I give 7-5 odds that he will be elected to Congress some day.

But he puts up decent fantasy numbers!  (jk)

I always mention Hakeem Olajawon in conversations like these. The guy out-religious-es Tebow: He followed Ramadan during the season.  He’s now living in Jordan studying the Koran full time. 

Problem is, he was actually very, very good at his position.  So the comparison isn’t exactly apt.

*points at field* “How many of the people out there are Christians?  And how many have I been complaining about?”

@Jayn Newell, #4:

There are SO MANY professional athletes who, given half a chance on camera, will thank their personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ - including, probably, those two dudes who mocked Tebow on field. Tebow’s religion isn’t the problem at all, it’s his blatant flouting of Matthew 6:5:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

And to pile on ... which player with a recognized celebration has never had that celebration mocked when an opponent bested him?

Even the best players have their detractors and the crappiest their fans.  Why does disliking one player make me suddenly bigoted?

Actually, I’d never have heard of this guy if he weren’t being placed front and center as a christian.  That in itself is annoying, especially in a country where the majority is christian!

I love Twisty’s take on him “Here’s an excerpt from the Super Bowl commercial story that’s creepy in ways I just can’t put my finger on.

“Tebow, one of the most esteemed college football players ever, has been very vocal about his Christian faith and his love for Jesus Christ.”

A college football player loves the ghost of a dead Nazarene on a stick, so he’s qualified to compel pregnancy? That doesn’t even make sense in a world gone mad!”

I never understood why the Christian god gave a flying wallenda about the result of a sporting competition.

“Imagine for a second, the Denver Broncos quarterback is a devout follower of Islam, sincere and principled in his beliefs and thus bowed toward Mecca to celebrate touchdowns.” OK, I’m imagining wingnuts throwing a hissy fit until the team agrees to fire him, because Freedumb. What was this supposed to prove, exactly?

Hobbes, thanks for the Matthew 6:5 reference; you saved me from having to do it myself.

One of the offensive things about Tebow is that, to a lot of fairly devout Christians, he’s actually behaving rather blasphemously.  His public performance of his religiosity is offensive even to many of his co-religionists.  Praying about touchdowns and field goals?  Really, Tim?

Also, he’s a shitty quarterback.  Hating on shitty quarterbacks is an integral part of the Cult of the NFL.

I always find this funny.  The vast majority of African-Americans on the field are hardcore Christians.  They go to church, were raised in southern or western states, and are the traditional bible-thumping denominations.  If they can stop themselves from genuflecting after EVERY play then I think Tebow can hold in his religious fervor.  Hell there have been plenty of men who carried god and Christianity onto the field but you would never know it in such a way that Tebow does it.

The Late Rev. Reggie White who had disturbing ideas on Christianity kept it in check on the field and only after retirement did some of the more strange things come out.  Tebow though has made it clear he wants to be a lightning rod for trouble and play the martyr.  Too bad he’s going to be swept aside in about a year or two.  Everybody gave him a pass this year because of the bronco’s crap schedule but if they win the AFC west they’re going to be facing a real schedule that will leave them 3-13 or 4-12 and Tebow will be benched for forced into a TE spot.

Kurt Warner was annoying too.
But I think he had good stats.

Tebow is good and is a good story.

Indeed, i would urge my fellow nonbelievers NOT to hate this guy because of the evangelicalism; that sort of proves the conservative Christians’ point.

He plays a different game from most NFL quarterbacks and the team is winning. That’s enough for me.

Wow, I knew what this post would be about before I even saw the photo.

To contribute: I’ve watched some Tebow games. He pulls victory out of his ass in the final 2 minutes against the bottom of the NFL barrel. When the Broncos played an actual playoff-caliber team (Lions), they got their asses handed to them.  The teams they’ve beaten by the skin of their teeth could have been blown out by huge margins with a competent quarterback. (And some of them have.)

Anyway, Tebowing is boring, the cool kids should be Gronkowski-ing.
http://instntrply.com/2011/11/21/rob-gronkowski-lands-on-his-neck/

He plays a different game from most NFL quarterbacks and the team is winning.

“Seek to throw the ball where a WR is, and he may catch it or he may not.  Seek to throw the ball where a WR isn’t, and he shall forever strive towards perfection.”

/bows head
/sprinkles incense
/meditates

If Tebow were a Muslim, his recruiting experience is different, he is never lauded as a great leader of men, he doesn’t ever get to give inspirational speeches to his teammates, he gets drafted no earlier than the 5th round by the Seahawks, likely gets cut in training camp only to find his way onto a roster where he plays in blowouts and twice a year gets to line up in the Wildcat.

If he were Muslim and everything played out exactly the same up to the point he joins the Broncos (a major assumption), there’s no clamor for him to take over quarterbacking and Kyle Orton is still the starter.

Elway is a smart dude.  They put Tebow in so he could fail dramatically and people would stop demanding that he get a chance to play.  It’s backfired so far, but just wait.  He hasn’t even played half a season.  In less than two years this entire episode will be completely forgotten.

I’m not of the opinion that passing rating is all that great a measure of a quarterback.

Regardless, I’m not too impressed with Tebow.

Imagine for a second, the Denver Broncos quarterback is a devout follower of Islam, sincere and principled in his beliefs and thus bowed toward Mecca to celebrate touchdowns.

Yeah, hold on for a minute; let me imagine that. Because, you see, I DO have to imagine that. Because there aren’t any real-world examples of Muslim athletes in the U.S. who stick their religions in your faces every fking chance they get like it’s a big fat penis that’s longer than yours. No Jewish athletes either. Or Catholics.

Just evangelicals. Only them.

As a Georgia Bulldog and a despiser of sanctimonious bullshit, I knew this article would warm my heart.  Nice passage Hobbes, that’s the one that always comes to mind.  And @15, Stafford on the Lions beating the Broncos could almost make me want to watch professional football again.

