Unexpected Turn in Tebow Narrative

NOTE: I wrote this column just a day before Tebow was ultimately traded to the New York Jets.

On Monday afternoon, legendary quarterback Peyton Manning rocked the NFL world by telling his agent to negotiate a contract with the Denver Broncos. The next day, the Broncos held a press conference to announce they officially signed Manning to a five-year contract worth up to $96 million. Since Manning will be 36 years old by the start of the 2012 season and he missed all of last season due to multiple neck surgeries, this signing is the epitome of high-risk, high-reward. And while there are limitless storylines about how Peyton Manning’s arrival will affect Denver, I am most intrigued by how this whole situation impacts Tim Tebow.

Last season, “Tebow Time” was one of the rare instances in which an athlete transcends sports. In a season where quarterbacks threw for record numbers across the league, it was the quarterback who nearly always ran that received the most attention. Everyone had an opinion about Tebow, whether he or she was a sports fan or not. Now we know for sure what Broncos Hall-of-Fame quarterback-turned-executive John Elway thinks about him as well: that Tim Tebow is not a starting-caliber quarterback.

Now that Tebow will either be relegated to the Broncos’ bench or traded, I can safely say that never in my life have I witnessed this type of scenario. Let’s say that I pitched you a movie that went as follows: a hard-working, deeply religious quarterback, who had succeeded in all previous levels in which he had played even though nobody believed in him, kept winning at the highest level. Despite his skeptics, he quarterbacked a team that went from one of the worst in the league to one that won a game in the playoffs. So far, this doesn’t sound so far-fetched. However, what if I said that the movie ended with this quarterback, revered for his high character, getting flat-out rejected by his own front office in favor of a bigger-name player?

This is the key: Tebow’s story mirrors sports movies such as Rookie of the Year and Little Big League…until the end. Tebow does not get to retire into the sunset, for everyone to remember his glory, something that Elway himself was able to do when he won the Super Bowl in his final two seasons. Instead, Tebow gets replaced, and even worse, everyone who rooted for him last year in Denver has no qualms about it whatsoever. I am not insinuating that the fans or the Broncos’ management are wrong for signing Manning, who when healthy has been one of the single greatest quarterbacks of all time. Rather, Tebow’s predicament fascinates me simply because, by choice, Elway and his employees have ended their own feel-good story.

From my point of view, Tebow inevitably will be traded: how can Denver keep him just so he can hold a clipboard? After all, he will only be entering his third NFL season, and as a quarterback who showed a propensity for winning, whether it was truly to his credit or not, he will be desired by several smaller-market teams in need of both a quarterback and an attendance draw. Indeed, for the sake of Tim Tebow’s legend, he must be traded. Teams such as the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Miami Dolphins are desperately looking for success on and off the field. Wouldn’t having Tebow not only compete for the starting quarterback position, but also further endear the team to its fans be a no-brainer decision? Since Denver has no true incentive to keep him, the asking price will most likely be fairly low.

People consistently perceive the NFL to take precedence over any individual player. That may be true, but no one challenges that perception as much as Tim Tebow does. For him to sit on the bench for an organization that does not have faith in his quarterbacking abilities would do both the NFL and its fans a disservice. I don’t want this story to end with a thud, and neither do you. It’s time for a sequel that actually lives up to expectations.