I couldn't be happier that Tim Tebow was traded by the Denver Broncos to the New York Jets.
I will explain why, but first I want to make one thing absolutely clear: It has nothing to do with his outspoken beliefs on his faith. I know that sounds like a neo con saying "I don't dislike President Obama because he's black, it's because of his policies," but please, please, bear with me here.
We will get to that. But for me, this is a complex story, so we have to begin at the beginning.
I have been a Denver Broncos fan since the age of 5. When I was in first grade, I knocked out a friend's teeth with a Denver Broncos heavy canvas duffel after he slapped me with his backpack.
Growing up, John Elway was my hero.
And if you remember the Broncos in the mid- to late-1980s, Elway basically put his team on his back and willed them to win. This resulted in three Super Bowl appearances, all of which were blowout losses because one guy can't win the Super Bowl. I was heartbroken after each loss.
I put up with merciless heckling in school on the days after those games.
"I think the turning point in the game was the coin toss," quipped a friend after the 49ers just decimated the Broncos, 55-10, in Super Bowl XXIV.
But I still wore my burnt-orange No. 7 jersey faithfully throughout the years.
Finally, in 1998, vindication would come when Elway and the Broncos defeated the vaunted Green Bay Packers, who were looking for a repeat, in Super Bowl XXXII, 31-24. The next year the Broncos repeated, knocking off the Atlanta Falcons, and Elway was named Super Bowl MVP.
Realizing it would never get any better than that, and now an elder statesman of the game who showed crows feet when he smiled, Elway retired on his terms.
The Broncos spent the next decade looking for someone, anyone, who could play quarterback for the team.
Brian Griese showed flashes of greatness, but was too inconsistent (and too drunk most of the time) to cut it.
Jake Plummer had his moments, then just up and retired from football.
I thought that the Broncos had found the answer when they drafted Jay Cutler. Cutler played at lowly Vanderbilt in college, and, like Elway, had to do just about everything himself to make the typically wretched Commodores respectable.
Turns out he was a total prick, and a pouty one at that, so the Broncos traded him, and put Kyle Orton, a guy from my school who followed Drew Brees in the Cradle of Quarterbacks chain at Purdue, under center.
Then, a guy the same age as me who happened to wind up as the Broncos head coach, drafted Tebow.
If you can glean anything from some of my statements above, it should be that I follow college sports much more closely than the pros.
And, even though I went to a different university, I did most of my growing up in Kentucky and can't help but root for UK, especially in football, where they are typically the underdog.
I watched Tim Tebow run up the score on the Cats for three years. He and coach Urban Meyer did it to a lot of other teams, too.
Simply put, Tebow played for an opposing team and I didn't like him.
Then he gets drafted by the Broncos, and within a short period of time, unseats the guy I'm rooting for in Kyle Orton, who had put up 4,000 plus passing yards the previous season.
So, in summary, hated player from college goes to my favorite NFL team and knocks a Boilermaker out of job in doing so.
It was clear from the outset that Tebow didn't know what to do when looking at a secondary defense that wasn't comprised of guys from Mississippi State.
Also, his questionable throwing mechanics pointed out during the draft were on full display once he made it to the league.
I had never, in all my years of watching NFL football, seen a guy short-hop a wide receiver by two to three bounces. If the ball wasn't short, it was 10 feet over the intended receiver's head.
Despite all of that, Tebow was able to win with the Broncos, even beating the Steelers in the playoffs. Then, they hit the New England Patriots and got exposed.
Tebow was not the next franchise quarterback for Denver. At the same time, I'm not sure what the Broncos are doing in signing Peyton Manning, who is 36 and coming off of four neck surgeries. I also wonder what playing now will do to Manning's health later in life. But, I've seen him complete passes, so I'm all for this experiment.
Now to the issue off the field.
I've had more than one person tell me that I should support Tim Tebow because he is a Christian and a role model for the youth with the way he displays his faith in a league where the news is more often focused on which Cincinnati Bengals player got arrested this week or how much the Saints defensive coordinator was paying players to try and hurt the guys on the other side of the line.
I think that it's great that Tebow is a decent human being who has his priorities in his life and has the freedom to express that on a national stage.
The late Reggie White of the Eagles and Super Bowl champion Packers, and former Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner did the same thing.
The difference? White and Warner could play football in the NFL.
The jury is still out (but nearing a verdict) on Tebow, so that's great that he has his value system, but I'd also like him to be able to throw the ball.
I think, with Tebow, it is a sign of the times we are living in.
The country is more polarized than ever, and is getting worse every day.
Tebow, who generated a lot of hype in college and coming into the NFL, is a symbol for some to hold up as a shining example of how our athletes and role models should be.
In sports, it's nice to have a few good guys to root for. It's nice to have the anti-Cutler. But if they can't play, it makes it difficult.
To me, sports heroes are guys like Robbie Hummel, who tore his ACL in consecutive seasons and couldn't play with a team that would have probably gone to the Final Four with him. He still gutted it out, stayed on the team, and played his last year with less talent around him but gave the effort to make things happen and did it with dignity and class.
A hero is someone who takes three Super Bowl drubbings only to rise from the ashes a decade later and come out on top in consecutive seasons, all the while exhibiting class and a sheer joy for the game.
Tebow has the class, but he needs the game. Maybe he'll go on to win four Super Bowls with the Jets and be revered as the best quarterback ever. More power to him if he does.
But he's not my guy.
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