@Comment #20: RickMassimo

Because there aren’t any real-world examples of Muslim athletes in the U.S. who stick their religions in your faces every fking chance they get like it’s a big fat penis that’s longer than yours. No Jewish athletes either. Or Catholics.

Let’s not get carried away.  Watch any baseball game and you’ll notice a large number of people from predominantly Catholic countries making very overt displays of their religion.  I was trying to do a google search for Muslim soccer players or maybe Crickiters because I’m willing to bet they do a great deal of showing off as well.

While some religions certainly promote overt displays more than others, the important dynamic here is the athlete posturing.  The religion is simply a means of bringing attention to themselves, despite their claims of humility and “giving all the glory to god,” whatever the hell that means.

The lack of show-off Muslims in American professional sports probably says more about attitudes towards Islam.

You know who else didn’t like sanctimonious pricks?  Jesus

I actually agree with (most) of the quoted passage from Jen Floyd Engel: there would be a big stink about it if a Muslim player were as outwardly Muslim as Tim Tebow is outwardly Christian.  But this does not prove the point that Jen Floyd Engel claims it proves at the end of the quoted passage—quite the opposite. 

That there isn’t such a big debate about criticisms of Tebow’s public displays of Christianity while hypothetical displays of Islam would spark such a debate isn’t evidence that society tolerates “anti-Christian” sentiment more than it would tolerate similar anti-Muslim sentiment.  It is evidence that public displays of Christianity do not inherently generate as much controversy as would public displays of Islamic faith.  You can’t have “all hell breaking loose” with sports columnists, etc., condemning the mocking of a particular religious display unless you have a certain critical mass of mocking of said display.  Barring a few examples of mocking of Tebow’s public displays of Christianity (which, as has already been pointed out are, at some level, un-Christian), Tebow’s religiosity is largely in our public discourse presented as a “good thing” ...

@RickMassimo, you made me remember, there was a case in the 90s in Denver of the Nuggets point guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refusing to stand for the national anthem for religious reasons.  In the end he decided to stand, but with his hands together and head bowed in prayer.  He was roundly denounced for it.  Really, Tebow’s getting off easy.

@Comment #20: RickMassimo,

FWIW, I am sure from the point of view of those who feel that this is a Christian country, Sandy Koufax’s refusal to pitch on Yom Kippur was “sticking his religion in people’s faces”.

related
http://angrybychoice.fieldofscience.com/2011/12/misplaced-gratitude-god-1-teammates-0.html

P.S.: Imagine for a second there was a presidential candidate who was a Mormon. And imagine he had a decent-considering-he’s-a-Republican record in elected office, boatloads of name recognition, a ton of money and polled very well against the Democratic incumbent.

But imagine that he never took a serious lead in polling among Republican voters. (The fact that he’s an Upper Class Twit of the Year finalist and, being a Republican, has been wrong about every major issue of the past 30 years, doesn’t apply here, because these are Republican voters.)

Every month or so, some other Republican candidate came along who was either a complete moron or basically an infomercial pitchman or running for president as some kind of experimental outpatient therapy, and each one of them streaked past this Mormon candidate for the lead in the polls.

And imagine that a month before the Iowa caucus, ABC News released a poll that said that among likely caucus-goers, 15 PERCENT said the fact that this candidate was a Mormon was a MAJOR reason to oppose him.

(http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/iowan-conservatives-rally-to-gingrich-citing-experience-core-gop-values/)

And it wasn’t the first poll that indicated this.

There would be wailing and moaning all over the country at this religious bigotry in the heartland. Constant reminders of the dangers of intolerance. And of course the Jen Floyd Engels of the world would be the first to criticize all of this, pointing out that Mormons are Christians and evidently (snif snif) Christians are the last people in the country it’s acceptable to discriminate against.

Or maybe not.

Hell there have been plenty of men who carried god and Christianity onto the field but you would never know it in such a way that Tebow does it.

Steve Largent of the 1980’s-era Seattle Seahawks was one of the greatest (and under-recognized) wide receivers in the NFL.  He’s also a very right-wing Christian, and became a Republican Congressman from Oklahoma after he retired from football.  In all of his years in the NFL, the only way you could suspect he was a Christian was from the way he PLAYED - no in-your-face celebrations after catching a spectacular pass, no end-zone victory dances… he just got on with his job.  From all reports, he’s a good example of a non-Tebow Christian athlete.  Too bad about his politics….

My point is that Tebow’s football performance is what he gets paid to do…. and he’s doing that badly.  He is simply trying to hide behind his faith.

I’ve been thinking about the commercial Tebow and his mom did a couple years back and why I found it, as others have said, “creepy.”  I had a relative, very devout, who was told if she had anymore children, that she would die.  She prayed and trusted in God and did in fact, die giving birth.  So for Tim Tebow’s mom to come along and say, “The Lord protected me and my pregnancy,” I have to ask myself, “So my relative didn’t deserve God’s protection?  God loved tim Tebow’s mom but not her?” 

Tebow’s mom got lucky.  My relative did not.  It’s as simple as that.  To suggest that somehow Mrs. Tebow was favored by God comes off as arrogant.

Dear Reconstructionists:  You don’t get to clutter up the landscape with one eyesore megachurch & ugly Xtain pubic art piece after another and then turn around & claim you’re a persecuted minority.  Shit or get off the pot.

He plays a different game from most NFL quarterbacks and the team is winning. That’s enough for me.

