Many adjectives have been used to describe the Philadelphia Eagles’ signing of Tim Tebow, but one seems to have slipped through the cracks: clever.
Clever? What madness is this?
People analyzing Tebow’s worth as a football player tend to make two faulty assumptions. First, they assume Tebow is a quarterback. Secondly, they assume all a quarterback does is throw footballs either accurately or inaccurately on Sunday.
Bleacher Report NFL Analyst Sean Tomlinson produced a very smart breakdown in which he explains why Tebow is a poor fit in Kelly’s offense.
...when the thought of Tebow sharing a field with Kelly in any capacity—even as the most magnetizing fifth-string player in the history of organized sports—sinks a little deeper, you reach a state of bewilderment.
From there, Tomlinson dives into such a thorough deconstruction of Tebow’s deficiencies that one can’t help but wonder why the Eagles would bother signing him at all.
Why indeed?
Redefining Tebow, and redefining all that a quarterback does
It’s important to remember, as a footnote to this entire conversation, that Tebow currently resides below Sam Bradford, Mark Sanchez and Matt Barkley on the Eagles quarterback depth chart. From a financial standpoint, his contract has zero guarantees, so the team can cut him at any time without penalty.
Now let’s take a closer look at Tebow and what he’ll actually be doing during the offseason.
Forget, for a moment, all that Tebow can’t do on the football field. What else is he?
By all accounts, he’s hyper-competitive and a tireless worker. As a person, he puts nearly everyone else on the planet to shame.
In other words, Tebow’s exactly the sort of individual you’d want around your company, regardless of industry. At a minimum, he’s going to have a net positive influence on the Eagles locker room during training camp.
Beyond that, Tebow has also won a Heisman Trophy and a national championship at Florida running the read-option, a play Kelly utilizes in his offense. There may not be much Tebow can teach Bradford and Sanchez, but better odds than a coin toss says they’ll both end up learning a thing or two about that play.
The other thing that Tebow is is a circus.
Chris Korman of USA Today’s For The Win called Tebow a “decoy” for Kelly and the Eagles.
This is already happening, of course, because Tebow’s gravitational pull is inescapable for those holding cameras or notebooks. He is the most overly documented human being of our time, which has been notable mostly for how overly documented it has been.
Tebow has never fully embraced a position change, has never made it clear he’s as comfortable taking on lead blocks as he is trying to fix his hopeless throwing motion. But when it comes to taking on the media hoard he has always been a hero.
Philadelphia has a lot of new faces in place this season, faces that are replacing fan favorites and are under a lot of pressure. Any attention drawn away from them is going to make their transition much, much easier.
And that’s only the start.
Do you know who else is going to be just as confounded as Sean Tomlinson by Tebow’s presence on the Eagles sideline? Opposing coaches.
Tebow’s struggles in professional football have been so profound, opposing coaches are going to be convinced Kelly is about to do something incredibly foolish during the game. They’ll be forced to game-plan for Tebow—and if they aren’t prepared, Kelly may just be able to pull off something spectacular.
The worst-case scenario to which all detractors point
The problem with Tebow, as people continually point out, is that he just isn’t talented enough to play at the NFL level. So what happens if Tebow not only makes the team, but also is forced into extended action through calamity? Surely the Eagles are sunk.
Circumstantially, it is a sine qua non that any team down to their third quarterback is going to be in deep trouble. At that point, not only are expectations scaled back, but oftentimes playbooks are scaled back, too.
And that may just be where Tebow wins through.
For his career, Tebow has posted a 9-7 record as a starter, a mark that includes a playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2011. There are starting quarterbacks in the NFL who are jealous of that record.
In Denver, Tebow embodied the game-manager principle of giving his teammates an opportunity to win the game. His passing numbers left a lot to be desired during that 2011 season, but Tebow finished the season with an interception percentage of 2.2, good enough for ninth in the league, according to Pro Football Reference.
It may not have been pretty and the offense may have been hamstrung by Tebow’s limitations, but he got the job done, especially during crunch time. Per Bleacher Report’s Bryn Swartz:
In 14 career starts, he's led seven game-winning drives in the fourth quarter. Throw in the playoffs and it's eight of 16. That's an insane rate. He also had the NFL's best QBR in the final five minutes of fourth quarters in 2011.
If the Eagles do face a situation where Tebow has to play the role of savior, his limited ability to throw the football won't matter nearly as much as his ability to win close games.
Can the Eagles actually win with Tebow?
It’s an almost impossible declaration to make. We know Tebow can win games in the NFL because he’s done it before with the right help. But is the right help in place in Philadelphia? Is that even the point of the entire exercise?
Kelly’s offseason has left us all feeling like Parisians during Picasso’s first foray into Cubism in the 1907.
We’re unsure if he’s created a giant mess, or if he’s created something extraordinarily clever.
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