Merril Hoge, the former NFL fullback who has become an analyst on ESPN’s Matchup show, has long been a harsh critic of Tim Tebow. And on the day that Peyton Manning’s arrival put Tebow on the trading block in Denver, Hoge didn’t hold back in kicking Tebow while he’s down.
ESPN’s PR department distributed a string of quotes from the Worldwide Leader’s army of NFL commentators on Monday, and for the most part the quotes were bland statements about Manning taking command of the Denver offense and making everyone around him better. But the last quote came from Hoge, and it was an evisceration of Tebow.
Plenty of analysts have questioned Tebow’s arm, but Hoge questions Tebow’s mind. According to Hoge, Tebow is clueless when it comes to understanding how to run an NFL offense, and lacks the brainpower to read an NFL defense.
“The more I studied him in an NFL setting, the more disturbed I was that he has no clue what he’s looking at,” Hoge said of Tebow. “His IQ as a football player is not very good. That is why they have to come down and make it some of a college-form system that he’s comfortable with in Florida. He can’t execute, from a cerebral aspect, a pro-style system.”
In other words, Hoge thinks that if the projections of the Broncos only getting a fifth-round pick for Tebow turn out to be true, the Broncos would be getting a steal.