What game is he playing out there?  It sure doesn’t look like football….His whole style is about being a showboating douche.  Running QBs are successful in college because defenses are much slower and tend to be under 250 lbs.  So a big freakishly tough QB like Vick, Young, and now Tebow all do well out of the box.  The problem is as time where on their bodies breakdown and they need to learn to throw.  Vick is a semi-decent passer but by no means great and his body is now injury prone (let alone his moral compass), Young just never really got it, and Tebow is proving if he was in the ACC or PAC-10/12/(X-Y)^2 he probably wouldn’t have done as well.  Instead he was in the SEC which is a tougher place to play but their more of a run-first conference and his Florida was in the weak-side of the conference to boot.

That being said…Tebow is going to fail.  I personally thought he could come out of Florida and not be awful but his stats tell everything.  When the game comes down to him he will be crushed.  Right now at least 3 or 4 teams all heading to the playoffs could unravel Tebow in moments.  Like I said, he’ll end up as a TE or WR, maybe even a blocking half or tailback.  But he is ultimately going to lose and it is going to become a huge cause de’celebre for the conservative christian crowd to protest the NFL for not changing the rules for him.

Look, anybody who’s going to stand up in public in the United States of America in 2011 and claim that Christians are somehow persecuted is just delusional. Period.

@Comment #32: Xeranar

That being said…Tebow is going to fail.

Is there a single thing on the football field Tebow does better than Vick?  Tebow is just Vick, except significantly worse at every aspect of the game.  Vick cannot consistently win in the NFL, why does anyone think Tebow can?

The only thing Tebow has done better than Vick so far is avoid turnovers, but that’s because Tebow hasn’t been asked to win any games.  Sure, they need him on final drives, but his INT numbers will start climbing the moment the Broncos are forced to convert 3rd downs instead of being content to just punt and play defense.

Step one of this unraveling will be the Patriots game.

All this talk has me thinking about ALL-PRO by Scott Sigler.  http://scottsigler.com/blog

There’s a sanctimonious ass on his team, too.

Gusrex #33, I have this theory that because Christianity is the dominant religion in this country, it’s safer to mock it because Christians are not an oppressed or otherwise underdog-ish minority. That’s the trade-off that comes with power: you get made fun of. Like Molly Ivins says: “Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it’s vulgar.”

But people like Engel only seem to be attuned to the volume of mocking, and not to the fact that they’re mocked specifically because they have the power.

The whole thing makes me think of how the Dolphins won the AFC East in 2008 with their fun new offense called the “Wildcat,” which was totally going to lead to a sea change in that division and put them in the playoff hunt for years to come. Except that only happened on Earth 2.

What game is he playing out there?  It sure doesn’t look like football….His whole style is about being a showboating douche.  Running QBs are successful in college because defenses are much slower and tend to be under 250 lbs.  So a big freakishly tough QB like Vick, Young, and now Tebow all do well out of the box.  The problem is as time where on their bodies breakdown and they need to learn to throw.  Vick is a semi-decent passer but by no means great and his body is now injury prone (let alone his moral compass), Young just never really got it, and Tebow is proving if he was in the ACC or PAC-10/12/(X-Y)^2 he probably wouldn’t have done as well.  Instead he was in the SEC which is a tougher place to play but their more of a run-first conference and his Florida was in the weak-side of the conference to boot.

That being said…Tebow is going to fail.  I personally thought he could come out of Florida and not be awful but his stats tell everything.  When the game comes down to him he will be crushed.  Right now at least 3 or 4 teams all heading to the playoffs could unravel Tebow in moments.  Like I said, he’ll end up as a TE or WR, maybe even a blocking half or tailback.  But he is ultimately going to lose and it is going to become a huge cause de’celebre for the conservative christian crowd to protest the NFL for not changing the rules for him.

This is really bad.

MAYBE Tebow will fail. But so far, he’s succeeding. And I tend to think that a lot of the reaction of this thread (“he can’t succeed! there’s no way this stuff can work!”) is a mixture of prejudice towards the traditional NFL quarterback style and prejudice against Tebow’s religious beliefs, neither of which are a valid reason to conclude that he’s going to fail.

The fact of the matter is, a lot of people in this thread—and around the country—are going to look very dumb if he keeps this up. And since nowhere is it carved in stone that the only way to play quarterback in the NFL is the way Aaron Rodgers plays the position, I’m definitely not counting Tebow out. Indeed, even though I’m secular and agnostic, I’m rooting for the guy just because a lot of his critics are acting like douchebags.

Remember the ‘90s when there were all those totally obnoxious TD dances?  They became so annoying, long and disruptive that he NFL outlawed them with the “excessive celebration” offense.  I’m hoping they develop a similar policy for physical acts of religion on the field. 

Tebow needs to spend more time with his mind on the game than his knee on the turf.

Kurt Warner was annoying too.
But I think he had good stats.

Warner is an insufferably sanctimonious douchebag about his Christianity, but he did have one of the best three year runs for any QB in NFL history from 1999-2001 with the St. Louis Rams. Doesn’t excuse his annoying Jeebus obsession, but at least he was fun to watch for a little while.

@34 also, Vick is a more horrible person, seeing as he ran a dogfighting ring.

And Kurt Warner has been seen on TV telling Tebow to dial back the Bible-humping, for what it’s worth.

Tebow sounds like that one friend you had who was a late bloomer, and when that friend finally started dating, every second word from zie’s mouth was “MY GIRLFRIEND” or “MY BOYFRIEND.” That was obnoxious, wasn’t it? It’s not magically un-annoying if the “boyfriend” is Jesus.

“All the Tebow hate is about him being proud to be religious.  Take the religion away and the hate would disappear.  Lots of mediocre athletes have succeeded for one reason or another.  That does not generate hate.”

See the first part of this post. Tebow’s pulling a Michael Vick 2010, a Kordell Stewart 1997 - only those guys were better than him at football, and not irrationally praised because of the god they worshipped.

Man, the end of the thread to this point are why I hate dumb people.  Especially dumb people that call people smarter than them dumb.

