Everyone wants an opportunity to share their opinion about Tim Tebow. To say that Tebow is a hot topic would be one of the greatest understatements in sports history. A lot of the debates are centered around religion, but plenty of others have tried to figure out why Tebow continues to win despite his poor performance throwing the ball. Add Joe Theismann to the list of retired NFL quarterbacks who are willing to share their opinion about professional sports’ most discussed topic.
“I think what we all ought to do is enjoy the circus while it’s in town,” Theismann told the Associated Press via ABC News. “You’ve got Aaron Rodgers, you’ve got Drew Brees, you’ve got Tom Brady that set a standard of excellence in football that we haven’t seen. What makes 2011 so unique is we have seen quarterback play in this league at such a high extreme and in Tim’s case, the bottom rung when it comes to completions.
“That defense is as good as any in football right now. The offense doesn’t turn the ball over. There’s been one interception in seven games. I say this tongue-in-cheek: The way Tim throws the ball sometimes, nobody has a shot at getting it, his guy, the defenders. It’s either bounce it in the ground or throw it in the third row.”
It would appear that Mr. Theismann and the statistics geeks over at Harvard share a similar opinion. The thing people tend to forget about Tebow is how young he is. Between his success as a Bronco and his celebrity status at the University of Florida, it feels like he has been around for 10 years. This being only his second season in the NFL, Tebow has time to work on improving his passing.
We know Tebow carries a winning mentality with him into every game and has no problem taking the ball in the clutch, so the mechanical issues can be worked out over the next few seasons. Perhaps Tebow will never become an efficient passer in the NFL and opposing teams will figure out how to exploit his weaknesses, but writing him off at age 24 seems a bit premature.
H/T to Fark.com for passing the story along.
