{yawn} The NFL's on-going colonoscopy sweepstakes... {yawn}

And so it goes... :rolleyes:

Richard :munchin

I have to marvel at the prognosticators who are predicting the failure of a talented rookie pro athlete who made it very close to the Super Bowl in his first season leading the Broncos.

If I had those skills to predict careers after only one season, I could make a killing at the Sports tables in Vegas.

I guess we can review this in a couple of years and see who was right.

And I wish the best of luck to both Tebow and Manning. Denver is making a hell of a wager themselves, they are betting on the short term over the long. They better buy Manning some serious protection to boot.

TR

Kind of pathetic the way it's being handled.

LINK

‘Great guy’ Tim Tebow not good enough for John Elway, Broncos

John Elway said that if he could pick someone to marry his daughter it’d be Tim Tebow. Peyton Manning claimed, “I’m a fan of his.” Both the Denver Broncos’ executive vice president and his prized free-agent signing declared Tuesday, repeatedly, that Tebow is a great player.

Then the two Hall of Famers (one current, one future) – the two chosen ones of the NFL – kept laughing and smiling about their future in Denver, a future without Tebow.

What if Manning gets hurt, Elway was asked. What’s Plan B?

“Plan B?” Elway said, incredulous. “We don’t have a Plan B. We’re going with Plan A.”

So, it’s all but official: Manning in and Tebow out in Denver. Two and a half months ago Tebow delivered an overtime touchdown pass to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs, the pinnacle of a season where he rescued the Broncos.

Now he’s all but gone. Elway told him he might be traded and that means he will be traded.

It also means Tebow’s NFL career, brief as it has been, is at a crossroads. And the reason isn’t merely that he isn’t as good of a quarterback as Manning.

“He said, ‘we’re talking about Peyton Manning and I understand exactly what you’re doing,’ ” Elway said of his conversation with Tebow on Monday, when the news of Manning’s acquisition was explained.

Actually, we’re not really talking about Peyton Manning. Oh, Manning provided the perfect cover here, the perfect solution to the Tebow dilemma. This may have been the most polite and uplifting public firing ever – Tebow could’ve signed a lifetime contract and gotten less praise then he did Tuesday.

It doesn’t mean the message wasn’t clear. It was the ultimate “it’s-not-you, it’s-us” breakup, except it was really “it’s-not-you, it’s-your-fans.”

Tebowmania is overwhelming Tebow.

Let’s be clear here, Denver made the best possible decision in signing Manning. It is apparent that Manning is recovering well from his neck ailments that cost him the 2011 season and his 14-year run in Indianapolis. He both worked out for and subjected himself to medical evaluations from three separate teams. All liked what they saw.

“That kind of liberated me a bit,” Manning said.

If he’s back, then Denver just got one of the top three or four quarterbacks in the game. So this is a move to compete for a Super Bowl, which Elway noted was the only real goal of the franchise.

Yet, Denver thinks it can do that better without Tebow as a reserve even though he is a 24-year-old former first-round draft pick who came off the bench last year and saved the season. It believes this even though the franchise raved about his work ethic, professionalism and the way he carries himself as a person. It is convinced even though he couldn’t have accepted the news of his demotion any better.

“He is a great kid,” Elway said. “If there is one guy I want to marry my daughter it’s him.”

And yet he isn’t a suitable backup?

Denver knows Tebow isn’t good enough in a traditional offense and, to use the term in a way it perhaps never has before, his “baggage” (i.e. popularity) is too great to have sitting on the bench. Even behind a four-time MVP.

“It would be our goal to get him in the best situation for him to have success also,” Elway said.

Well, there are two options here. One is a franchise that will restructure its entire offense and commit fully to him for the extended future. That is, almost by definition, a team that both isn’t very good and is very desperate to sell tickets.

The other is a place with a rock-solid starting quarterback, a strong-willed head coach and a creative mindset to find a use for him. Ideally, that’s the New England Patriots.

He isn’t a very attractive backup. He isn’t an ideal guy for a quarterback derby. The fan pressure could be too great. If two legends such as John Elway and Peyton Manning don’t want him on the depth chart, then how do less-established, less-legendary combinations take that route?

At this point Tebow is a prisoner to his own off-the-field popularity, a rather tough reality considering he didn’t really try to create it in the first place. No, Tebow hasn’t shied away from attention or outreach or providing a running testimony for his faith.

