Tim Tebow: The Jaguars Didn’t Completely Dodge the Bullet, it Grazed Them

I spent most of the day on Wednesday watching the riveting Tim Tebow trade saga unfold on twitter. It’s pretty clear that Jaguar fans have a wide spectrum of opinions on Tim Tebow ranging from “he should be the starting quarterback for the Jags” to “keep him as far away from a Jaguars’ uniform as possible.” The reality is that most Jaguar fans are somewhere in between: they don’t really care if Tim Tebow is on the team or not, they just want to win.

Even though most Jaguar fans want to move on as quickly as possible, it’s still worthwhile to consider the short-term and long-term ramifications of the Tebow saga. By now, most of the details of what happened Wednesday have been revealed and well documented but here’s a short summary:

The Jaguars tried to trade for Tim Tebow under the whim of new owner Shahid Khan. Ultimately, it came down to the Jets and Jaguars, with the Jaguars offering a slightly more appealing deal to the Broncos. The Broncos let Tebow choose his destination, and he chose the Jets.

“HA! Jacksonville? That place smells.”

So where does that leave the Jaguars? Let’s delve into the pros and cons.

Pros

• This shows that ultimately the man in charge of football operations is Gene Smith. If Khan really wanted Tebow, regardless of the price, he could have forced his hand. In the end, Khan let the football front office make the final decision.
• The Jaguars can develop Gabbert without the circus of Tim Tebow supporters clamoring to bench Gabbert after every incompletion. This situation has already been brought up multiple times in regards to Mark Sanchez in New York, and it would be significantly magnified in Jacksonville with Gabbert.
• Because Tebow chose the Jets, the Jaguar brass can now say, “hey, we tried but Tebow didn’t want to come here.”
• The price for Tim Tebow illustrated that no team in the league thinks he is a legitimate starting quarterback in the NFL. A starting quarterback is worth more than a 4^th and 6^th round pick.

Cons

• Even though Khan ultimately let Gene Smith control the situation, he still felt the need to impose his will in the front office. It’s clear he saw a business opportunity and a way to spark interest in the team, and he let that get in the way of what should be a pure football decision. Fair or not, he’s now opened himself up to criticism as an owner who interferes with personnel decisions, i.e. Jerry Jones and Bud Adams.
• Not really a con, but this is annoying: Jaguar fans now have to continue to listen to the complete garbage being spewed by most of the national media about the Jaguars. Not acquiring Tebow will now be spun as “the Jaguars failing to save the franchise” and “the Jaguars are so bad, Tebow isn’t even willing to go home and play for them.” I don’t need to name any names (I do that on twitter instead), but some members of the media have already left the Jaguars for dead for the 2012 season. These people are idiots. Period. We’ve already talked about how we feel about the national media on B&T but you can never bash them enough.

All in all, this worked out fairly well for the Jaguars. They were able to avoid the Tebow circus despite the efforts of Shahid Khan and we can now move on and focus on what ultimately will bring the Jaguars back to relevancy: winning.

– Daniel Lago