Ok, I’m going to be the guy who unceremoniously farts in the Tebow rose-perfumed elevator which is currently stuck between floors.
I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut and fingers off of the keyboards for this topic, and had hoped the beleaguered and bruised Steelers would do something to dispense of this media-induced malarkey, but alas, Big Ben and the Terrible Towel club couldn’t pull it off, so here we are with yet another week of talking heads yapping about Tebow “Magic.”
If you have been following the NFL this year, you will be well aware that this is most likely the greatest line-up of quarterbacks the League has ever seen, and that is inclusive of the fact that Peyton Manning has been sitting on the sidelines all season.
If you pick the top 6 ranked quarterbacks: Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Eli Manning, Matthew Stafford, and Philip Rivers, you will have an AVERAGE of 4,992 yards, 14 interceptions, 38 TD’s and a quarterback rating of 103. Those numbers are staggering if you have ONE quarterback with them on the stat books. If you know anything about NFL numbers, this should have made your jaw drop. Again, that is with the elder Manning sitting out for the season and Roethlisberger having a very, very bad season in comparison.
It has been quite a year for rookie Quarterbacks as well: Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, and T.J. Yates all have had outstanding years with nary the hype that previous rookies such as Matt Leinhart (who?), Vince Young (What?), and Sam Bradford (Where?) have recently had.
But, what is the story that all of the media picks up on? Tim Tebow and his “magic” and the fact that he kneels on the turf, which ludicrously beyond all possible words in my head can fathom, has become known as “Tebow-ing” as if he invented the single-bended knee prayer position. Excuse me while I existentially barf.
I love good stories in Sports, I really do, but this is not a good sports' story, but rather a story which confirms how bankrupt America is in its ideas about religion and what is important in life. I really, and I mean really hope that an Omniscient, Omnipotent power is not busy taking sides on American Football. Seriously, people?
I know that this should not get to me, and in reality, it does not get to me, but it does make me pause long enough to sit down and write this out. What is fundamentally wrong with this picture? Many things come to mind.
Some secular, some sacred, some downright ridiculous and illogical.
On the secular front, this just stings of the American preference for spectacle over substance at times. And, this is a shame because Americans and America are not superficial, but boy, we sure do little to dispel that myth at times, this being a prime example. Why have we not heard more about some of the other QB’s this year in relationship to the Tebow factor? Simple, his team has won several very late-in-the game close calls, and then he prays and suddenly it becomes magic, and a one-man show.
To be sure, Tim Tebow threw the final pass that won the game against the Steelers, but it was Demaryius Thomas who caught the ball and ran with it while his other teammates made the rest of the play with pass protection and blocking. Yet, to read the media reports, Tebow descended rejuvenated from the heavens, threw the best pass ever known to man, (so it must be divinely inspired magic), and saved Denver’s pride while the stadium erupted into unbridled jubilation of the second coming of Elway, while even the great Elway himself cracked a smile.
The only truth to that hyperbole is the phrase, “the great Elway” because he was great. And, he was great over a long period of Time, and even when Denver lost, Elway was usually still great. He has come under a lot of fire for not (Te)bowing before the great, white Hope and heaping praise upon praise on him for winning six close games. Well, as in the case of this past game, if Tebow had been doing anything in the entire last HALF of the football game, Overtime most likely would not have been necessary. I just see it as, if he had not made the winning play (he is the damn Quarterback after all, it's his JOB), then he really blew the rest of the game. Fine, he “pulled the trigger,” but at that point, he and Roethlisberger had been playing Russian Roulette and they had cocked and fired five times. One of them was bound to get the shot off. One play does not win a game. The entire build-up to an Overtime is that two teams played either equally well or equally bad, or in this case, equally MEDIOCRE. This was not a good game. The Steelers literally limped into this game, so it was hardly a stunning surprise to seem them defeated. And, this was no miracle, nor magic, nor anything remotely divine.
Imagine what would have happened if Tebow had lain prostrate in the direction of Mecca, for example, after this play, before doing his victory lap (do you think Jesus did victory laps after his deeds?), praising Allah, instead of “the Lord”? We would be having quite a different discussion in the newspapers. Or, if he had busted out into an ancestral dance that he had been raised with? Or, if he thanked the great God Shiva for his all-powerful help. Or, had gone to a Santaria voodoo ceremony the night before, still having chicken blood stains on his hands.
What then, America, would you do? How would you respond?
The country I was born in claims to be based upon religious tolerance, but in cases like this, I believe that tolerance would be exhausted quite quickly.
The Dallas Cowboys, or affectionately known as God’s Team by the zealots of Interstate 30, famously built a stadium so that God, while not organizing and running the universe, could idly watch the Cowboys....LOSE??? Oh, wait, so God doesn’t even like His/Her/Its own team?
The point is, I shouldn’t even know that Tebow is a believer, of any faith. This is Football, not the salvation of souls at hand.
But, the sadder fact is that this is what people will hold on to as religion. Is that so bad, one may ask? Well, in a word, yes. Yes, it is that bad. How can substituting a 24 year-old kid who kneels on the football field for any real look into the substance of faith, belief, or divinity be a good thing? It could only, and I mean only argued that it is a lesser of two “evils,” meaning at least people aren’t dying over this. That is about it. This is a damn football game.
Wake up. It’s not Tebow Time on my clock.
This is not Divine Intervention, America. It's just a game. There are bigger, much bigger things in this world to be attributing such power to.
Fencers know better: we have Muslim women who compete wearing their hijab, Christians who pray before their bouts to compete in a way that honors their opponents, Jewish men who wear their kippa, Buddhists who meditate while waiting for their pools. What I want to know is *what* Tebow was praying. But, then, that would mean actually *watching* sports, if you know what I mean.
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