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Imagine being a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You’re paid to be a professional football player and you expect your coaches and front office to do everything in their powers to give you the best chances to be successful.
Then those coaches and that front office go out and sign a guy who hasn’t played in the NFL in nine years and move him to a completely different – and important – position that he has never played before.
Then that player goes out in his first game last Saturday and has one of the most brutal debuts one could have.
If you’re a player on the Jaguars you have to be questioning everything about the organization, which isn’t good this early in the season.
I’m talking about Tim Tebow, of course, who is somehow still on the Jaguars’ roster after a game against the Browns in which he rightfully got roasted for not one, but two really bad blocks and then had the only pass thrown near him taken away by a teammate.
It was bad. It was ugly. And it was embarrassing… for Urban Meyer, who brought Tebow on the team because they once won a national title together at Florida like 90 years ago.
NFL teams have to cut their rosters from 90 players to 85 players by 4 p.m. ET today and if Tebow’s name isn’t on that list for the Jaguars then the locker room could quickly turn into a lost one for a coach who has never been in charge of a NFL team before.
Look, Tebow seems to be a good guy who has done a lot of charitable work, which is great. He had that run with the Broncos (an 8-8 team that won a playoff game at home) 10 years ago, that was wild. He then later went after his dream to play professional baseball, which was admirable.
But it’s time for this goofy comeback to football of his to be over.
This comeback has never made any sense. A 34 year old who hasn’t played in the league in nine years and is making the move from QB to tight end is just silly and not something a franchise that wants to be successful should do. The team should be investing in tight ends that have experience and can help rookie QB Trevor Lawrence be successful. It’s also not an easy position to just pick up on the fly, especially when you’re 34 years old and haven’t played football in so long.
Players in the locker room from the first day of this signing must have been scratching their heads. Then, after watching what Tebow put on film Saturday night and seeing his plays go viral for being so bad, they must be wondering what in the heck is this franchise even doing?
And forget about the narrative of Tebow selling jerseys and tickets to the game. The stadium wasn’t close to being full Saturday for his first game and the amount of jerseys being sold isn’t really going to turn into any real big amount of money for the team. Jersey sales are a meaningless thing to argue about.
Also, forget about the narrative that his heart and passion can’t be measured and that he can lift his teammates to be better by the work he puts in each day in practice. Those things can be measured – he’s a fourth string tight end. This is the NFL, not college football or Pop Warner. Guys are getting paid to do their jobs and aren’t going to be inspired by someone who is really bad at theirs but tries really hard at practice.
Tebow is a nice fella and all but it’s time for this stupid experiment to be over.
Quick hits: Travis Kelce shaved off his beard and looks really different… Awesome MLB inside-the-park homer… Popovich’s great speech after gold medal game… And more.
– Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce shaved off his beard and now looks like a completely different person.
– Tampa’s’ Brett Phillips hit an awesome inside-the-park homer in the Rays’ win over the Orioles last night.
– Gregg Popovich had an awesome finish to his gold medal speech in the USA locker room a few weeks ago in Tokyo. This new video of that speech is so good.
– Adam Scott’s missed 4-foot putt in the Wyndham Championship playoff cost him over $700K on Sunday. Ouch.
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