The transition from college football to the NFL is the last consolidation of talent that players must survive before they reach the promised land of chartered flights and multi-million dollar contracts. Players lucky enough to get drafted must adjust to being a rookie in an unfamiliar town after two to four years of being the “big man on campus.” The learning curve is steep and even college’s best players struggle to excel.
Almost every player who has successfully made the transition from college to pro ball has commented on how much faster the game is on Sundays and how, as a result their room for error shrinks. Even Heisman Trophy winners: the award is given every year to college football’s best player: are not guaranteed success at the next level. Nebraska’s Eric Crouch and Oklahoma’s Jason White, the 2001 and 2003 Heisman Trophy winners respectively, never took a single snap on a Sunday.
Their plight has led me to consider the future of another Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, Tim Tebow. Tebow is undoubtedly one of the best college football players of all time. In his four years at Florida he was a Heisman finalist three times, won two BCS National Championships and set more records than I can list. However, he is not the traditional blue chip quarterback NFL coaches and owners love to draft in the first round. His rough and tumble playing style and unorthodox mechanics have scared a lot of teams away. Should an NFL owner give him a shot at playing on Sundays? I have compiled a list of pros and cons for NFL teams considering drafting the football missionary.
Pro: Tebow is a winner. In his last two years as a starter at Florida, Tebow was 26-2, enough said.
Con: Tebow has terrible throwing mechanics. Even he knows this, which is why he spent the entire winter working with various quarterback’s coaches to raise his arm angle and speed up his delivery. On average NFL quarterbacks have about four seconds to throw the ball before they are knocked into next week by one of the four, 350-pound behemoths trying to seriously injure him. If you have ever seen Tebow play you know it takes him about three seconds just to go through his wind up. It is hard to believe that three months of work can erase 21 years of muscle memory.
Pro: Tebow is a leader. In 2008 during his post-game press conference after the top-ranked Gators’ 31-30 loss to unranked Ole Miss he gave a speech straight out of a sports movie montage, apologizing for the loss and promising “Gator Nation” that for the remainder of the season they would see “no team play harder.” The Gators never lost another game that year and eventually defeated Oklahoma 24-14 in the National Championship game. Tebow’s speech was so influential in the team’s turnaround, the University of Florida erected a statue outside The Swamp in honor of the occasion. How many current college students do you know with their own statue?
Con: College success doesn’t translate to the pros. NFL players and coaches respect and demand talent, something that Tebow is definitely lacking in certain areas. His competitive fire might not be able to carry him through any further. Plus his religiously tinged leadership could be questioned at the professional level. When he tried to lead a prayer before the Wonderlic test: administered to every player at the NFL combine last month: he was promptly told to “shut the fuck up.”
Pro: Teams don’t have to worry about Tebow getting in trouble off the field. This is a guy who doesn’t have so much as a speeding ticket on his record. In the age of Mike Vick, Ben Roethlisberger and Plaxico Burress this is an invaluable quality.
The pros have it 3-2. I say give the guy a chance. He may not be the next Peyton Manning, but this guy will go to bat for any team that gives him the opportunity. Plus God is on his side, which is nice.