However, he also has turned down a million chances to feed the fire. This could be bigger. Way bigger. He could be basking in this popularity far more than he is. Instead he remains a mostly low-key, off-the-beaten path, just-give-me-a-chance-to-improve kind of guy.

It’s the people around him, including some of his own fans, that create the circus that he must overcome.

The best place for Tebow is actually within a system of an established organization. In Green Bay or New Orleans or certainly New England, he could ride out this storm and maybe learn from a guy who is clearly better than him.

The Patriots would be ideal because Tom Brady is the unquestioned king of the franchise and Bill Belichick would never bend to the will of anyone. So it’s no use trying.

Belichick was intrigued enough in Tebow to bring him in during the 2010 predraft process. The Pats’ current offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels, was the coach in Denver when the Broncos drafted Tebow. They’ve spent years finding unique ways to use the uniquely talented – which means Tebow would be contributing, but not causing a quarterback controversy.

The best thing to happen to Aaron Rodgers was spending three seasons in Green Bay learning how to be a quarterback under Brett Favre. Brady sat behind Drew Bledsoe. A similar internship might be the ideal career path for Tebow.

For Tebow to get thrown into a franchise role with an organization that wants him as much for his box-office pull as football ability would be risky. Tebow will spin turn-styles in Jacksonville or Miami, but since when did that plan ever win games? And it’s one thing for an owner to want you, but what of the actual football staff?

“If football is No. 1 [a franchise has] got a chance to be competitive in the NFL,” Elway said, speaking of Denver’s insistent on putting business interests second.

It should serve as an unintended bit of advice for Tim Tebow.

He’s the first to say he needs to work on his game. He’s never had consistent pro coaching and a full NFL offseason to improve. He’s never had a real plan.

And if he ends up in the wrong place, he isn’t going to get one.

On Tuesday, Tebow had to watch one of football’s most surreal moments, a press conference to essentially announce his firing, where he was praised relentlessly by two of the all-time greats.

They hailed him for his intangibles. They noted his ability. They swore by his potential. They couldn’t have been nicer.

And they couldn’t have been showing him the door any faster.

I would have to disagree with these authors. Experience has taught me that every human has stuff they are good at and stuff they are not good at. Does not having a talent for something mean that you can't do it better? No. But does it mean that a person will be at a serious disadvantage when attempting to perform that particular activity/function at a professional level? Yes.

Try as I might, I suck at painting and drawing. I have read that Mozart and Beethoven "thought" musically---I can't write a symphony. I must have thrown a baseball one gajillion times, never could throw a 90-mph fastball, a good curve, and my knuckleball never knuckled.

I kinda like Tebow, and I am sure that having played for the University of Florida, then Denver, he has spent countless hours practicing, under some of the best coaches money can buy. And clearly his technique is not the greatest. That said, I doubt he will ever be able to throw a football like Bret Favre.

Professional quarterback has to be the most difficult position to play in all of sports. I can't imagine breaking a huddle, walking to the line of scrimmage and trying to discern what defense the other team was in, whether the defense was zone, man-to-man, dropping back into pass coverage, showing a blitz, or actually blitzing, whether my number 1 receiver was going to be double-teamed, whether the hot route was viable, etc. I would love to see the size of the machine it would take to be able to do what Manning, Brady, Favre and quarterbacks of that ilk could do.

I remember sitting in an economics class, discussing the theory of a market economy utilizing money to pay for scarce talent. The professor used Joe Montana as an example. He made an interesting point, that Montana was being paid tons of money because he did things nobody else could do. Not everybody could lead the 49ers in a comeback, down by 6 points with a couple minutes to play, and throw a touchdown pass to get the team into the Super Bowl, dodging 250-pound linebackers in the process.

John Elway is an ass, and always has been. He's proved it with the way he's handled Tebow. MOO

You got that right.

Tim Tebow, symbol of an age?
 

Your argument is basically that your own personal experience in athletics, your own anecdotal observations and musings, and "common knowledge" trump (a) the work of cognitive psychologists who have spent years of man hours trying to figure out what expertise is and how it is obtained by studying and interviewing elites in a range of domains, including sports, and (b) the conclusions a professional NFL team and current NFL analysts--including former quarterbacks--about Tebow's ability to develop into an elite quarterback.

In other words, when it comes to someone one likes or admires, research-based peer-reviewed literature about the nature of professional expertise does not matter--especially when that research is based on the observations of and interviews with elite athletes. Likewise, the views of those who played the position or make a living out of coaching in the NFL do not matter. Instead, the factors that really matter are one's own experiences, observations, and "common knowledge."

