Tebowmania has taken over Jets training camp, and the guy who signs the checks says he didn’t expect it.
“I think the enormity of the coverage kind of surprised me a little bit,” Johnson said Tuesday, via Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. “But nothing more than that really. . . . I knew there would be press. The interest, even by our standards, this is pretty amazing.”
Johnson apparently didn’t say whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It can be a good thing at the cash register, or if the extra coverage now makes the players ready for the intensity of coverage that would happen if they make it to the Super Bowl. It can be a bad thing if the intense scrutiny gets under the skin of the players and coaches -- and/or if the teams that play the Jets have extra incentive to try to thump the Jets because everyone is (or eventually will be) sick of hearing about the Jets.
The Tebow coverage has made it all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue, prompting President Obama to say that Jets fans should be “nervous” about their quarterback situation.
Johnson, who has been hard at work raising money for Mitt Romney, responded in a way that, at least based on the written word, oozes with sarcasm: “I’m glad he’s a New York Jets fan first and foremost. That’s important. The President of the United States being a Jets fan. That’s good. . . . The fact that he’s a Jets fan, he cares and is passionate about the New York Jets obviously, I think is a positive.”
Johnson surely doesn’t think it’s a positive -- and if he were tied to a polygraph and/or given a healthy dose of truth serum, Johnson likely would also say that, in hindsight, he doesn’t think it was a good idea to bring the Tebow circus to town.