Tim Tebow is being blackballed from the NFL as teams wary of the fanatic following and media circus surrounding the quarterback refuse to sign him, one NFL insider is alleging.
The unorthodox quarterback who has been followed closely by the media since his record-breaking days at the University of Florida seems as if he might be at the end of his NFL rope. After leading the Denver Broncos from mediocrity to a playoff berth in 2011, and defeating the favored Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round, Tebow has languished in the NFL.
He spent one uneventful season with the New York Jets, rarely seeing the field and never being given a chance to take over for the struggling Mark Sanchez.
When the Jets finally cut the quarterback in this offseason, he hasn’t gotten any attention from other NFL teams.
Yahoo! Sports veteran writer Michael Silver thinks he knows why — Tim Tebow is being blackballed.
“Yet as Tim Tebow’s career wheezes to an underwhelming halt, with less apparent interest in his services than Massachusetts funeral parlors have in Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s remains, something strange is happening,” Silver writes. “Against all odds, I’m starting to wonder whether the man who helped the Denver Broncos become one of the league’s most stunning success stories in 2011 is getting unjustly blackballed.”
Silver speaks an an insider who has seen the effects of “Tebow nation” firsthand. Nearly every movement of the quarterback has been reported on by a rabid press, even a shirtless jog he took in the rain during training camp.
All of this is leading to Tim Tebow being blackballed, Silver claims.
“He seems like a great guy to have on a team, and I’d be tempted to bring him in as our backup,” one NFC head coach told me Silver. “But it’s just not worth dealing with all the stuff that comes with it.”
If Tim Tebow is being blackballed, he would join other NFL players with skills to contribute being barred from the league. Terrell Owens, though well past the peak of his career, would still have skills to contribute but after years of locker room drama no team seems interested in signing him.
Some followers think it might not matter if Tim Tebow is blackballed or not. Though the ultra-competitive quarterback would likely prefer to remain a professional athlete, it’s believed he would still be able to make a healthy living on the speaker circuit. In fact, even though Tebow is out of a job he was still named as the Most Influential Athlete by Forbes.