The Official Non-Sports Tim Tebow Thread

[lukin]

Oh, so you believe it's God too? I didn't take you for a religious person. Good on you standing up for what you believe though.

The idiot waldo's god is David Suzuki. Waldo is very religious.

[Shady]

Oh, bullshit. If you had read it, you wouldn't have responded with this ridiculous non-sequitur:

More bullshit. The poll is very specific:

There's no ambiguity at all.

And no mention of Limbaugh either. I have no idea where that even came from. Rush Limbaugh didn't start this idea that Divine Intervention is helping Tebow win. He certainly didn't convince 43% of poll respondents of it.

Well, I don't think I'll be hearing much about Tebow for a few months.

-k

Geez, kimmy, why such anger? You've posted two different references. I read the original cite, and it specifically mentions Rush Limbaugh, and interchanges the use of divine intervention vs believing that his faith plays a role in his success. Those are two very different things. Please re-read your original poll link. I guess they decided to re-release that topic again, this time making the appropriate changes. I'm not suprised.

Anyways, for those of you interested. This is from kimmy's original cite and the poll within it.

The poll surveyed 1,056 people, and of the 756 who said they were familiar with Tebow, roughly 327 of them said they believe God plays a role in the second-year NFL quarterback's success.

kimmy's first link

After Tebow led the Broncos to an overtime playoff win over the Pittsburgh Steelers last weekend, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh attributed the victory to divine intervention in favor of Tebow, triggering a fuss about whether God took sides in the game.

The poll within kimmy's first link

Sorry kimmy. I was just responding to the information you originally posted. I agree though, the new link that you provided doesn't mention Rush Limbaugh or faith playing a role vs divine intervention. Also, I'm thinking that the poll probably should have asked exactly what divine intervention specifically means to each person polled. Because that can vary greatly depending on the individual.

You're also right about not having to obsess over Tim Tebow for at least a few months. Probably longer.

[Shady]

Being a Tigers fan, I know that Victor Martinez makes the sign of the cross before each at-bat. I wonder if God helps him hit? Perhaps there will be a poll. :

[sharkman]

If not for "the God angle", none of us would be talking about Tebow at all. Tebow is the most popular athlete in America right now (or at least he was last week...) and it's not because he's good. He's popular because a lot of religious-minded folks have decided he's their hero. Trying to talk about Tebow without the religious angle is like trying to talk about Joan of Arc without the religious angle.

Some in this thread vigorously deny that any such thing is occurring.

I tend to agree, although I would add that the winning record after Tebow took the helm also had something to do with all of the attention focused on him. Many players point to the sky after a touchdown and thank God during an interview. But I guess Tebow has taken it to another level too.

I'm curious as to the motivation of the question. Are you suggesting that there could be otherworldly factors involved-- "Tebow sucks yet Broncos win, therefore Jesus"?

Well, first of all, I don't believe that God intervenes in sporting events. I am of the school of thought that says God helps those who help themselves. Football players can pray all they want, but unless they prepare properly they will not have success on the field. I believe that God can bless a person's efforts in their career if they are living for God, and that makes me a christian and you would say God does not exist. Fair enough.

Anyway, God looks on the whole person, and if a football player's marriage is in trouble and he has has substance abuse in his life, God's priority is not his career success although that may be what the player is praying for. The guy needs freedom from booze and to learn how to be a good husband/father and probably a better Christian in God's eyes.

This is the non-sports Tebow thread, but the sports-related reasons for Tebow's success are, I believe:

1) really weak opposition. Up until last week, Tebow hadn't beaten a single team with a winning record all season. His previous 7 wins had been over teams with a combined record of 48-64 and none better than 8-8. The one time they did beat a winning team was last week, and the Steelers were pretty banged up.

2) a lot of help. Matt Prater's exceptionally long field-goal range got them 2 of their 3 overtime wins. Offensive line that helps Tebow and McGahee run the ball well. Denarius Thomas, not Tim Tebow, is the guy who killed the Steelers. If it were based on merit rather than celebrity, people would have been talking about Thomas all week, not Tebow.

3) Tebow doesn't actually suck. He's a terrible passer (for the time being) but obviously his running ability helps make up for it. He's not a terrible quarterback and he might be good someday. But right now, he's the new Anna Kournikova: an athlete who generates an immense amount of hype despite very mediocre on-field performance. Kournikova had boobies and Tebow has Jesus, but they're both huge celebrities for reasons that have nothing to do with their athletic performance and a whole lot to do with appealing to people for non-sports reasons.

