Any top college offense is going to produce a bunch of NFL players. I don’t know where your figure of 9 skill players comes from, though. There are 8, counting guys who were drafted but are already gone.
There was Percy Harvin, Aaron Hernandez, and Louis Murphy. Riley Cooper is on the Eagles’ roster but I’m not sure if he’s actually seen the field on offense. Cornelius Ingram was drafted by the Eagles in 2009 and is already out of the league. Tebow played with Andre Caldwell for one year. Dallas Baker is out of the NFL. DeShawn Wynn is the Saints’ sixth-string tailback.
There were also the Pounceys, who are obviously pretty good, but not skill players.
Nine was a number I just made up, but you didn’t mention David Nelson or Brandon James, and if I really wanted to quibble about it Kestahn Moore may have technically qualified at some point. Not that I really do.
I’m just saying, it’s a little easier to win a bunch of awards as a quarterback by running a spread surrounded by better players than everyone else and rushing for 17 touchdowns of 5 yards or fewer (which he did in 2007, and 10 of them were 1 or 2 yards) than it is to win it by throwing the ball a million times, and I think it’s fair to say that somebody else could be a better quarterback than Tebow despite him winning the awards. Darren McFadden probably could have had a Heisman year as Florida’s quarterback that year, but I’m not sure that would make him the best quarterback in college football. Run the ball a million times and lose 4 games; it wasn’t really transcendent. I think there’s a difference between accomplishment and ability.
Not that he doesn’t deserve credit for what he accomplished - which was a freaking lot - but I don’t get why he should be above reproach. Colt Brennan loses points for the circumstances around his success, so why can’t Tebow?
So being a dropback passer is harder than being your team’s leading passer AND their top rusher?
:dubious:
Would adding spot duty at linebacker made his job easier yet?
BTW: DeMarco Murray, Ryan Broyles, Jermaine Gresham, Trent Williams, Phil Loadholt and others may have opinions on the talent level Sam Bradford played with…
Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t form my own view of the case. And even so, the guy’s a jackass. At least two of my relatives have had run-ins with him.
You’re free to disagree, as always. My point is, though, that people don’t seem to care if someone’s an asshole, as long as they’re a good athlete.
Those that believe he’s a rapist hate him, those that don’t believe it don’t. I think you will have a hard time finding someone who says “yeah he totally raped those girls but he’s a good quarterback so who gives a shit”. Or at least something like Vick who did something truly horrible but paid for his crime, lost hundreds of millions and has denounced what he did. You can hate him because he did something truly horrible or you can feel like hes been punished enough and root for him, but finding someone who just doesn’t give shit that he murdered dogs for fun is not common. Tebow did a superbowl ad campaign for a hate group, there is no question about what he did like in Rothlesbergers case and there has been no repercussions for it like in Vicks case so i don’t see the comparison.
I do not share his religious views, or really care about anything Bronco-related, but by all accounts he is a young man of impeccible chartacter. Good looking, hard-working, polite, compassionate, team-oriented and unselfish.
YOU, on the other hand, are coming off very badly here.
So his views are different from yours. I have never seen or heard of him coming off as obnoxious or combative regarding his beliefs.
So in that respect: Tebow 1, spazurek 0.
As for his being a QB, give him the ball and see if sinks or swims. Because I, too, am tired of the debate that can only be concluded on the field.
I’m still waiting to hear how doing a superbowl ad campaign for a hate group equals impeccable character. It’s not a difference of opinion, it’s not his different religious views, it is not something you can simply gloss over as another view. If he had done a kkk ad supporting same race marriage we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all, what he did is no different.
Endless repetition is not persuasive. Other people think differently than you regarding whether an anti-abortion commercial is analogous to the Klan. Get over it.
Maybe we should ask Tim Tebow which of those two things is “harder” to do, not that one being harder than the other has anything to do with what I said, which was that Tebow was in a great situation – offense and skill players – for him to win a Heisman without necessarily being the best quarterback in the country. You’ve really got me on the playing-linebacker-also angle, though. Running and passing makes you twice as valuable, just like playing offense and defense would.
I also didn’t say that Sam Bradford had a shitty offensive line. I said the ability to run that offense with that stable of skill players gave Tebow a leg up when it came to putting up a Heisman campaign, since it was basically custom-designed to minimize conventional passing, which he isn’t good at, and allowed him and only him to run the ball for a million short touchdowns, which he is. I wouldn’t say that Graham Harrell was obviously the best quarterback if a bunch of people had decided 5700 yards deserves a Heisman, and the same thing applies to Tebow.
This was all in response to the argument that, on the grounds that he won all the awards, nobody with a brain could possibly say that Tebow wasn’t the best quarterback in the country.