Anywayz, the NFL is very racist about the QB role, and given how much football is theater (to help with all the moving parts) compared to it being an actual sport, it’s just not surprising that Tebow lands a starring role.  I just think of it as the football equivalent of Bristol Palin in Dancing With the Stars.  It will eventually blow over.

But seriously, it is very, very unlikely that Tebow will succeed, for fairly visible reasons.  He had a good game on the last outing, but much of the success was from dramatically blown CB-S handoffs.  In any event, most people who watch the game at anything like a serious level understand that Tebow is unlikely to succeed.

It’s a bigger problem with guys like Christian Ponder, who is only good enough to be a bad NFL starter, and gets plenty of support from a fanbase that doesn’t want to see anymore black QBs, like what happened in Philly wrt Kolb.

man, of course, we gonna get the Vick’s a horrible person derail.  How come it’s never Ben Roethlisburger’s a horrible person?  Killing defeated dogs via non-merciful ways vs being a serial rapist.  Should be easy, no?

Tebow will succeed in something other than football. He will get some show on a Christianist network, he will get fees to come and speak at megachurches, he will use his status as The Jesus Mary Might Have Aborted But Miraculously Survived to help bring in bucks for social conservative causes. Hell, he might be actively trying for the football-career-ending injury so that he can get on to the important business of REALLY cashing in on his name.

OMG, Dilan, people might be wrong about a sports prediction. Let’s all be sure that doesn’t happen. That said it would be nice if Tebow was able to succeed in the league running read options. The sameyness of NFL football is one of the things that makes it less fun than college ball. And I daresay your right that making Tebow’s success or failure a proxy for culture wars is silly. There are obviously a lot of people who latch on one of the two Tebow positions (he just wins! or He doesn’t complete passes!) and don’t spend a lot of time analyzing football. But the guy has way more fans for non-football reasons than he’s got detractors.

Tebow’s probably a pretty tiresome person to be around, but he doesn’t bother me from the other side of the screen. Honestly, Jim Schwartz strikes me as a bigger shithead than Tebow will ever be, because he says he doesn’t like to read books written by women. There’s no one who says that who isn’t a total asshole. But it doesn’t stop me from being a Lions fan.

This Engel person needs to understand that it isn’t Tim Tebow people dislike, it’s her. And its people like her, who make their religion something to hector and whine at people about. And have tried to make Christianity part and parcel to the Republican Party for the last 35 years or so. It’s my impression that there are a lot of people who are Christians and don’t much care for that.

@shah8:
Vick had already been mentioned in this thread. Roethlisburger hadn’t.

Shah8, I’ve seen Cam Newton play the Lions and Tebow play the Lions. I couldn’t have told them apart as players if I hadn’t known what they looked like. Make of that what you will.

Or Catholics.

To be fair, it’s hard to give a shout-out to the Virgin Mary on an American broadcast/televised sport.

Remember the ‘90s when there were all those totally obnoxious TD dances?  They became so annoying, long and disruptive that he NFL outlawed them with the “excessive celebration” offense.  I’m hoping they develop a similar policy for physical acts of religion on the field.

A penalty.  For religion.

Not in the United States of America under God.

Tebow might be successful..right up until his first knee injury. I don’t mock him because he’s a christian. I mock him because he claims to be successful due to his christianity. When he loses his luster will it be because Jesus hates him?

Honestly, Jim Schwartz strikes me as a bigger shithead than Tebow will ever be, because he says he doesn’t like to read books written by women. There’s no one who says that who isn’t a total asshole.

What?  I ask this not to challenge you, but out of legitimate curiosity: how did this come up and why would he say such a thing?

Nevermind, I’ll google:

Schwartz is an avid reader of books — going through 500-plus pages in a day when he was single, not married with three kids as he is now — and the latest niches intriguing him are the Civil War and historical fiction.

  “If I find an author — David Morrell, Mario Puzo, John Grisham or any guy I hear is good — I’ll read everything he did,” Schwartz said. “I don’t read books by women. I’ve tried to, but their perspective is different, so I stick with what I like.”

http://sportsbybrooks.com/new-lions-coach-doesnt-read-books-by-women-25379

Whoa.  I sort of assumed the guy was a douche because of 1) the handshake and 2) the way his team plays, but what a weird thing to say.  I mean, it’s weird to think that way in the first place, but it’s even more bizarre to proudly declare it.

That’s too bad.  I thought the Lions were the feel-good story of year coming in.  I still hope they do well for Detroit, but it’s getting tough to root for them when they have this goofball as a coach and are playing like petulant brats.

man, of course, we gonna get the Vick’s a horrible person derail.  How come it’s never Ben Roethlisburger’s a horrible person?  Killing defeated dogs via non-merciful ways vs being a serial rapist.  Should be easy, no?

It is easy. I think Ben Roethlisburger’s transgressions are much worse than those of Michael Vick, without question.

That doesn’t change the fact that Vick is still a pretty shitty human being, even conceding the objective truth that he isn’t as shitty of a person as Rothlisburger is. And yes, I do agree that racism definitely plays a big role for much of the derision directed at Michael Vick, but that doesn’t exonerate him for what he actually did. To Vick’s credit, the man did do his time and did express what seemed like genuine contrition for his horrible crimes, which is a lot more than could ever be said about Roethlisburger.

Joe Namath, Ken “Snake” Stabler, Jim McMahon, Tom Brady, Brett Favre, and Ben Roethlisberger are all known fornicators who won Superbowls. And those are just the ones I thought of without having to look anything up. Further fun: Brady’s first SB win and Roethlisberger’s second were both over Kurt Warner! Seems God doesn’t care about football, imagine that.

In case you were wondering, not a one of them followed up scoring a basket or having a good round by pulling out a mat and praying to Mecca, because to do such a thing would have been kind of dickish.