-k

That's a great analysis and is what I was looking for. I only watch the NFL from a distance and so haven't been up to speed on their opposition and such. Thanks for the response.

[msj]

If not for "the God angle", none of us would be talking about Tebow at all. Tebow is the most popular athlete in America right now (or at least he was last week...) and it's not because he's good. He's popular because a lot of religious-minded folks have decided he's their hero. Trying to talk about Tebow without the religious angle is like trying to talk about Joan of Arc without the religious angle.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand Tebow brings something interesting to the game - new "fans," new "controversy" for people to talk about etc.

The reason I don't like it very much is because, as a football fan, I like seeing the good football players talked about.

Cam Newton has been ignored this season despite being better in every way than Tebow (passing and running).

These religious nuts latch onto Tebow and say all kinds of things (basically coming down to "he just wins") based on complete ignorance.

They don't even know how bad Tebow is playing because they only have the attention span to look at a win/loss column and the intellectual fortitude to correlate a win with Tebow/Jesus while correlating a loss with anything else (i.e. the rest of the team aka "Denver").

Throw in strength of opponents and one sees that Denver was barely beating weak teams during the regular season and when "Denver" (as opposed to "Tebow") was losing to good teams they were getting stomped on.

[by my calculations, when "Tebow" won "his" opponents DVOA averaged -3.9% while when "Denver" lost "they" faced an average opponent of 2.3% - using Final DVOA.]

Take a team like New England - there average opponent during the season was very weak (as it was for NO, GB, Pitt, and SF). Despite such a weak opposition (average of -1.4%) they had a record of 13-3 with 513 points for and 342 points against.

IOW - good teams tend to stomp their opposition especially when the opposition is weak.

Of course, with NE's defence being worse than Denver's one would think that Tom Brady would be the one getting the attention for "he just wins" rather than Tebow.

But I guess it comes down to "he just wins championships" beats "he just wins."

Some in this thread vigorously deny that any such thing is occurring.

Yes, they are still denying it.

This is the non-sports Tebow thread, but the sports-related reasons for Tebow's success are, I believe:

1) really weak opposition. Up until last week, Tebow hadn't beaten a single team with a winning record all season. His previous 7 wins had been over teams with a combined record of 48-64 and none better than 8-8. The one time they did beat a winning team was last week, and the Steelers were pretty banged up.

Agreed - barely winning against weak teams and losing big against good teams (Pittsburgh excepted) says a lot.

2) a lot of help. Matt Prater's exceptionally long field-goal range got them 2 of their 3 overtime wins. Offensive line that helps Tebow and McGahee run the ball well. Denarius Thomas, not Tim Tebow, is the guy who killed the Steelers. If it were based on merit rather than celebrity, people would have been talking about Thomas all week, not Tebow.

Also agreed.

3) Tebow doesn't actually suck. He's a terrible passer (for the time being) but obviously his running ability helps make up for it. He's not a terrible quarterback and he might be good someday. But right now, he's the new Anna Kournikova: an athlete who generates an immense amount of hype despite very mediocre on-field performance. Kournikova had boobies and Tebow has Jesus, but they're both huge celebrities for reasons that have nothing to do with their athletic performance and a whole lot to do with appealing to people for non-sports reasons.

Disagree.

Yes, he was a terrible passer this past year (and who knows if he will improve over the off season) but he also was not as effective at running as people think.

According to footballoutsiders stats Tebow was 39th out of 47 for passers and 39 out of 41 when rushing.

That's what happens when you're a QB who likes to run and ends up fumbling the ball.

But people don't remember that - they remember the 6 TD's that he scored rather than the 6 fumbles.

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In all, I think this is why I hate the idiot fans of Tebow (as opposed to Tebow himself or to people who are fans of him because they hope that he will improve to be a good QB): one can't be a fan of Tebow if one has actually watched him and seen just how poorly he has played.

Sure, I subscribe to GamePass so I can and have watched him.

Thankfully I have also watched Cam Newton who really is a "miracle" and a "revelation" (pardon the pun) to watch.

I also have been reading footballoutsiders for years so I have an understanding of their methodology and their biases so I know that their stats are better than the simple stats coming out of the NFL game book.

When comparing Tim Tebow to the other QB's of the NFL for 2011 he played terribly.

Now, Drew Brees in 2003 played terrible too so it's not like Tebow won't improve.

Heck, Trent Dilfer played terribly over his whole career and he still managed to pick up a Super Bowl. [Ok, to be fair - he was average in 1997 and 2001].

So it's not like Tebow couldn't last in the league for 13 or 14 years.

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Sorry Shady for not keeping it non-sports.

Edited January 16, 2012 by msj