Rosenthal has reached his Tim Tebow quota for the day. I haven’t.
So now I will.
Pat Kirwan of NFL.com, in a recent effort to identify the teams that potentially will draft Tebow, writes that a former NFL head coach said of Dolphins V.P. of football operations Bill Parcells, “Parcells loves Tebow.”
Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald thinks that Tebow is a “bigger, stronger, better” (but slower) version of Pat White, a second-round pick in 2009. And Salguero thinks that, if Tebow is available when the Dolphins use their third-round selection (No. 73 overall), Parcells and company will pounce.
But Tebow likely will be long gone before pick 72. And the Dolphins, who have invested no fewer than five second-round picks on quarterbacks since 2004 (trade for A.J. Feeley (2004), trade for Daunte Culpepper (2006), John Beck (2007), Chad Henne (2008), Pat White (2009)), would be unwise, to say the least, to use anything higher than a third-round pick on Tebow.
Actually, we believe that Parcells was duped into taking Pat White in 2009 due to the widespread belief that Patriots coach Bill Belichick would select White with one of the umpteen second-round selections that New England had -- just as we believe Belichick’s rope-a-dope in 2008 cajoled the Jets into taking Vernon Gholston at No. 6 overall, when Belichick actually coveted the far superior Jerod Mayo.
Though we’re not prepared to suggest that Parcells is trying to get someone to reach for Tebow before the Dolphins use the eleventh pick in round two (No. 43 overall), we’d be shocked if the Dolphins were to use a sixth second-rounder on a quarterback.
Finally, let’s not overlook the fact that Parcells and Tebow share an agent -- Jimmy Sexton. So even if Parcells’ experiences with Pat White have taught him that limited-role quarterbacks may be a mistake, Parcells would have no reason to profess anything other than love for Tebow.
Remember, this is the time of year when teams that love a given player will spread negative info in the hopes that the player slides through the cracks -- and when teams that hate a player will try to help build buzz in the hopes that someone drafting earlier will burn a pick on on the player, pushing one more step farther down the board a player that the team really wants.