Well, if this line of reasoning works for you, we will have to agree to disagree. I will continue to subscribe to the controversial view that professionals know something about what they do for a living, that professionals are in the best position to determine the specifications of their craft, and that expert performance is the result of professional training in an environment of "perfect practice".*

Notwithstanding our differing views, my intellectual curiosity prompts the following questions. What are the implications for American society if your line of thought is followed consistently? How do we respond to the logical extension of your line of thought when someone says "No, he cannot meet the professional standards of the job, nor can he do work up to specification, and the professionals think he'll never learn his craft well enough get to where he needs to be, but he's well liked by the people, and 'common knowledge' says that he's a great guy, so should give him a pass."

AFCHIC--

The fact pattern remains the same as I pointed out in post #23, above. Since 2007, experts have raised questions about Tebow's ability to play quarterback in the NFL. Some of these experts include former NFL quarterbacks, the front offices of the twenty four NFL teams who passed on Tebow in the 2010 draft, and, most tellingly, the front office of the team that did draft him--which has seen him practice and play.

That is, while Tebow polarizes football fans, there is less debate over Tebow's ability to develop into a franchise quarterback among the experts. Why? Why is it that teams that take risks by drafting and holding on to players that they think will develop have stayed away from Tebow? Are they all wrong and Tebow's admirers right? Does Tebow get all the credit for his success while not having to be held accountable in any way for his shortcomings because some find his personality likable?

If I sound snarky it is because I'm not bitter. This country is in a period in which popularity increasingly short circuits critical inquiry and debate. Athletes like Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin will generate millions of dollars in revenue because of this dynamic (regardless of their completion percentages or assist to turnover ratios). Madonna will rake in cash by the bushel when she drags her legions of fans into arenas when she goes on tour this summer. It is only a matter of time before we get to rush to yet another film by Michael Bay. And Mark Burnett and Simon Cowell will continue to feed us competitive reality television program as long as we're willing to eat it up. Well, it is a free market and a free country so people can spend their money and their time as they wish. If people want to play Kobe Bryant is the greatest basketball player of all time because he's my favorite player, that's their choice.

Then again, in 2008, a junior senator from Illinois used his popularity to brush aside efforts to vet his qualifications as he ran for the nation's highest elected office. As president, this person has repeatedly pointed to his perception of "common knowledge" and relied on his popularity (such as it is) to put in place controversial policies and to pressure congress into passing legislation of questionable merit. As president, this person is positioning himself for a landslide victory in 2012 because many citizens will continue to support candidates they like at the expense of those who might govern effectively.

My $0.02.

______________________________________________
* Interestingly, the United States Navy--as well as the historians who study it-- have been at the forefront of this line of thought since at least the late 1800s.

We need a horselaugh smiley.

Oh, there's mosdef gonna be a landslide, though.

;)

WOW !!!!!!!!!! :eek:

Only on PS.com can you log into a thread about football ..... and watch a hockey game break out.

:munchin :munchin :munchin

Your basic argument is that with enough practice, this guy could be a Super Bowl winning quarterback....

Didn't say "horse's ass". :D

D'oh! My bad. :D

Pat

Sig I love you but you have totally lost me. You're initial point was that Tebow isn't as selfless as everyone proclaims, because if he was, he would be a better quarterback. Now you are saying maybe he just doesn't have the talent. One has nothing to do with the other.

When i was growing up I wanted to be Mary Decker-Tab more than life itself. When she and Zola Budd got entangled and she left the race during the 84 Olympics I was inconsolable. At that time I was a runner, and a fairly decent one at that, but i was NEVER going to be the next Mary Decker. I was too tall, and had too much muscle from doing anaerobic sprinting. No amount of training was going to make me a world class distance runner, it wasn't in my DNA. I had the heart, but not the capacity.

Maybe no amount if training will ever allow Tebow to throw a perfect spiral consistently, that does not take away from a young man, who by all appearances and hopes of the contrary, make him the human being he is, and that points to being pretty selfless.

Guess we are going to have to agree to disagree my friend.

So far:

-Tebow is obviously a great raw athlete
-Tebow is rumored to exhibit great discipline in training
-Tebow appears to be leader, affecting the performance of those around him

and most importantly...
-Tebow has an established track record of overcoming and succeeding

Not someone I'd bet against over the long haul.
YMMV.