The last Tebow post for a while (maybe?)

I’m sorry to produce another Tebow post, but despite the huge amount of Tebow bashing that’s been going on, some people actually think he’s got a chance to suceed in the NFL. First, I’ll admit I’m a huge Tebow fan – and even as a huge fan, I think he gets far far far too much media attention/love. But that’s fine, it’s not really his fault that he’s a student-athelete who hasn’t gotten into trouble during his time at one of the premier college football programs in the nation, shattered Florida high school records, has a law named after him in Alabama, won 2 national championships, was the 1st sophomore to win a Heisman (and had the most first place votes this year (although I think Colt McCoy really deserved it this year), and spends his offseasons organizing charity flag football tournamets/mission work.

That’s terrific for him and an amazing list of accomplishments. But what about his NFL future?

Here’s an excerpt from Peter King’s weekly NFL column about the Tebow situation:

“I think Florida quarterback Tim Tebow made the right decision to stay in school, only because so many college players leave early and later regret it. But I think it’s nuts to hear the speculation that he might not have been picked until the third or fourth round had he entered the draft. That’s where Mel Kiper put him the other day. I’m not blaming Mel; there’s lots of that talk out there. But to suggest he’s some sort of maladroit (there’s your PKWOTW) and marginal prospect is demeaning and downright wrong. I will bet a lot of money that when Tebow comes out, he won’t get past New England in the second round; as much as Bill Belichick is around Urban Meyer and that program, I bet he’s become a huge Tebow fan as a football player — quarterback, goal-line back, something.

I agree with Meyer’s assessment: “When I hear people say, ‘I wonder if he can play in the first round,’ then I don’t know what football is. I don’t have any idea what happens in the NFL.” You tell ‘em, Urban. We’ve got Dan Orlovsky and Shaun Hill and Tyler Thigpen starting in the NFL, and we’re debating if a 6-2, 240-pound determined winner should be picked among the top 64 picks in the draft? Interesting. “

Tim Layden has a new article that brings up some interesting points about the potential evolution of the NFL game; the Wildcat formation is a package that many teams have at least incorporated into their offensive arsenal based on some of its early success (granted, as teams had more time to prepare for this offense, the Wildcat lost some of its allure). With so many run/pass dual threat qbs emerging in high school and college football..will NFL offenses change to allow these qbs to succeed?

The Tim Tebow experiment

Miracle at the Meadowlands!

So I was getting ready to do a post on the Miracle at the Meadowlands, definitely a unique play in NFL history. But..looks like ESPN totally beat me to it and was able to do research/interview people and stuff. All I had was a youtube clip. Meh.

In honor of the eagles-giants game (and because people are hating on our sportssceneit team’s lack of sports history knowledge), here’s the story behind the miracle at the meadowlands. The Giants are leading the Eagles 17-12 and it looks like they have just wrapped up a win at home following a late Ron Jaworski pick. All the Giants had to do was take a couple of QB knees. Instead, the Giants decided to run a play with a few seconds left (which is standard Madden XBOX protocol, but not so hot for real games). The play is so controversial that some of the players/coaches involved from the giants side still refuse to talk about, more than 20 years after the game. The Eagles (naturally) sent an all-out blitz on the play.

The ball was snapped and the Giants QB, Pisarcik had some trouble handling the ball. He turned to hand the ball off to his running back, but fumbled the exchange. An Eagles DB, none other than the Chiefs’ Herm Edwards, timed his jump perfectly and broke free through the line. The ball hit the turf and Edwards pulled off one of the most clutch scoop and scores in the history of the NFL. Ballin.

Isn’t spygate a big deal?

(Disclaimer: I don’t claim to know anything about football. These are just my opinions and are based somewhat on what I remember from reading ESPN analysts Sal Palantonio and SI.com analyst Peter King.)

Today Roger Goodell had a press conference “to clear up spygate” and “put an end to all of its controversy”. When this story first broke, I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal. I figured that all of the coaches in the NFL did something like this and I definitely didn’t think that congress needed to get involved. But after listening to a lot of former football players talk about the advantage conferred by these tapes, I’m starting to change my mind about the potential significance of spygate. The tapes released by Walsh today provide information about the down, distance, time, and defensive formation for opposing teams. Former football players say that this could have been used by the patriots by coming out in certain offensive formations that would then dictate the defensive formations. Mark Schlereth, an ESPN analyst, explained the possible benefit of this knowledge. He noted that the Patriots could come out in a specific offensive formation, such as I-form 2 tight end and that this would force the defense to respond with cover 2. This information would come from the game tapes of opponent defense tendencies, signals, and formations based on previous offensive plays. The offense could then call a specific play to bust the cover 2, such as calling a go route for the halfback out of the backfield.

That type of inside information would seem to give a huge advantage to Patriots. To be fair though, the Patriots’ brilliance over the past few years may be due to their innate characteristics, in the sense that the Patriots arguably have: 1) the best quarterback in the league in Tom Brady (in my opinion), 2)have had some of the best coaching staffs and strategies, and 3) one of the best defenses in the league. All of these discovered videotapes may have been an anomaly and may not have been used at all by the Patriots. However, I don’t feel if the slight possibility that they gave the Patriots an unfair competitive advantage in the NFL has been ruled out.

A lot of analysts have raised questions about the NFL’s handling/investigation of spygate. I can’t blame the NFL. If the patriots really did know the opposing team’s defensive signals and formations, this would definitely tarnish results from the last few years of the league. If “spygate” is a true, legit issue, then the nfl would have a couple of options, neither of which are favorable: 1) admit everything; have to deal with the possibility of removing the patriots from nfl records books; reversing the results of 3 superbowls, and so on; or 2) cover everything up, leaving many questions unanswered and ending a cursory investigation as quickly as possible.

If I were the NFL, I think I would go with option #2 too.