By Ben Sullivan
If you’re like me you were stunned at Mark Sanchez’ comments about Tim Tebow earlier this week:
“He’s obviously a great guy, he works hard. And we needed another guy to throw while Sam’s [Bradford] still recovering,” Sanchez told CSN Philly about Tebow. “So that’s the reason [for the signing], at least as explained to me. We’re excited about the upcoming year, and I think we have a great group.”
Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel put it best:
Sanchez, the man who made “butt fumble” a part of our national sports vernacular, actually had the audacity earlier this week to patronizingly minimize Eagles coach Chip Kelly signing former Florida QB Tim Tebow.
Seriously, is Sanchez really saying that Tebow is just another warm body during training camp who will be cut as soon as Bradford is ready to go.
Puh-leeze.
Hey, Sanchez, maybe YOU’RE the warm body during training camp until Tebow gets up to speed and is ready to run Kelly’s system?
Can Sanchez really be so naive as to think Kelly brought in Tebow as just another training-camp arm to throw passes to receivers until Bradford is healthy? Um, aren’t there are a lot of other quarterbacks with better arms than Tebow to bring in just to throw passes during training camp?
I could be wrong, but I think Kelly has bigger plans for Tebow. I believe he thinks Tebow, at the very least, has a chance to be a situational quarterback in his innovative fast-break spread offense, which emphasizes mobility and the ability to run the read option.
I am still flabbergasted by Kelly getting universally second-guessed for signing Tebow, the ultimate winner, as a reserve quarterback when nobody criticizes teams who have proven quarterbacking stiffs such as Blaine Gabbert and Josh Freeman on their rosters.
Personally, I would love to see Kelly turn Tebow into a legitimate pro quarterback, if for no other reason than to see all the Tebow haters in the NFL establishment bury their heads in shame.
