Today and Friday will be a good or bad day for the TTHs: Tim Tebow Haters.
It’ll be good for them if he goes unpicked in the first round of the NFL draft tonight — a strong possibility — or through the second round a day later.
Oh, they’ll squeal with the joy of a 10-year-old with a new cell phone if he drops in the draft.
Or knowledgeable people who know something about the game will pick him late in the first round or early second.
Then the Haters will scoff and scold and harrumph and emit some other blustery noise befitting the narrow-minded.
Quietly, they’re just happy his college career is over, leaving them with no legend to whine about and increasing their chances to win.
His draft projections aside, he still spent four seasons smacking around opponents and aggravating shortsighted fans.
He still spent four seasons just winning, and he is the sixth winningest quarterback in SEC history. He’s the career SEC leader in total offensive yards (by almost 1,000), touchdown responsibility (by 33 touchdowns), rushing touchdowns, passing efficiency, among others.
He’s 11th in passing yards (2 yards short of tying for 10th), tied for third (with Chris Leak) in touchdown passes
In some cases, an argument could be made that he did so in more games than others, so his per-game average might drop him on the list a little. I’ll easily grant that.
Conversely, the SEC of today is substantially tougher than the SEC of 20 and 30 years ago, Also, he played a different style of quarterback and was as big a target as anybody in the game the past three decades.
And playing more games also means playing more SEC games, which is no birthday party.
He did what he did with more class than the people who paid to watch him play for their team or against their team. College football fans apparently don’t cotton to that well.
Perfect form? No, he doesn’t have it, any more than Brett Favre or Philip Rivers or any one of a number of successful NFL quarterbacks.
And the piling on because of a flawed throwing motion has been comical if not pathetic.
Gee, folks, did you think he was never going to work on it?
Should he choose a life of more relevance than professional football player, the Haters will spew forth scores of “couldn’t cut it and quit” nonsense.
Me? I have no problem drafting Tebow but with one caveat. My head coach has to be open-minded enough — yeah, that’s a stretch — to exchange some pages in the overdone playbook.
For all the Wildcat silliness, Tebow is just about perfect for it.
He can throw, he can run, he can take hits, he’ll know the offense better than veterans on his team, he’ll block, he’ll be able to catch passes.
I keep going back to Randy McMichael as an H-back at Georgia under Jim Donnan, and I see Tebow as a version of that, albeit one who will throw and run first rather than block and catch.
No, he wouldn’t run as much as he did in college, but he’d still be a threat. And with improved mechanics, he’d be a bigger passing threat in time.
As somebody who has been consistent in his work ethic, his desire for knowledge, intensity, unselfishness, he does raise a team’s mental level a bit.
Sure, we’re all a little tired of Tebow, but blame ESPN. Tebow didn’t look for cameras, they sought him out.
Why?
Because he was one of the greatest college football players ever and one of the greatest people to play college football. All he left on the field was blood, sweat and tears.
He shouldn’t have to apologize for it. And anybody who says they wouldn’t have wanted Tebow running their show is either lying or brain-dead.
Here’s hoping he continues to haunt.
Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com.
