It widely has been assumed that, if/when Tim Tebow abandons his insistence on playing quarterback in the NFL, the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick would welcome him into the stable of versatile offensive weapons who are capable of lining up in multiple spots, allowing Tom Brady to spark up the no-huddle offense whenever he please.
Assume again.
According to Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports, Belichick “hates” Tebow as a player. Silver cites unnamed “organizational sources” for the report, adding that the team “wouldn’t like the circus that comes with” having Tebow on the roster.
The Tebowmania angle will make it harder for any team to justify giving him a chance. Though he arguably has the skill to be a backup or scout-team read-option quarterback, the distraction that comes with having him on the team will nudge most teams toward other possible choices.
“You don’t want to put up with the circus,” an unnamed AFC head coach told Silver.
“He seems like a great guy to have on a team, and I’d be tempted to bring him in as our backup,” an NFC head coach told Silver. “But it’s just not worth dealing with all the stuff that comes with it.”
Silver is troubled by the appearance that Tebow is being blackballed, a victim of his own popularity. Still, a common theme throughout the 2013 offseason has been distractions. Whatever the cause or the reason, a player who attracts attention for reasons other than excellent performance on the field becomes less desirable when compared to another player of roughly equal skill.
That’s the other thing that hurts Tebow. Regardless of his uncanny abilities in crunch time of a game, he stinks in practice and for the most part in the first three quarters of play. If he’s brought in solely to be a backup, he’ll languish because he won’t, for example, be able to deliver accurate passes on a consistent basis to practice players who need to practice catching catchable balls.
Any team that truly wants Tebow would have to be willing to make him the starting quarterback, and also to be willing to tolerate the reality that, from Wednesday through Saturday, he’ll struggle. There currently seems to be no football team outside of Omaha willing to take that chance.