
We’ve all seen the stats. Fewer than one-tenth of 1% of high school football players get a chance to play in the pros. Fewer than 5% of college players make the cut. There are so many men and so many fewer spots, and the possibility that Tebow was afforded this summer comes at a steep premium. It eludes nearly everyone who’s ever played a snap.
Still, Tebow got to take precious reps, even if he was on the fringe of a training camp roster. A spot is a spot, and the fact that he got one sends a loud and clear (and ugly) message about who the NFL believes warrants a chance in the league and who doesn’t: the white college star, not the Black man who kneeled, the coach’s old buddy, not a young player desperate for a look.
In 2020, just 35 of the 255 players drafted in 2010 remained on NFL rosters. That’s 14% of Tebow’s draft class still suiting up as they eye their mid-30s, which is to say: The moment has passed. And gosh, did Tebow have his moments. Love him or hate him, we all watched him run roughshod over the SEC in the late aughts. It’s impossible to forget that 80-yard pass to Demaryius Thomas in 2012, after Tebow won a starting job that had seemed unattainable, after most in the NFL had counted him out as a quarterback. And then, once he wasout, when he signed with the Mets and smacked a home run in the first pitch of his first minor-league at bat – that was the epitome of his schtick. Sometimes down, never out, often downright astonishing.
This summer with the Jaguars, then, was totally out of character, a jarring punctuation mark at the end of a rambling story. It was sloppy, sad, a little bit embarrassing to watch. Tebow falls squarely in the 86% of his draft class, among the guys who had their chances and played them out. In a fairer league, where contracts are offered based on talent and promise rather than cronyism and potential jersey sales, Tebow would have been nothing more than a victim of those odds. Someone else would have had that far-down spot on the Jaguars’ roster this summer, would have fought for his future and probably seen it slip away.
Instead, the Jaguars signed a player with no future to fight for. Nothing slipped away when Meyer made his call Tuesday – and the illusion that chances are earned, not given, was already long gone.