I'm not a Tim Tebow fan. I never have been, I doubt I ever will be. I don't like his alma mater. I don't like the Broncos. I don't love how he plays the game. I'm just not a fan at all.
That said, a part of me has been loving every minute of the "Tebow experience" that has taken over the major sports networks for the past month. I love it for two reasons: 1) some sports analysts (and I can say this because I AM one) take themselves and their opinions WAY too seriously, and 2) there is more than one way to skin a cat, and I love it when a player comes along that makes us revisit this.
This all came to mind for me this morning when, as I ate my breakfast, I found myself watching Skip Bayless (an unabashed Tebow lover) argue with Stephen A. Smith and Kordell Stewart about whether Tebow should be given the chance to remain a starting quarterback beyond this year. Smith and Stewart were toeing the party line with the vast majority of analysts when it comes to Tebow, and echoing words spoken earlier in the week by John Elway, that Tebow just isn't good enough as a passer to legitimately lead an NFL team and that thus his current 4 - 1 record this year doesn't matter. I heard the same sentiment taken further yesterday by Mike Golic, who essentially said that it wouldn't matter if Tebow led the Broncos to the playoffs and even won a postseason game, that he should STILL be replaced as quarterback next year because he just isn't good enough of a passer. And before that, I heard several analysts conclude that the Broncos winning these games with Tebow is actually a BAD thing for the franchise, because it might fool them into believing that Tebow can really be a quarterback when obviously he can't...because he's not a good enough passer.
I hear this sentiment echoed the most often...that we KNOW what is required for an NFL quarterback to be successful, and Tebow just doesn't have it. And that we should therefore disregard any results on the field that run counter to what we KNOW to be true and count those results as anomalies with no or even negative value. And THAT'S where I start to have an issue with this.
Because first and foremost, even beyond sports, what I am these days is an experimental scientist. My entire occupation is built on observing different phenomena under experimental conditions, analyzing all of the available data, and coming to a reasonable conclusion of what the data is telling us. And the "ignore results that don't fit what I already KNOW" routine would NEVER fly under a more rigorous, peer-reviewed examination process. Doing that is the very definition of bad research...when you do that, you are essentially biasing your conclusion out the gates because you are deciding what the outcome should be and trying to sculpt your data to fit it, when in reality any good conclusion has to be data driven.
Now, before I go too far down this path, let me emphasize that going too far the other way is a problem as well...Tebow only has 5 starts this year, and 8 starts in his career. That isn't nearly a large enough body of work to say definitively, "this guy is a WINNER, and he'll always continue to succeed at this level!". Another big part of the research process is statistical analysis, and the entire basis of stats is that if something happens enough times under diverse enough conditions you can then use that to statistically predict the likelihood that something similar will/would happen in the future. 8 games is NOT, repeat NOT "enough times" to make any kind of conclusion.
BUT. When you start putting the 8 games into a larger context...that the Tebow-led Broncos are 5 - 3 over the exact same stretch, with the same team, that the Kyle Orton-led Broncos were 4 - 14...that the present-day quarterback whose playing style (with attendant positives and negatives) most closely resembles Tebow, Vince Young, also has a successful career record (something like 30 - 17 as a starter before Sunday, in which he won another game as the replacement starter on a new team in a hostile environment)...this still isn't enough to say that Tebow has definitely found a successful way to win, but at the least it should be enough that he has earned a bit of lee-way time to try to prove his case without a constant barrage of criticism, even from his own front office.
Let Tebow finish out this season for the Broncos. Maybe the Broncos go 0 - 6 down the stretch, and it's no longer even an issue worth discussion. But if they finish the year 5 - 1, make the playoffs with 10 wins after starting 1 - 4 without Tebow...then by all means, Tebow will have earned the right to enter next season as the starter again. Again, without a constant barrage of criticism from both pundits and John Elway alike. Because despite what the experts think they know, they DON'T know that Tebow can't be successful as an NFL quarterback. And if Elway wanted to continue to know that his opinion was correct, he should never even have given Tebow the opportunity to start. Because once you start getting enough evidence that countermands your opinion on the table, you might have to consider that what you "knew" really was never right to begin with.