Hmm… and Bradford was in an offense designed to play to his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. What an odd coincidence.
Given that he won pretty much every individual award he was eligible for in 2007, yeah, I think there’s a pretty heavy burden of proof on anyone who would argue otherwise. If you’re going to say the voters for the Heisman, Maxwell, AP, etc. are all wrong, you’re going to need a lot more than pretending 895 rushing yards came from just a few goal line dives.
It’s not a hate group. The Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t even refer to it as such. You are free of course to hold your own opinion on the matter (as you do), but just because you say it doesn’t make it so.
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Given that he won pretty much every individual award he was eligible for in 2007, yeah, I think there’s a pretty heavy burden of proof on anyone who would argue otherwise. If you’re going to say the voters for the Heisman, Maxwell, AP, etc. are all wrong, you’re going to need a lot more than pretending 895 rushing yards came from just a few goal line dives.
[/QUOTE]
Who said anybody was wrong? I mean, I’m not going to try to change your mind, but this just seems like an increasingly weird thing to be arguing about given that the position I took wasn’t even critical of Tebow, and was really pretty mundane and limited to the idea that college players can win awards and not actually be better than players who didn’t win awards. It doesn’t mean they weren’t the “most outstanding player,” it just means that’s how awards go. Accomplishments and ability are different.
If you would like the position that awards voters never give out awards for anything other than pure ability, you’re definitely welcome to that. There’s still 2008, so it’s still not “ridiculous” to say Bradford was the better quarterback of the class.
“Custom designed to minimize conventional passing” makes it sound like he was running a single wing or something. Tebow averaged more than 300 attempts per season for 9.4 yards per attempt.
OK. I’m sorry I made it sound that way. He didn’t run the single wing; he ran a spread that was pretty evenly split between running and passing, all things considered, and he was super effective at both. He was the most important part of an almost unstoppable offense and deserved every award he got. Probably no other player except maybe his backup would have done what he did that year.
I don’t dispute any of that. I just think it’s possible for all those things to be true (Cam Newton) and another player to still be an objectively better player (Andrew Luck).
How is luck an “objectively better player”? He’s obviously a better pro prospect, but his passing statistics are about the same as Tebow’s and his rushing statistics aren’t in the same league.
Last year (Luck’s best so far, though he looks to be slightly improved this year), Luck completed 71% of his passes for 3338 yards, 32 TDs and 8 picks (170.2 passer rating). In 2007, Tebow completed 69% of his passes for 3286 yards, 32 TDs and 6 picks (172.5 passer rating). Luck ran for 450 yards and 3 TDs. Tebow ran for 895 yards and 23 TDs.
Oops. I just realized you meant Luck is objectively better than Newton. Fair enough.
*My last contribution for the people who don’t think Tebow is a candidate for “best college player of the last 50 years”: *
That 172 passer rating was 2nd among all D1 quarterbacks in 2007. Tebow’s 23 rushing touchdowns were 3rd among all D1 players- only Kevin Fucking Smith and Ray Rice had more- and an all-time NCAA single season record for quarterbacks. Tebow’s career passer efficiency rating is a 170.8, or or a little under 5 points behind the all-time career record (held by Sam Bradford), good enough for 2nd all time. His 57 career rushing touchdowns are 2 short of the all-time record for quarterbacks (and he played in 6 fewer games than Colin Kaepernick, who holds the record), and 10th among all players. His 1.5% interceptions per attempt number is the lowest of all time. His pass TD/attempt ratio (8.9%) is the ninth highest of all time. His 38 career games scoring a touchdown are the most of all time. His 12,232 combined rushing and passing yards are 17th all time. His 9.3 career yards per attempt are third all time.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Tebow fans annoy the shit out of me, I hate the Gators, and I don’t really give a crap about Tim Tebow either way. He might be a complete flop in the NFL- although I think he’ll probably be an okay QB. However, nobody who looks at the numbers can deny that he’s the best college player of his generation, and probably beyond.
Yeah, he was a fantastic college player. He was arguably the best QB of his generation. If you think it’s ridiculous to argue that the highest passer rating QB of all time might have had a slightly better career, have fun with that.
I’m not trying to be mean, but I honestly do not know all that much about Focus on the Family… how does their stand on the issues differ from what we’re hearing from the current slate of Republican presidential candidates? I read the Wikipedia article and it doesn’t sound too far off to me.
I gotta say I’m shocked that Tebow is getting off so easily for public moralizing and advertising repulsive ideas. “Impeccable character” my ass – anyone who tells me I’m a bad person for my beliefs is a jerk.