What's the Deal with the Jets and Tebow?

I'm a Jets fan, and I have been one for almost 25 years now. I'm also a Tim Tebow fan, since his days playing for the Gators in my native Florida. He seems like a really quality guy, in pretty much every respect.

The only knock on Tebow is that he can't throw accurately. Maybe that will continue to be valid, or maybe not. In the meantime the Jets have Mark Sanchez, the worst QB in the league stinking up the place every week, and Rex Ryan continues to stand by his man.

I'm confused. They say Tebow can't throw well. He's a QB with 16 starts who completes 48% of his passes, but Ryan says Sanchez has "all the tools" to be a great NFL QB. Meanwhile Sanchez completes about... 48% of his passes.

Sanchez's defenders say he's "competent," while Tebow has shown he can be electric, and that he has the ability to transcend the game and take a team on his shoulders.

Tebow has shown the ability to play poorly, for sure. But watching Mark Sanchez play football is like watching someone fight Alzheimer's. It tears your heart out.

While Tebow sits the bench, Mark Sanchez has 26 turnovers in his last 12 games, and all Rex Ryan can says is Sanchez is the man "because I said so." God, why did you make me a Jet fan?

I think it is simply a Rubicon the Jets don’t want to cross.

Once they do cross that river, Sanchez is ruined goods.

He will become one of those wraith-like quarterbacks that inhabit the seamy underworld of the NFL, drifting from team to team for years as a backup with the occasional burst of expectation when they are brought into a game for an injured or ineffective starting quarterback.

I just don’t think the Jets want to do that yet. They still have hope they won’t have to start the search for a franchise quarterback all over again.

When Tebow came into the league, the “knock” on him wasn’t that he couldn’t throw accurately, but that his windup was too long and the ball would be stripped by defenses. Tebow threw for 70 percent in college, and nothing was wrong with his accuracy.

Yet bias against him has taken hold, and knuckle-head coaches like John Fox and Rex Ryan have treated him like he’s retarded. Tebow’s deep passes are better than most. Receivers seem to have trouble catching the left-handed spin, but that can be cured with practice. He’s had very little chance to work with the 1st team. All he needs is a chance to get on the field for awhile.

I was an avid Broncos fan for 35 years, and now I detest them. Some things are unforgivable, and running Tebow out of town is one of them.

I’m a Jets fan in waiting, but I’m afraid Sprano and Ryan are too dense to use him properly. If they saw the first iPhone they would have tried to use it as a hammer.

Please, Friends, retire the idea that Tim Tebow should have switched to fullback. The only people who think that are the ones who never saw him run without the threat of pass. He is a massive target who (without threat of pass) has trouble getting to the line of scrimmage.

Could he play tight end? Probably, if he pursued it with determination. But why should he. He scored 32 touchdowns in 16 NFL starts. You can count on your fingers the guys who’ve done that. (Not Brady; not Manning; all of them high draft picks, carefully groomed, and allowed to throw INT after INT.) Threw for 19 TDs with just 9 picks. (Two of those picks were Hail Marys at the end of the game.) Over 5.5 percent of Tebow’s throws went for TDs, an outstanding ratio. Why not even higher? Because he was (with threat of pass) such a deadly runner in the red zone.

Tebow’s QB play didn’t win any beauty contests, but his play was extremely efficient. Protected the ball. Put to rest the nonsense that the Broncos had a strong defense and carried Tebow. Have you heard of Vonn Miller? Broncos drafted him with the second pick because they were SECOND WORST team at the end of 2010. (Why not WORST? Because Tebow started for “interim” head coach Studesville on the last game of the 2010 season and beat the Texans, 16 of 29 for 308 yards and a TD, plus a TD on the ground.) They were on their way to worst in 2011 when Tebow came in at half-time of Game 5 and helped the team turn itself around. His receivers Decker and Thomas (also in their second season and returning from injury) dropped 17 and 14 percent of their catchable passes. Bronco defense gave up THIRTY-FIVE points in first half of playoff loss to Patriots. THIRTY-FIVE. They couldn’t stop Gronk AND Aaron Hernandez. Tebow played with cracked ribs. Never given another chance to show what he could do (except playing quite well for the Patriots and Eagles in preseason). John Fox without Tebow or Manning is a dumpster fire. See Chicago.

People at Freep have strong minds and should resist the media narrative that this Christian never could play. If you didn’t see him play, try watching NFL Rewind. As a former, avid, 35-year Bronco fan it broke my heart that Elway ran Tebow out of town. I watched Elway’s rookie year, and Tim’s first starts were manifestly better. The NFL strangled its own Babe Ruth in the crib.

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