If you can’t stand Tim Tebow, here’s the good news: This will be the last Tebow-related piece I write until at least August, barring some unforeseen incident involving a trade or the Rapture.
The bad news is that it’s going to be another long one.
The Denver Broncos’ improbable run ended Saturday at the hands of a Patriots team that dominated Denver in every phase of the game. So, too, ends Tim Tebow’s storied season, but not without leaving several questions needing to be revisited sometime in 2012.
1. By what specific set of criteria, if one exists, may Tebow satisfy his critics?
Tim Tebow’s harshest critics—just like his strongest supporters—remain resolute in their opinions despite any evidence to the contrary. But how many of his detractors can honestly say that he didn’t exceed the level of success they anticipated? Recall that Denver had gone 5-16 in its previous 21 games before Tebow got the starting job for good in Week Seven of 2011.
I would wager heavily that the critics would have gladly accepted the following proposition back in October: “If the Denver Broncos win the AFC West and then win a playoff game with Tim Tebow as their quarterback for that entire span, then we can rightfully call Tebow a successful and effective professional football player.”
Yet, many of those same people will now say things ranging from “Tebow will never start another game in the NFL” to “Tebow is still the worst quarterback in the league.”
Tebow’s future seems uncertain at best (see below), but his critics have been very consistent in following up each defeat with proclamations that they’ve been definitively proven right in their assertion that he has no future in the NFL. They’ve met his successes with temporary silence and eager anticipation of his next stumble. I would like for someone on that side of the argument to list a set of criteria that Tebow could meet that would “prove” him to be a “success.”
That way, if Tebow wins ten games next season and throws for 3,000 yards, or, say, wins a couple of Super Bowls down the road (which I personally think would be very unlikely), these journalists won’t have to bother embarrassing themselves any further by continuing to move the rhetorical goal line such that Tebow could never cross it.
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What I’ve Learned So Far
That’s one thing I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten older: I don’t feel the age I’m supposed to be. At least not right away. If someone asks me how old I am, “25” is the first number that appears in my brain before my conscious mind has the opportunity to override it. When I actually was 25, the number was 18.
Aging—or, rather, feeling one’s age—seems to happen in fits and starts, not in an unwavering, mechanical progression from year to year. One day, I’ll wake up and feel 36 or 41 or whatever age I happen to be at the time as the cumulative effects of moving to the next stage of life will have caught up with me at last. I’ll think to myself, “Well, I guess I’m not 25 anymore,” and then I’ll feel that age for a few more years until sliding into the next phase. For now, I feel 25.
I think I’ve picked up a few other lessons during my three decades of sentience. And, even though absolutely no one asked, here they are:
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