Scott Cordischi On Sports: To Tebow Or Not To Tebow?

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalWorcester Sports Editors

To Tebow, or not to Tebow? That is the question!

Will the Patriots keep or cut Tim Tebow?

With NFL teams facing an August 27th deadline to cut their rosters from 90 players to 75 players and an August 31st deadline to get that number down to 53, many tough decisions will have to be made as to who to keep and who to let go.

For the New England Patriots, some say one of those difficult decisions will be whether or not to keep back-up quarterback Tim Tebow on the roster.

Base on Tebow’s play through two preseason games, he may be making Bill Belichick’s decision a lot easier than expected.

Tebow has completed a paltry 26% of his passes (5-19) for 54 yards. He has thrown zero touchdown passes while throwing one interception. His quarterback rating is 17.7 which is about ¼ of what Mark “Butt Fumble” Sanchez (66.9) finished his embarrassing 2012 season for the New York Jets.

In fairness to his holiness, Tebow has carried the ball 10 times for 61 yards in those two preseason games which is pretty good. However, an NFL quarterback needs to be able to THROW the football accurately first and that is something woefully inadequate at doing. Or, to quote the great philosopher Duane Charles Parcells (aka Bill), “he’s so bad, he couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a handful of rice!”

Given all that we have mentioned about Tebow’s ineptness as an NFL quarterback, Belichick’s decision should be easy right?

Not so fast!

Some believe that when the Patriots signed Tebow to his 2-year contract with no guaranteed money that this was a 2-year plan to try to develop him into a serviceable NFL signal-caller. So why would they walk away from at the very beginning or year one?

Conventional wisdom would suggest that wasting a roster spot on Tebow in favor of another player that could actually help the team this season is a terrible idea. Bill Belichick hates conventional wisdom.

In fact, there’s probably nothing more that Belichick (and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels) would love more than to turn Tebow into a very good NFL quarterback and win with him. Why? Because they love being different, innovative and they love to prove the naysayers wrong.

The Tuna was known to have some great one-liners while in New England.

If the decision to keep or cut Tebow were mine, it would be an easy one. Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you Mr. Tebow! But the decision is not mine to make.

And if I were a betting man, I’d say that Belichick will keep Tim Tebow around at the expense of someone else more deserving.

Chalk it up under Bill being Bill.

-Is anyone nervous yet about the Red Sox? Given how many teams are battling for both the AL East title and the AL Wild Card spots, I’m beginning to wonder if they will even be a playoff team this year.

-Two things that may bode well for the Sox are the performance of Jon Lester against the Giants Monday night in San Francisco and the fact that Clay Buchholz is ready to have a rehab start at single-A Lowell on Sunday. If Lester can finally pitch the way he’s capable of consistently and Buchholz returns to the rotation as somewhere close to the pitcher he was before going on the DL, Boston should be in it for the long haul.

-The only thing missing in New York with Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees is three rings and Barnum & Bailey welcoming everybody to the show.

The Eck has been very entertaining in the NESN booth.

-Speaking of A-Rod, why didn’t Ryan Dempster hit him at the top of his buttocks Sunday night? Rodriguez clearly would have been writhing in pain because a PED user like him must be tender in that area.

-I have one question for Major League Baseball officials who saw to it that Dempster received a 5-game suspension for hitting A-Rod: couldn’t you make it 10 games? How about 15? Maybe 20? Okay, that’s three questions.

-The two Major League ballparks I would like to catch a game in (preferably a Red Sox game) are Oriole Park at Camden Yards and AT&T Park in San Francisco.

-Given the charges his son is now facing, many are wondering if NESN’s Red Sox color analyst Jerry Remy will be returning to the booth anytime soon, if at all. In the meantime, I must admit that I enjoy the change of pace with Eck in the booth alongside Donny O.

-ESPN college basketball insider Andy Katz believes that Tommy Amaker’s Harvard Crimson, fresh off their NCAA Tournament win over New Mexico, have a legitimate chance to be a top 25 team this season and the ability to make a run to the Sweet 16. Heady stuff for an Ivy League men’s basketball program.

-Speaking of college basketball, word is that our old friend Rick Barnes is skating on thin ice in Austin, Texas. Coming off of a bad season last year, Barnes’ Longhorns just lost their leading returning scorer from last season to pro basketball overseas. 6’-8” forward Ioannis Papapetrou (8.3 points, 4.4 rebounds) has signed with Olympiacos BC. It is a reported 5-year deal worth about $2 million. Conventional wisdom is that if Barnes and the Horns don’t return to prominence (and the NCAA Tournament) this season, that he will be looking for a job.

Dustin Johsnon's biggest score may have come off the course.

-Unless you’re a golf fan like me you probably don’t care that the race for the FedEx Cup begins this week at the Barclay’s.

-Since it’s not a major, chances are that Tiger Woods should be a factor.

-And, while we’re on the subject of golf, PGA Tour star Dustin Johnson could do a lot worse than Paulina Gretzky (Wayne’s daughter), if you know what I mean.

-Meanwhile, Wayne Gretzky’s brother – Keith – has been promoted to director of amateur scouting by the Boston Bruins.

-Quote of the week comes from NY Giants LB and long snapper Zak DeOssie who sent a nice e-mail to his former head coach at Brown – Phil Estes. DeOssie talke of how much his experience at Brown meant to him and urged this year’s team to do its best t prepare for the upcoming season. He quoted the late John Wooden by writing, “failure to prepare is preparing for failure.” Well said.