Tim Tebow Speaks Much, Says Little

Interview with Tebow comes just before trade deadline

There's been talk about Tim Tebow going into politics when his football career comes to a close.

Based on his interview with Manish Mehta of the Daily News, Tebow is a natural. Plenty of words come out of Tebow's mouth over the course of the conversation, but very few of them come with any substance or believability attached to them.

Tebow claims he's improving as a quarterback, even though he has taken just a handful of snaps at the position this season, and gives a particularly political answer about his status as the backup to Mark Sanchez.

Tebow says that he's never said the words "I'm a backup" because it isn't his place to comment on coaching choices, even though he'd merely need to point at the team's official depth chart.

Not that such a statement would really be important. No one asks David Carr to confirm that he's the backup, but, then, the Giants have never acted coy about the role Carr will be playing on the team. 

Rex Ryan, Tony Sparano and every other Jets employee making decisions about the offense spent all offseason talking about all the things Tebow brought to the offense and consistently trying to move the needle higher and higher in terms of how much he'd participate. It hasn't happened through seven games and the Jets actually seem to be moving away from Tebow having a role in the offense. 

It makes sense, then, that Tebow would throw a lot of words out into the universe without their being any reason to assign any significance to them. Tebow says a lot about being a good teammate and supporter of Sanchez, but there's only two reasons to wax on right now about being a better quarterback and wanting to play a bigger role. 

The first is to influence public opinion in his favor when Sanchez has his next bad game, something that probably isn't far off and probably isn't a bad idea given that public opinion is clearly the only reason he was brought to New York. There's almost no way that the Jets wouldn't have gotten equal or more value from the fourth-round pick they traded for Tebow as they've gotten from Tebow, so he has to be here as a celebrity first and a football player second. 

Since he's a celebrity, Tebow knows that the message matters more than the facts and he's using that to his advantage. On the surface, he says all the right things (just like the Jets), but the substance is almost totally non-existent (just like the Jets again).

The second is to make a last-ditch attempt to get some other team to make a bid for him before Tuesday's trade deadline. It's unlikely, but you never know what might happen in the NFL. 

Because of the aforementioned celebrity fetish, the Jets probably don't accept any trade but Tebow might as well get the drum banging for him in other cities now. It's impossible to imagine a future for him in New York since the team will either be sticking with Sanchez or going in an entirely new direction at quarterback. 

Like any good politician, Tebow knows that it is never time to stop campaigning. Just what you want a team to be doing before a key divisional game against the Dolphins. 

Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.

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