Well, Ali (and to a lesser degree, Tyson) were rather demonstrative about their religion. After KOing Foreman, he went on to say he proved that Allah is God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEWQ2ArEcgg

Elijah Muhammed attributed Ali’s (then Clay) 1st defeat of Liston to Allah, in front of a NOI crowd. Ali would then go on to almost kill Ernie Terrell (he withheld from KOing him in order to inflict more damage…which is far more dangerous than being KOed) b/c Terrell refused to acknowledge his name:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DefCmUsCPs

This arguably has more to do with race than religion but so does Jen Floyd Engel’s theoretical. In other words, the religious discrimination Muslims face is tantamount to racism.

Ali paid a heavy price for a lot of this, though Vietnam was the central issue in regards to his suspension…but that can’t be separated from religion. And of course civil rights was at the center of the public debate. The cocky athlete may be ubiquitous now, but when Ali was doing his thing it was almost unheard of for a black athlete to behave in such a manner. Then suddenly he was a Muslim too.

But as early as the 70’s Ali was winning over public opinion and was the press darling, most notably Howard Cosell. In contrast, Foreman and Frazier were seen as villains and and caught the short end of the popularity stick. Foreman famously waived an Americn Flag during the famous black-fist Olympics and caught flack. Frazier was (ironically) called a Gorilla by Ali. Both were called Uncle Toms by him.

Frazier had actually supported Ali after he was stripped of his title for resisting the draft, putting his own career at much risk.  He boycotted the elimination tournament to find a successor to Ali and gave the stripped champ money. I understand that Frazier never forgave Ali for the Uncle Tom jabs.

“I don’t read books by women. I’ve tried to, but their perspective is different, so I stick with what I like.”

So a football coach doesn’t like to be challenged, and only wants to read books that are likely to reinforce his worldview. I’m glad I’m sitting down right now.

Not about the comparison, DTGslu2K. 

It’s about who always comes up in these conversation without prompting.  When called on it, it’s always Big Ben is worse, of course, but…

Cameron Newton is a completely different QB than Tebow in the NFL.  If one couldn’t tell the difference, you know, by say…counting passing attempts, completion percentage, the diversity of passes, etc, etc, etc…well, I *could* say that Rosalind Russell and Lucille Ball are totes the same as actors.  Doesn’t mean that a film buff wouldn’t make a polite noise and move on.  What was the point of saying that witless chum?  Living up(down?) to the moniker?

He is too nice, and thereby we want him to trip up so we can feel better. We want him to be revealed as a hypocrite, and when that fails to happen, we settle for gleefully celebrating his failures on the football field.

Bull. Two words: Drew Brees.

Drew Brees could easily be considered “too nice.” He plays one on TV, and everyone who’s ever met or worked with him in person swears he’s a good guy through and through. He’s blond, blue-eyed, handsome, has a beautiful wife and sons. He’s active in a number of charities. The biggest “scandal” he’s ever been involved in was a brief dust-up over his wife’s new Pilates salon being taller than the neighborhood’s zoning restrictions allowed. The guy is classic Golden Boy.

But do we hate him? Are you kidding me?!? He’s respected and revered, practically worshiped, by New Orleanians and Saints fans far and wide. I’d guess 3/4 of the team jerseys worn by fans are Brees jerseys. Put his name on anything and it’s guaranteed to sell.

The difference, I would argue, is that Brees is a phenomenal player. That’s what matters in the end.

“Or Catholics.”

“To be fair, it’s hard to give a shout-out to the Virgin Mary on an American broadcast/televised sport.”

Just throw a Hail Mary pass.

Cameron Newton is a completely different QB than Tebow in the NFL.  If one couldn’t tell the difference, you know, by say…counting passing attempts, completion percentage, the diversity of passes, etc, etc, etc…well, I *could* say that Rosalind Russell and Lucille Ball are totes the same as actors.  Doesn’t mean that a film buff wouldn’t make a polite noise and move on.  What was the point of saying that witless chum?  Living up(down?) to the moniker?

They looked awfully similar to me, facing the same Lions defense. Inaccurate throws on many different routes, good running.

Newton
22 38 57.9 280 7.4 1 4

Tebow
18 39 46.2 172 4.4 1 1

So, that’s more a difference than I’d have suspected in stats.

Libertarian @ 37: take away the religious douchebagging, and no one would know who the hell Tebow was.  He’s not good enough anyone would have recognized him outside the NFL fundies, who would likely have found him wanting or at least not have had anywhere near as meany to argue in his favor as some great under-rated player.

As a point of comparison, Troy Polamalu is fairly up front about his Christianity (though not of the American evangelical variety), and he doesn’t catch crap from anyone, so Libertarian is wrong that the Tebow hate is about him being proud to be religious. Plenty of NFL’ers are. Tebow’s loathed for plenty of other reasons, though I suspect the loathing of him reinforces the accolades he receives from evangelical fanboys.

At first, I elided one sentence while skimming, and read this:

What if Tim Tebow were a Muslim?

Imagine for a second, the Denver Broncos quarterback is a devout follower of Islam, sincere and principled in his beliefs and thus bowed toward Mecca to celebrate touchdowns.

I know what would happen. All hell would break loose.

For just a minute I thought “Exactly! We’d be hearing endless right-wing ranting about how it’s totally inappropriate and manipulative and an attempt to force his personal beliefs on everyone else! This really does show how much privilege Christianity has in our society!”

Then I went back and read the sentence I’d left out. And then I realized the quoted writer was incredibly stupid after all.

Also, AFAIK you don’t just bow toward Mecca any old time you feel like it. I think there’s a bit more of a prescribed ritual than that, including timing and preparation.

