FanPost

Tim Tebow: A Character Assassination

This is the first article that I have ever written with respect to sports and I was inspired based upon the current Tebow madness overtaking your TV screen. In fact many die-hard Bronco fans are getting sick of the constant coverage too, even if they are thrilled with our new winning record.

It is however important to realize that this was a creation fabricated by ESPN. In fact this reminded me of the infamous LeBron James idiocy of last season with the hour long coverage of “The Decision” and the hype surrounding the 2010-2011 Miami Heat. In fact the hype was so ridiculous that many ESPN so called experts were predicting a 72 win season. The extraordinary success of last year’s Heat team, who made it to the NBA Finals in their first year together, will always seem like a disappointment because of the expectations that ESPN created which were never realistic to begin with. In fact if LeBron James finishes his career with anything less than 7 NBA Championship rings he will be a disappointment. LeBron James began his NBA career already touted as the next great NBA player before ever playing a single game. In fact to his credit he has mostly lived up to the expectations, but remember that it was ESPN that built him up and it was ESPN that tore him down again in order to boost its own ratings. ESPN has long since moved beyond reporting news, it is in the realm of pure entertainment and is in fact now CREATING news. Tim Tebow and LeBron James are the two most egregious examples of this.

This new sensation began with Tebow who had a college career bordering on legendary, with a Heisman Trophy, two National Championships and with more touchdowns than any quarterback in SEC college football history. He displayed astonishing amounts of those "intangible" qualities that the ESPN analysts pretend are so important, namely Leadership, Dedication and Hard Work, he mysteriously became a third or fourth round draft pick based on some mythical metric for the "prototypical quarterback." How is this guy not an automatic, no-questions-asked first-round draft pick? In fact Josh McDaniels was roundly criticized for a move that is now beginning to look like genius, when he traded up to snatch Tim Tebow in the 1st round of the draft. But no, his winning college record, he was 13-1 all three years that he started as the quarterback at Florida, and his phenomenal success at high-school, somehow suddenly meant nothing anymore because someone decided that he had a hitch in his throw that was more important than all the qualities that he could bring to the team.

On top of this he is being held to a much higher standard of success as a new quarterback than any in recent history. Because he is being questioned as a starter at all he is not allowed to lose games that most new quarterbacks can because that in itself justifies ESPN’s bias against him. In spite of all this pressure in the face of his success he comes out and wins games and these analysts are wrong again. The standards they hold him to keep changing. He can’t win games, but he does. It can’t continue, but it does. He can’t win a high scoring game, and then he does. He can’t beat a good Jets defense, and then he does. Now it’s he can’t win in the play-offs or win the Superbowl. Why have these standards been applied to him as essentially a first year starter as a quarterback and to no one else? Andy Dalton has the Bengals winning games and they heap praise on him, but Tim Tebow dares to win games that he has no business winning and the ESPN media is licking its chops waiting for him to lose. Don’t get this media coverage twisted; it is not Pro-Tebow coverage at all. They are now lifting him up and up and up so that he will have further to fall when he eventually loses a game. Because it’s not enough that he took over the Broncos when they were 1-4 and went 7-1 since then. No when he loses in the first or second round of the playoffs they will say "see we were right, he can’t win in the playoffs." But remember what he did do and what the first arguments were.

I know he didn’t do it by himself the whole team stepped up and started to play tough football and there is no one that Tebow himself won’t praise before himself. I know it’s ugly a lot of the times too. But since when in the NFL have we ever praised a quarterback for playing beautiful football but losing games? But this really SHOULDN’T be a surprise. It is only news because ESPN tried to destroy one of the most amazing players in college football before he ever played a down in the NFL and he dared to shrug it off and succeed anyways. Ask anyone who played in the SEC or coached for or against him if this is surprising and I bet they are not surprised at all.

Tim Tebow is not the next Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or Brett Favre or any other great player who has ever gone before. He is the first Tim Tebow.

I know as a Bronco fan that I was sick of Kyle Orton. He was an accurate passer and a decent pocket quarterback, but I can’t count the times he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Friends of mine try to quote stats at me about Tebow’s play. They tell me he is an awful quarterback because his throws look ugly, because he should have been a running back or whatever. I just smile. In Denver the sun is shining. We have a shot at the playoffs and I believe we have a shot at beating the Pats on Sunday. Kansas City can have Orton, the more prototypical quarterback of the two. But I can’t help but feel that it was a brilliant act of sabotage and when we play the Chiefs in three weeks facing Orton I smile. We’ve seen this act before and we know how it ends…

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR.