An open letter to Tim Tebow from a fed-up Jets fan - Doc's Bark for December 30, 2012

Dear Tim Tebow:
As you prepare for what could be your final game in a New York Jets uniform, I think it's about time you started reflecting on the insights of your biggest critics.  The first thing you, as well as all of your surrogates and supporters, need to get through your heads is that criticism is NOT HATING. Only the most narrow-minded and backwards-thinking human can boil critique down to such dichotomous terms, and in fact represents the lowest form of adult cognition.  I guess former Harvard psychologist William G. Perry was right on the mark when he theorized that low-level adult thinking is perpetual adolescence. Therefore, the first and most-lasting advice I can give you and your legion of Tebowmaniacs is GROW UP and stop acting like life is a Middle School popularity contest.

I don't hate you.  I personally don't like you either. I'm frankly neutral and uninterested in you as a person or a football player. However, I am pretty damn sick and tired of hearing about you day after day on the radio, television and newspaper.  In a world and nation with so many problems, I shouldn't see your name or face on the front page of my daily newspaper.  The day you get equal billing with the fiscal cliff, Hurricane Sandy or the Sandy Hook shooting is a day I no longer take journalism seriously and a day you need to disappear from any national conversation.

I really hope I've reached my "rock bottom" when it comes to having any respect or giving you the benefit of the doubt, because both attributes have progressively sunk lower since the day the Jets and Denver Broncos discussed a trade for you.  From that day fast forwarding to today, let me tell you that every bit of grief and embarrassment you've endured is primarily your own making and well-deserved. Unlike the rest of the foolish masses who've bought your act hook, line and sinker, I see right through your act and hardly see you as an innocent victim of disrespect.  What was your sin? You came to New York to specifically compete for a job that wasn't yours. Oh, I know very well how Mark Sanchez struggled last season and how the Jets brain trust felt he needed solid pushing from a backup, but the job was always going to be his, and rightfully so.  Unless you can produce a league-certified contract between you and the Jets explicitly stating that you would be given the starting quarterback job upon a Sanchez implosion or benching, then you were clearly not his next-in-command and have no legitimate beef with your coaches. Plain and simple, you COVETED something of your neighbor that didn't belong to you, was never legally promised to you, and this does not reflect what any reasonable adult would classify as an act of "great friendship" or "professional support." You came to New York with the sole intention of taking away Sanchez's job, whether it was available or not, and you didn't care how you or your surrogates sabotaged Sanchez or the entire Jets season.  It was all about you, from the moment you had the option to choose New York over your hometown, Jacksonville, to having members of the media actively lobby for you.

And then, when Sanchez finally got benched, you pitched a fit because you were passed over by a third-stringer, Greg McElroy, for the starting job against San Diego.  Here's a little news flash for you: McElroy is a better quarterback than you.  He's demonstrated it in practice, film study, review of the playbook and position meetings. Playing quarterback - or "regular quarterback" as you call it - is more than just messing around for 55 minutes until you break down the other team's will while fans are chanting your name and the spotlight's bright. An NFL game is more than just the SportsCenter moments, and you continuously fail to grasp this, just like you continuously fail to grasp the playbook and the purpose of practice.  If you want coaches to believe in your ability to play a real 60-minute game, you need to  prove your worthiness in practice while game situations are simulated.

For you to cry foul is the height of hypocrisy. You leapfrogged Brady Quinn in Denver when you got your Machiavellian  opportunity last year in Denver.  Weren't you a third-stringer back then? Yes you were. Did you outplay Quinn in practice?  No you didn't. You were simply  handed the starting job as a means to appease your hoard of supporters.  Did the Broncos win with you as quarterback? Yes they did, several low-scoring games by close margins, until a three-game losing streak almost threw away the division title.  Did the Broncos win a wild card playoff game? Yes. So what? Did your statistics and quality of play earn any confidence from the front office and coaching staff? No, and now your former team appears headed towards a possible Super Bowl with Peyton Manning at quarterback, a 36-year-old man coming off four neck surgeries who is still a superior quarterback to you at even his worst physical health.