I’m a big fan of my local team, but the religion in sports is laughable.  When my team loses, does that mean that my players didn’t pray as much as theirs did?  Then why even play the game?  Just have a pray-off.  (I went to a meet and greet with a random player at training camp a few years ago, and he talked about how he had to run, because it was Sunday and he and a bunch of teammates had to shower up to go to church between practices.  Well-spoken kid, went to Michigan.  I think about that every time I see him make a play or not make one.  He points to the sky when he makes one; he doesn’t point anywhere when he fumbles or drops passes or makes boneheaded plays.)

But that’s not what I wanted to write about.  I wanted to ask if Tebow only prays for his team to do well, or if he also prays for the other team to fuck up?  Does he thank his god that the defensive back fell down and tore his achilles’, so his receiver was open and could make the winning score?  In a zero sum game, how can prayer possibly play a role?

Maybe this is why the world is so screwed up;  God’s all busy helping Tim Tebow learn to be a quarterback.

Libertarian @ 37: take away the religious douchebagging, and no one would know who the hell Tebow was.  He’s not good enough anyone would have recognized him outside the NFL fundies, who would likely have found him wanting or at least not have had anywhere near as meany to argue in his favor as some great under-rated player.

He was a Heisman Trophy winner who played on two BCS National Championship teams at Florida. For Pete’s sake, of course he was going to be given a chance in the NFL!

NobleExperiments please don’t remind me what a right-wing psycho Largent turned out to be. It was depressing enough going to the Hall of Fame and there being one teeny-tiny little corner for Seattle, featuring Largent. I prefer to remember him in the game with those velcro fingertips that could bring in the ball with the merest touch…

Bull. Two words: Drew Brees.

Indeed. I live in New Orleans, and these people would die for Drew Brees, partly because he (usually) kicks serious ass on the field and partly because everyone and I mean everyone says he’s a helluva nice guy. Sure, one might say, home-towners will say that. Not here in NOLA, brah. There ain’t nothing a kid from the Irish Channel or a Wanker likes to do better than shit-talk someone else in New Orleans, believe dat.

Anyhow, yattitude aside, every time Tebow comes up, I think of Danny Wuerffel, the Gator golden boy of the late ‘90s, when I went to UF. Great college quarterback with a simpatico relationship with his coach, won the Heisman and the BCS championship, and the Gator nation thought the sun shined out of his ass. Furthermore, he was - and still is - very active in the community and charities, and he was president of the campus Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I was a journalism major and wrote about sports for a time (though by that time I was getting sick of the whole affair and developing my current disinterest in sports, but that’s neither here nor there), and I remember proofing a lot of stories about Wuerffel’s faith and beliefs. If asked, he’d answer, but the guy was indeed a sweet enough cat to pretty much leave it at that. Way he figured, so I read, it was more important to do good things.

What’s funny to me, now some 14 years later is the different reaction between the two from the folks I know who still give two tugs of a dead dog’s dingaling about Gator football. So long as he was winning games and beating Georgia and/or FSU, Tebow was herbs ‘n’ spices. Now they wished he’d shut the hell up. They never, ever said anything like that about Wuerffel. There is, I think, something to that.

After the endzone dance got banned, I think a lot of players found they could channel their post-touchdown exuberance into a religious maneuver, and nobody could tell them to stop because banning religion from the field would make the baby Jesus cry.

Therefore, I suggest an NFL wing of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, whose worship involves various gesticulations honoring his noodly appendages, which happen to be remarkably similar to the old endzone dances of yore.

Libertarian, do you make a habit of trying real hard to restate refuted premises as a debate tactic? Because it’s kind of failish.

Libertarian:
All the Tebow hate is about him being <strike>proud to be religious</strike> praised as being better than mediocre.  Take the <strike>religion</strike> praise away and the hate would disappear.  Lots of mediocre athletes have succeeded for one reason or another.  That does not generate hate.

fixed that for you. If he was simply doing an adequate job on the field and being regarded as a workhorse QB who has potential, but years to go, there wouldn’t be much to argue about. The Christian thing is about him making himself a lightning rod for people who don’t know shit about the game calling him “good” when he is, at best, “adequate.”

But he makes a show of being Christian. He’s given a wide birth as the Hero of The Old Ways. He’s getting a fun mashup of “Great White Hope” and “Clean Cut Hero” far above any actual ability he shows.

Religion is a factor, yes. Because that’s what’s getting him praise. Race is a factor.

Basically, any time you hear commentators say someone “just wins games” they’re being lauded for shit that has nothing to do with anything legitimately about the sport.

To be fair to Tebow and as a Gator fan, he is a good quarterback and will only get better in the NFL even if I don’t care about the Broncos.  But with that said, everything else about Tebow politically and religiously sucks.

What the NFL needs is an in-your-face atheist player.  I invented a fictional player a while back nick-named “Sack Religious” who is a great pass-rushing defensive end who sacks them and then points to the ground (hell) instead of to the sky (heaven), mainly as a joke.  The other players hate him despite the great plays he makes.  He gets his team to the Super Bowl and is named the MVP after sacking the other QB 5 times.  He is interviewed and says, “Fuck God, we won this!”

The whole “what if they were Muslim” response is stupid and is just a way to chill criticisms of Christianity.

He was a Heisman Trophy winner who played on two BCS National Championship teams at Florida. For Pete’s sake, of course he was going to be given a chance in the NFL!

I have been thinking about this for years now as I watch football on the collegiate level.  The Heisman Trophy sounds wonderful and when a guy goes on to the NFL to a huge career it’s always touted but looking over the list winning a Heisman actually means you’re in a pretty HUGE crap shoot over whether you’ll be good.  For every Staubach, Dorsett, and Sanders there are at least two if not three Alex Smiths or Matt Leinarts.  It doesn’t mean it isn’t a great trophy and deserved but honestly most of the time the Heisman is given to a good team’s QB/RB when they win a BCS Championship no matter what really won it.  Only one guy in the last 20 years has won the Superbowl (Charles Woodson) and he only did it last year against a lackluster Steelers offense. 

