@Mark Knudson41
Strike One: Our man Timmy is making waves again. This time, he’s doing so while filling a role he’s well suited for; doing something he’s good at.
Tim Tebow made headlines recently by coming out strongly against a proposed California law that would allow college athletes to get paid for the use of their name and likeness. He’s right – the proposed law is a really terrible idea. But he’s against it for the wrong reasons. More on that some other time.
Tebow the broadcaster is pretty talented. As opposed to Tim the NFL quarterback…or worse yet, the professional baseball player.
We know that Tebow’s hit and miss career as an NFL player ended in 2015. Had he been willing to play a position other than quarterback – where he was exceptional in college but well below par in the pros – he may very well still be playing on Sundays. But no, it was QB or nothing for Tebow.
Well, not exactly nothing. He still wanted to be a professional athlete, so Tim shifted to playing minor league baseball. His representatives somehow convinced the New York Mets to offer him a stage on which to “perform.” Over four seasons, the Mets have promoted him from the lowest Class A level all the way to Triple A this past summer based on…his name alone. He’s done nothing to actually deserve promotion. The whole thing is a PR stunt.
This summer, the 31-year-old outfielder stole 264 plate appearances from actual prospects and batted a robust .163. He played in 77 games, which are 77 games that an actual prospect didn’t get to play in. He struck out 98 times in those 77 games before he cut his hand fielding a ball (???) and needed eight stitches. He was shut down for the rest of the season.
Overall, his cumulative batting average over four minor league seasons is .222. That would have gotten any other player released a long time ago.
So the question is, will the Mets and Tebow now finally put and end to this charade? It’s been reported that the Mets want him to come back to spring training next season. Let’s hope not. Instead, let’s hope that his success as a TV broadcaster – and he’s pretty darned good as a college football analyst – gives Tebow reason to reconsider his options and let the whole baseball nonsense die off quietly. I want Tim on my TV telling me about college football. Nowhere else.
Strike Two: Speaking of college football, most of us chuckled when Arizona State announced the hiring of former NFL head coach and long standing TV broadcaster Herm Edwards as their new head coach in December of 2017. Maybe we shouldn’t be chuckling anymore?
The reason for the skepticism was that Edwards hadn’t been on anyone’s sideline in a decade before he bolted ESPN after nine seasons as an NFL analyst. Then, when the hiring was announced, it was said that Edwards would be more of a General Manager/“CEO” of the program and less of the standard model college football head coach. ASU was going to model its football program after an NFL franchise, leaving more coaching responsibility on the coordinators.
Then both the offensive and defensive coordinators quit. It wasn’t looking very good in Tempe.
But when the 2018 season rolled around, the Sun Devils won a few games, including beating two nationally ranked teams in Utah and Michigan State. They actually had a shot to win the Pac 12 South at the end of the season before finishing second. And just as importantly, they rallied in the second half to beat arch rival Arizona 41-40 to close out the regular season. That always helps.
This year, ASU started 3-0 (including another win over Michigan State) behind a true freshman quarterback before CU knocked them off 34-31 last Saturday night. ASU isn’t a real threat to win the Pac 12 South this season, but they sure don’t appear to be the mess that many thought they’d be with Edwards as the “CEO.”
Boosters love him and his big personality, and that’s a large part of the job. It also helps in recruiting, the lifeblood of any program. Edwards brought in another former NFL head coach, Marvin Lewis, to be part of the staff as well. If this “NFL Model” turns out to work in the desert, it’s hard to see other schools not following suit. We can already bet on Urban Meyer bailing on his TV gig to return to coaching next year, but who else might be a candidate to leave the comfort of the studio to head to a college football sideline?
How about Head Coach Tim Tebow?
Strike Three: Okay, so the Broncos 0-3 start has been awful to watch. Is it already ‘season over,’ wait ‘till next year?
Well…ya…but it was going to be that way anyway. Too many holes, too many unknowns going into the season. Regardless of what was coming out of the Dove Valley PR department, this was never going to be a play-off team in 2019.
But they were supposed to be a .500 team, right? Now it’s looking like an unprecedented third straight losing season.
Maybe not. This team could still reach .500 by the end of the year.
They were supposed to lose in Green Bay. They’ve never won there. Ever. But they should have beaten Oakland to start the season, and probably would have if the new coaching staff hadn’t wasted the month of August protecting the regulars from potential pre-season injury. That rustiness was still evident in the game two loss at home to Chicago, a game they could have easily won with a break or two (and some decent officiating.)
So the Broncos are actually one, or maybe two games off an 8-8 pace. They can recover.
Of course they can’t let any more games they should win – like this Sunday’s home game against Jacksonville for example – slip away. They have a few other must wins (Tennessee, Detroit, Oakland, at Buffalo) and a couple more where it will require a genuine upset (steal one against the Chargers or Chiefs) on top of winning a couple of those coin flip sort of contests (Indy, Minnesota, Houston) where they have to find a way. But it’s possible.
Get to 8-8 by season’s end and this will be a successful first year for Vic Fangio. The 60+ year old rookie head coach has already made a basket full of mistakes, but that’s to be expected for a first time head man. He will get better. His staff will get better. The young players will get better. They just need some time together to figure this all out and jell.
So if you’re a “Super Bowl or bust” kind of fan, you were going to be disappointed this season, regardless. But if you’re a realist, you know this season – and the growth that needs to come from it – is far from over.