What this all boils down to is that for the first time in your life, you can't have your cake and eat it too, and at 250+ pounds, perhaps you should be stepping away from the desert cart if you seriously want to play quarterback in the #NFL. You were the young man who got to play high school football for a high school you didn't even attend.  Somehow your parents and supporters lobbied enough to get the state of Florida to change scholastic athletic rules just to allow you to play while being home-schooled.  Not only that, but when you didn't get to play quarterback right away, you managed to change from one high school team to another, and you were still being home-schooled.  It's a shame we're having this conversation in 2012 as opposed to 1990, when I was teaching chemistry and physics and coaching football in Bradenton, Florida, because I would've put my job on the line just to block every effort your family made to let you play football anywhere you weren't attending school.  Why? Because I don't believe any child or student should have their own special set of rules compared to the rest of the school population and community, and I firmly believe that if any young man doesn't think our school is good enough for his academic needs, then we're also not good enough for his athletic needs.  Never mind my questions of how you managed to meet the state requirement for having high school chemistry and physics (with lab components) in order to matriculate to the University of Florida after being home-schooled. I won't even bother to entertain the question of whether you have any legitimate academic preparation for the real world because it's clear you've been a mercenary to play football since at least age twelve.

But here we are, 2012- you're employed by the New York Jets to play whatever position the coaches tell you to play, and receive your paycheck from ownership.  If you're told to play the utility role of jack-of-all-trades, play it to your best effort and commitment. If the coaches honestly want you to play the backup quarterback position, then prove your worth by doing more than standing on the sidelines staring into space and holding your hands in your warmer pockets.  Yes, your disinterest and indifference shows loud and clear on the sidelines, and it has all season long.  You're completely disengaged mentally from the game, game planning, game adjustments, play charting and every other function a legitimate NFL quarterback performs on the sidelines during a game- and it shows every time you step out on the field.  I've counted at least three occasions during the first half of the season when you clearly seemed unprepared to call and run the play your coaches sent you into the huddle with as the quarterback, and it disrupts the huddle not to mention the flow of the game.  Is it all your fault? No, I am fully convinced the Jets have the wrong offensive coordinator, but he's still your coach and your job is to correctly follow his play call and lead you teammates on that play, and to date, you've been very ineffective in this expectation.  I don't know whether it's a physical thing or mental, but you clearly appear as someone who doesn't buy into what the coaches are doing and your heart clearly isn't into what you are expected to do. That's all on you, because you're being paid a fairly handsome salary to play football, and that's not a bad gig when the starting quarterback position was never legitimately available to you.  There are plenty of backup quarterbacks in the NFL who never step onto the field during an entire regular season, so already you were ahead of the game. Why did you have to exacerbate a circus-like situation by demanding more than you legitimately deserved? No matter what kind of spin control you and your surrogates present to the media, the fact is clear that you put yourself above your teammates for the sake of your own personal agenda, and THAT IS being a phony, hypocrite and fraud, Worse, it's more indicative of your true nature and reinforces the image of teenage boy whose parents lobbied to allow their home-schooled son play football at the high school of his choice without ever attending the school, as opposed to the young man who holds press conferences to tell the media how "excited" he is to be a part of the team and contribute any way he can.

I have spent the past 3-4 years saying you're a misplaced fullback or H-back and that you're better suited for those positions as opposed to quarterback, but now I can no longer give you the benefit of the doubt as a football player and must say you're completely unwelcome on any NFL team I would hypothetically coach or support.  I've read and listened to enough of your "self-defense" over the past several days and I'm fully convinced you're a bigger locker room cancer than any other player could be to an NFL team, and yes, you are a phony, fraud and hypocrite.  For a backup quarterback who clearly lacks the physical and mental skill development to play the position, I think you have way too much to say for your own good at his stage of your career.  If you honestly wanted to become a legitimate NFL quarterback, you would've begged to stay in Denver and learn everything you could for a couple of years backing up Peyton Manning, because the harsh reality is that you require more seasoning and development to play the position. You didn't want that. You simply wanted to play, so you came to New York and tried to impose your agenda, and now it's blown up on you. Maybe you'll go home to Jacksonville and succeed playing according to your paradigm in front of your family and fans. I seriously have my doubts as to how well you'll ultimately do, until you consistently demonstrate a capacity for intellectual growth as an NFL quarterback.

Do I look forward to seeing you leave the Jets once this stinker of a season ends? Yes and no. If you're going to remain stuck in "Timmy the 12-year-old" mode, then you can't leave fast enough for me. If you're honestly able to take a cold hard look at yourself in the mirror and assess yourself as a professional football player, perhaps you can accept yourself as part of the Jets backfield and running back rotation, which is where you're best-suited.  No one says you'll never throw an NFL pass again (I assume you've heard about the halfback option play?), but you're fooling yourself thinking you're just as much the starting quarterback of the New York Jets as Mark Sanchez is when you don't even do a fraction of the preparation work he does. There's more to being an NFL quarterback than what you think, and it's about time you grew up and paid attention to those responsibilities while everyone's paying attention to you.