It seems that winning a Heisman is actually a kind of deathknell to ever being successful in the NFL nowadays…

It has nothing to do with his faith or that he prays openly on the field that bothers the , ahem, author.  There would be no mention of him at all if he hadn’t of done the pro life Superbowl commercial with his mom.  Hes not a good or bad player hes just pro life and thats a sin here.  If you re not down with killing babies then your up for slander here.  Quit with the Christianity vs Islam theme and tell the truth.  If he hadn’t of made the commercial there’d be no comment.  And if anyone knew what was and what wasn’t dickish, it would be the author of the screed above.

take away the religious douchebagging, and no one would know who the hell Tebow was.

Second this.  I don’t follow football.  I just looked over the list of Heisman winners and I knew 4 or 5 of the names - O.J. Simpson, Doug Flutie, one or two others.  I know Tim Tebow’s name.  Why?  Because of the religious exhibitionism.

Do casual followers of football (as opposed to fanatics) know the names of all the quarterbacks on all 32 teams?  The good ones, sure, the bad ones, probably, but the mediocre ones?

I too have a deeply held and sincerely felt religious belief, that public display of sanctimonious religious symbolism is an immature response to a profound and mysterious experience and belief.  I think the public display is likely a sign that an emotionally underdeveloped momma’s boy or daddy’s girl needs attention and needs to (and hopefully will) grow up spiritually someday, preferably beyond the limitations of a church ideology that cranks out stillborn immature believers.  I also think it’s possible to ‘really mean it’ in the moment when taking that knee, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable for me to watch the ‘flying boy’ devotee misfit go through his obsessive-compulsive routine. By publicly sharing his sincerely adopted fanaticism, Tebow’s forcing everyone watching to be his therapist. That’s the source of the ick factor, the discomfort with the emotional immaturity and the unconscious inevitable innate holier-than-thou-ness of the underdeveloped belief system. Yes, I do think it’s offensive, moreso than many things and less so than a fewer number of things. Separately, I also hope running scrambling quarterbacks find a bigger place in the NFL. Hey, maybe that’s God’s mission for Tebow, touchdown Jesus and all that. Two names:  Steve Young and Fran Tarkenton; but they COULD pass.

Knuterockne:  Uh, no.  But you sure do amplify your petty (jealous?) resentments overly easily, wouldn’t you say? Sure, Tebow took a stand with that commercial. So what? People take stands all the time.  I’m offended by at least half of them.  The commercial was only a tiny bit offensive to me, because of what it proactively implies about people of different belief systems; in other words it shows condescension and patronizing.  But it was far less offensive than your little pity-party hatefest comment here. Funny, because you’re just so wrapped up in your own fanaticism that you can’t even begin to see what other people are actually feeling or thinking here or probably anywhere. Believe me, though, the Tebow thing’s got absolutely nothing to do with abortion - that’s YOUR fetish. We’re FINE with choice, even Tebow’s. It’s the violation of New Testament principles against praying in public (that certain black-sheep church ideologies profess) that has all of us commenting here at Pandagon upset. We just wish people like you would go back in your closet like Jesus ordered you to do, so we could nail you shut inside of it.

Albert:

In some ways, that’s what Chesley Sullenberger did after he landed the plane in the Hudson… no prayers, no miracles, just doing what he was trained (and trained others) to do. For me it was quite refreshing.

Don’t kid yourself, news hag.  The blog had everything to do with his, and thankfully his mothers, stance on abortion.  And if you think these einsteins are ok with Tebows choice of life for an unborn child rather than killing it then you’ve got the perception problem not I.  Is it possible to see what another is thinking?  What are you a mind reader?

“Great White Hope”
Race is a factor.

What is he, Gerry Cooney now? The top 3 QBs are Brady, Brees, and A.Rodgers. There are what, 2-3 starting black QBs in the NFL today?

Kind of hard to squeeze a “Great White Hope” meme out of that. I doubt you coild get Strom, Byrd, Faubus, and Wallace excited over white QB with those numbers.

“Great White Hope”
Race is a factor.

What is he, Gerry Cooney now? The top 3 QBs are Brady, Brees, and A.Rodgers. There are what, 2-3 starting black QBs in the NFL today?

Kind of hard to squeeze a “Great White Hope” meme out of that. I doubt you coild get Strom, Byrd, Faubus, and Wallace excited over white QB with those numbers.

Yeah, Woodson is the only recent Heisman winner to have a good career.  He’s on defense and that should tell you something.  There’s discrimination against the really good defensive players, even Woodson also played on offense and special teams the year he won.  To rack up the equivalence in yards and touchdowns a QB or RB would make to qualify, a player would have to have like 15 sacks, 10 interceptions, and/or 120 solo tackles.  They would have to be the one man wrecking crew on defense on the team and you rarely ever see a player do that at the college level over 12 games instead of 16.

The problem I have with the Superbowl commercial is that Mrs. Tebow faced a life-threatening condition. She had access to quality medical care, but her survival also came with a bit of luck/Gawd/marinara, depending on your beliefs. I dislike the implication that if you pray hard enough, you totally won’t die from that placental abruption (or blood clot, or pre-eclamsia) because it’s victim-blamey garbage. Mrs. Tebow chose to take a chance and luckily for her and her family, it worked out. To pretend that outcome was guaranteed requires willful blindness.

Sidenote, we will see how long this pro-life-itude lasts. Peyton Manning is a bigtime Republican donor, but facing a possible early end to his career, he went to Europe for stem cell treatment on his busted neck.

