He’s already done it once.
Fundamentally:
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In the opinion of Denver’s current management, he’s not currently good enough to be the starting quarterback (or, apparently, even the second-string quarterback). Even when he was at Florida, his strengths and limitations were well known: big strong athlete, great runner, but not a natural passer, not a good throwing motion. You can (obviously) get away with all of that as a college quarterback, in the right offense. NFL offenses are considerably different, and (as has been noted) NFL defenses are far more able to take advantage of weaknesses in a quarterback’s game.
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As a first-round pick, he represents a huge sunk cost (and, as others have noted, was likely a tremendous reach in the first round). If the Broncos were able to find another team willing to trade for Tebow, they would likely get little in return, and it’s entirely probable that the other team would demand that the Broncos pay a large chunk of Tebow’s remaining salary. At that point, better to hang onto him, in hopes that maybe another year or two of coaching and refinement might make him into a reasonable NFL quarterback (though, it’s a fair question to ask how much of that he’s going to get as the third-stringer).
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Despite his low standing on the roster, he’s quite probably the most popular player on the Broncos’ current roster among fans, based on things like jersey sales (and, yes, that’s very likely skewed by his strong fan base among conservative Christians). Dumping him at this point might well be a PR headache, at least in the near term.
Why not? I’m not sure how Hamlet could make it any fairer. Top 16 just means he’s above the median; if the argument is “Tim Tebow can be a productive NFL QB,” that seems like a reasonable criterion.
“productive” is not the same as “better than average” Plenty of guys in the 20th best range are perfectly serviceable QBs. Not worth a 1st round pick, or the millions Tebow gets paid, but still productive useful players.
I’ll also suggest that Tebow has skills besides passing that make him a useful player, evaluating him on passing alone eliminates a valuable part of his game.
Is there any objective criteria to determine top 16 quarterbacks? If not production, what would you look to for any objectivity?
Unfortunately, passing is the primary success criterion for an NFL quarterback. While there are certainly some for whom running is / was a big part of their game (e.g., Michael Vick, Vince Young, Steve Young), in the end, if they aren’t an effective passer (or learn how to become one), their career prospects become very limited. Vick was successful in Philadelphia last year because, in addition to still being a dangerous runner, he developed into an accurate, dangerous passer, as well, something which he never really was in Atlanta.
There have been a few examples of college quarterbacks who switched to other positions in the NFL due to this. Anwaan Randle El was mentioned upthread; he’s probably the one who’s had the best NFL career in recent years. Matt Jones was another; he was a quarterback at Arkansas, but switched to wide receiver with the Jaguars (after being drafted in the first round), and had a couple of reasonably good years, before he started having problems with drugs. When Tebow was coming out of school, more than a few people suggested he’d have a stronger NFL future at a position other than quarterback, but he has apparently never seriously considered any other position.
Well, for one last year’s number 17 in QB rating was Eli Manning. I don’t think anyone will be disappointed if Tebow reaches that level. For two, it ignores his running ability. For three, being in the top half of QBs at age 27 is really good and better than expected for a late 1st.
I simply question the idea that he has to be in the top 16 passers in order to be considered a non-bust.
Heck, last year Eli Manning was #17 in QB rating (owing to his horrible interception bug) and his team went 10-6, he threw for 4000 yards, 30 TDs and he lead his team to a SB win in the recent past. Like him or hate him, Eli is no bust, he is 100% a legitimate NFL QB, but he wouldn’t have made your top 16.
True on the face of it, I guess.
His one NFL win was against possibly the worst pass defense in the history of the NFL - the 2010 Houston Texans.
That speaks volumes. He needed a historically bad pass defense to look respectable (not good).
The average QB rating against the 2010 Texans was 100.5, but this includes games like the Tennessee game where Rusty Smith started and had a QBR of 25 (i.e. the actual average against Houston should be 5-6 points higher).
This team was so bad that opposing QBs had QB ratings 10-15 points higher for their Texans games than their season averages. Tebow’s game against the Texans has a rating of 89.3, which means he actually had a below average passing game against the Texans. And it was a game the Texans were leading 17-0 at the half before completely choking in the 2nd half to lose 24-23.
Fine. Top 17 OK? Or do has beens like Matt Hasselbeck, Carson Palmer, Donovan McNabb, or Brett Favre do it for you? Or never was’es like Jason Campbell, Alex Smith, Shaun Hill, or Derek Anderson work for you too? We could use the new ESPN QBR instead too. Or a vote of SDMB football regulars. I just wanted a quick, easy, somewhat objective determination.
Ok… so what? First off, the post was saying that he couldn’t ever beat the worst NFL team throwing. That’s clearly false, as he did so. Even if the Texans were the worst team or choked.
The larger point is that Tebow was far from awful his rookie year. There seems to be a mismatch of standards here. Tebow was a late first rounder as a project QB. The fact that he was below average to bad as a starting QB in 3 games as a rookie isn’t a problem. In fact, not being a disaster makes me think he can be something decent to good down the road.
What mismatch of standards?
David Carr started his rookie season as the #1 pick in the draft. He was awful but not a disaster. He’s only now getting to be a decent backup QB.
Ryan Leaf was another awful rookie QB - maybe the prototypical disaster rookie QB.
