Tim Tebow has denied reports that he told Jets coach Rex Ryan to keep him out of the team’s Wildcat package as the quarterback grew increasingly frustrated at the perception that he has quit on the team.
The controversy began shortly after the Jets game, when ESPN reported that he was so upset at being passed over for the starting job that he took himself out of the gimmick offensive packages the Jets use for a few snaps a game. As word spread, Tim Tebow took offense to the insinuations.
“For people to not know the situation and to bash your character and say you’re a phony, you’re a fake and you’re a hypocrite, I think that’s what’s disappointing and that’s what’s frustrating,” he told ESPN . “It’s a football game. That’s one thing, if you’re good or bad at football, but your character and integrity, that’s who you are as a man.
“That’s a lot more important. That’s what’s disappointing for me and frustrating because I take that way more serious than I’ll ever take a football game.”
Tebow hasn’t hidden the fact that he’s upset with the team for selecting third-string quarterback Greg McElroy to replace Mark Sanchez as the starter, but said quitting on the team was out of the question.
“I never said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do anything or I won’t do anything,’ ” Tebow said. “That wasn’t the talk at all. He knows that and everybody on this team knows I would never not do something if I was asked.
“That’s what’s disappointing, people saying, ‘You quit’ or, ‘You didn’t do this.’ That was not it at all. It was me asking to get an opportunity to play the position I love, which is quarterback. It wasn’t me asking out of anything.”
Whatever drama happens between Tim Tebow and the Jets will likely end after the team’s game this week against the Buffalo Bills. Several sources, including NFL.com, are reporting that Tebow is almost assured to play for his hometown Jacksonville Jaguars next season.