I have no problem with Tebow or his mother chosing not to have an abortion.  Trying to legislate what I can do, however, is not okay.  I t doesn’t really have anything to do the base of what I dislike about him as it’s the same thing that makes me most uncomfortable about my mother’s decent into fundy-ism, the overt displays that earlier UCC-Presby her would have found taudry and offensive.  That’s what makes me most uncomfortable, but not most sad about her.

All this aggravation will be worth it when Tebow comes out of the closet.  The guy is Ted Haggar on steroids

Don’t kid yourself, news hag.  The blog had everything to do with his, and thankfully his mothers, stance on abortion. And if you think these einsteins are ok with Tebows choice of life for an unborn child rather than killing it then you’ve got the perception problem not I.  Is it possible to see what another is thinking?  What are you a mind reader?

No one has a problem with Tebow’s mom making whatever choice she thought best in her situation. This is what free people believe. People who want a Catholic theocracy presumably disagree.

Please do not feed the troll.

Otra vez, it has zero to do with his ability to pass or run ot the Heisman trophy.  Nary a word would’ve been written if he hadn’t done the Superbowl commercial.  It doesn’t fit the baby killing narrative prevalent to this website so he needs
to be attacked for his religious display so the authors can drum up support by implying yhat hes a fanatic.  Liberals do it all thr time.  When confronted by someone who disagrees they resortrt to personal attacks.  Its liberalism 101, tired and predictable.  Btw, Charles Woodson wasn’t even the best player pn that Michigan team, much less best in the country.

#91:

Okay, first off, uncool picking a name obviously chosen for the purpose of trolling a thread about a football player. May you be run over by a flying V in your next touch football game.

Second, why is it that people like you keep insisting we think things we’re not thinking? Don’t you ever listen to what people actually say about what they believe?

I agree with you that Charles Woodson wasn’t the best on that Michigan team, Knute! You’re not as stupid as your punctuation would suggest. I apologize for thinking you’re a total asshole because you want me to die of a DVT and leave my toddler motherless.

I could care less about that commercial, except that I really object to the idea that his mom survived because God loves her special.  Because women with that medical condition (who may not even have the choice to have an abortion) don’t always survive, and I really don’t think it’s because God doesn’t love them.  And when Tim Tebow thanks God for a good play, I have to think, what does he say to God when he screws up?  Frankly, I really doubt that God cares who wins a football game, but he had some pretty clear things to say about parading your faith in public and flaunting your supposed godliness.  Tebow should actually read that book he supposedly lives his life by.

I don’t understand all the Tebow hate. It’s not like he’s the only Godbag in the NFL. And that “the defense bails him out” stuff is uncomfortably close to how El Rushbo tried to slag on Donovan McNabb.

Give the kid a break. He’s winning.

(And I say that as a Bears fan who hopes Julius Peppers pounds the snot out of him on Sunday)

Kind of hard to squeeze a “Great White Hope” meme out of that.

It is, literally, the only reason I can think of for the constant comparisons to Cam Newton.

Ok…so he’s the Great White Hope among rushing QBs, the rest of whom…Vick and Newton…are black.

Well, that would sort-of give us the Gerry Cooney scenario. Her comes Tebow to finally erase the monopoly on rushing QBs that Black Americans have enjoyed for so long. Tebow as Sherman Act.

But more likely they are compared because they are both rushing QBs. However, if Fran Tarkenton comes out of retirement, all bets are off.

He isn’t anything that the people reacting to him since the very start haven’t made him - and both sides have been happily joining in and contributing to the meta-Tebow superstructure all along.  I don’t see where Amanda claims the religiosity is anything other than sincere on his part - that it’s intended to attract attention and make himself a larger figure than he’d otherwise have been.  Maybe that’s the implication, but I don’t see the claim.  And it’snot unique; I don’t understand why it should, or did, result in that in this case.  He was a real dominant force in the college game within a dominant program under the most-famed (for winning) college football coach, but he didn’t have a game that could transfer well to the NFL.  That set up the question of what would happen when he nevertheless ended there.  From there, the forces lined up on the respective sides and created what we now have.  I don’t see what the claim being made is that Tebow himself particularly contributed to this, because, again, his religiosity in not particularly unique among star athletes, at least from where I can see.  Perhaps more about what his actions have done to promote this could be explained to me, but I don’t see what he has done more than many other athletes do to try to attract attention to himself.  From where I sit, the volume and extent of the Tim Tebow commentary wars is almost completely the doing of the actual combatants.

Peyton Manning looks and talks like Forrest Gump!  Has anybody noticed that?

The fact that he sucks, and that the whole NFL intelligentsia has said so much, just adds to his appeal…because now there can only be one explanation:

JESUS.

1. Olajuwon is now only overseas part-time.  He spends half his time in Houston handling his business interests & giving private lessons to current NBA superstars that reach out to him (Kobe & Lebron).

2. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf got slammed over the National Anthem thing BECAUSE he was Muslim.  He wasn’t a JW who didn’t want to stnad, he was a Muslim who prayed during the anthem & there was a sizeable outcry from conservatives who wanted him tossed from the NBA.

Anyone who is a sanctimonious prick deserves to be mocked.  That’s why I’m OK with mocking Tebow and other Evangelicals.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the national anthem because he viewed the US as an oppressive nation, a belief that was rooted in his understanding of the Koran, according to him.

After an outcry, he negotiated a compromise where he stood but had his head bent down while he prayed.

Anyone is going to be criticized for not standing. He may have faced more since he was a Muslim, but to say he was slammed “BECAUSE he was Muslim” implies that Americans would be A-OK with a Christian doing such a thing.

See, that’s what I’m talking about (Den 13, Chi 10).

For the first 3 quarters he might as well have been Todd Marinovich after an LSD binge. But come the final minutes of the 4th?  Boom! He’s Joe Montana. J-E-S-U-S! U-S-A!

I wouldn’t be surprised if tax cuts start paying for themselves. Anything is possible.