Jamarcus Russell was another awful rookie QB. He’s never going to get a shot anywhere after Oakland.
Ditto Matt Leinart. He got replaced by Kurt Warner, who was considered maybe washed up at that point. Leinart is at best a decent backup now but may develop further. He’s been judged by the same standards as Tebow - success on the field.
It’s not just Tebow. All rookie QBs, especially 1st round QBs, who start off below average are blasted.
The reverse question is apt now. Why should Tebow get special treatment? Most rookie QBs who have questionable abilities at the position get the hate. Fans clamor to have them replaced with veterans until they get a couple more years experience. Tebow is not special in this regard. His supporters want him treated better than other below average rookie/backup QBs and even to have a shot at starting. Why?
I was thinking the same thing.
I’m a Huskies fan but I enjoy watching good players on any team and I enjoyed watching Tebow play. But in college, there are actually quite a few very effective quarterbacks at that level, Tebow was not the “best”. As a matter of fact, I’m often impressed by some of the mid-major quarterbacks that may not be as big or as well known but are very accurate, have good speed and are smart/effective players.
Tebow was better, by a significant margin, than all of these players mentioned. Plus, he is supposed to be a project QB and needs some time to adjust to the NFL.
There ya’ go. Look down at the the NFL rosters and see where some of the top players came from and the schools they played for. I tend to think that some of the guys that got overlooked in the big program recruiting developed a little late (which is sometime good), learned to make the most of their abilities, i.e., they played within themselves, didn’t get star-struck and worked their asses off to prove themselves.
17 and 18 year old kids aren’t the same as 22 and 23 year old young men. At those ages a lot happens in between.
The difference between the mid-majors and the major programs a lot of times is the amount of depth on the team. As far as the top starting players are concerned (other than the obvious studs) it’s just about mix and match. Get into second and third deep and you start to see a real difference.
Seriously? With the benefit of hindsight, yes, you can say that, but…
Carr was the #1 pick of the 2002 draft.
Leaf was the #2 pick of the 1998 draft. It’s difficult to believe now, but, going into that draft, there was serious debate over whether Leaf or Peyton Manning would be the better pro quarterback.
Leinart was the #10 pick of the 2006 draft, and had a Heisman and two national championships at USC.
Russell was the #1 pick of the 2007 draft (though, even at that time, it was seen as a reach by the Raiders, who tend to fall in love with players with strong physical skills).
Of the four, Carr, Leaf, and Leinart, at least, were all widely expected to be NFL stars from the start. That has not been the general consensus on Tebow, among scouts and coaches.
Yes, Tebow had a great career at Florida. I suppose you could make a case, based solely on college performance, that he was better than the other four (“by a significant margin” might be a stretch), but only his most rabid fans were expecting that he had that same potential in the NFL.
Whoosh
Whoo… nevermind. If you say good QBs start, and your own home team’s QB didn’t start for three seasons, well, I think you get my point here. Justify it all you want, it was a fantastically poor choice of contrived criticism.
This may be the most crooked bet ever proposed on this forum. I’m supposed to bet on the passing statistics of a running QB, in three years (including the one coming where he’s buried on the depth chart for a team that clearly doesn’t want him), when he’s admittedly a project and as such the time frame would, at best, be his first full season in the league as starter. And not just his passing metrics, but he’d have to be a top 16 QB to boot. What a joke.
The truth is I don’t even like the guy. Even if your proposal had even the slightest hint of equity, I wouldn’t take it, because I don’t believe he’ll ever be a top QB in terms of passing. I think he could learn enough to not be a total liability there (and with his running perhaps be an effective game manager), but he won’t ever get the chance. I just can’t stand when people craft irrational justifications for their biases. The Tebow hate is irrational and insane. He’s not being judged fairly, by anyone (the haters or the fanboys).
Yeah, I got your point. But it’s a piss poor point. I said, and I quote: “Good quarterbacks tend to start, and bad ones don’t.” Now, I’m not sure what your definition of the word “tend to” is, but here in the real world, it means " to have a general disposition (to do something); be inclined". So providing a single, or even multiple, examples of when a now good quarterback didn’t start in the past does nothing to disprove what I said. And using a new QB sitting behind a NFL Hall of Fame quarterback is even less compelling.
Then don’t take the bet. Make a counter if you like. I’d be willing to bet that he’ll never be a successful QB in the NFL. If you find a way to define “successful” that meets your stringent quality tests, just let me know.
Except for you, of course. You judge him fairly, but everyone else is biased. Including his coaches, his GM, the scouts, the teams that passed on him, or any football personnel who offers an opinion on his ability to play in the NFL. Their all biased. Thank god we have you, though.
Kyle Orton throws an interception in the first quarter of a meaningless preseason game, and they rain down the boos on him. Bronco fans never boo their own players. The announcers were shocked.
That’s all well and good, but there is another quarterback in recent memory who had much the same assessment made about him. He’s currently the reigning NFL MVP.
Truthfully, I think Tebow gets a ration of crap because he was taken too high and he’s an evangelical Christian. The first one was not his fault, and the second one is overblown. But when you see discussions on the Internet, someone always brings the Christian thing up, so it’s obviously something that people resent.
He may one day become a good NFL quarterback. There will never be a day that people won’t find a reason to throw hate his way.