In Defense of Tebow

The following stats are of seven 1st round picks, the earliest drafted in 2009, the latest in 2012. Six are currently the projected starters on the team that drafted them. The seventh is Tim Tebow. How would you rank these players in terms of who would you want to start a franchise with?

	Career Starts	Completion Percentage	Yards Per Attempt	TD/Int	ANY/A	QBR per season
Player A	62	55%	6.48	68/74	5.5	34.7
Player B	42	58%	6.26	45/34	5.8	42.3
Player C	26	59%	6.19	31/25	5.5	45.5
Player D	24	54%	5.61	21/17	5.1	27.8
Player E	16	48%	6.71	17/9	6.5	34.3
Player F	16	58%	6.8	12/13	5.23	52.3
Player G	15	57%	6.55	14/17	5.6	26.6

*Notes:

Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt weights for touchdowns and interceptions and incorporates sacks. The research behind this reasoning can be found on Pro-Football-Reference. Here's an article explaining why ANY/A is an effective analysis metric.

QBR is calculated on ESPN. Although I don’t love the metric, and no comparison should be based solely on QBR, it is still better than QB rating, and does give some idea of a quarterback’s ability.

So who are they? Player A is Mark Sanchez, Player B is Sam Bradford, Player C is Christian Ponder, and Player D is Blaine Gabbert, Player E is the one and only Tim Tebow, player F is Ryan Tannenhill, and Player G is Brandon Weeden. Even without showing Tebow’s most tangible NFL skill (rushing) and his legendary intangibles, the only thing that Tebow lacks in comparison to his fellow quarterbacks is a starting job.¹

I’m not here to convince you that Tebow is the second coming of Jesus.­² I'm not even here to convince you that he's a starting quarterback (although the case could be made). I'm here to show you that Tebow's unfair characterization as a "Candian Football League player”, or the narrative that his NFL career has shown no promise is ludicrous. Whatever his throwing motion, or even his reported inability to read the game, the unbiased statistics show a quarterback who has had enough success at the position to warrant another shot. There are very few players who can play the NFL quarterback level at the elite position, and a lot of flotsam out there. Tebow's ability to make plays places him as part of that lower tier starter/upper tier backup group, and any person who thinks that isn't the case hasn't examined the evidence very closely. I'd love to hear any counter-arguments and opinions on the research, so comment down below.

Passing

When Tebow took over for Kyle Orton, the latter was 91 for 155 (58.7%) with 979 yards passing (6.32 YPA) and 8/7 TD/Int Ratio. After Tebow took over the second year QB went 126 for 271 (46.5%) with 1729 yards passing (6.38 YPA) and a 12/6 TD/Int Ratio. Tebow wasn’t that much better of a passer than Orton, perhaps not better at all. Keeping in mind that Tebow made just three starts before that season, he still managed to minimize the turnovers (one fewer interception in 120 more passes), and improve, or at least maintain, the performance of a legitimate NFL quarterback. Kyle Orton isn't going to fool anybody into thinking he's a Hall of Famer anytime soon, but he was a starting quarterback for 3 years, and has thrown for almost 15,000 yards and over 80 touchdowns in his career. Nobody would have a problem with Orton as an NFL backup, but Tebow is decried as not NFL worthy, even though Tebow led practically the same team from a 1-4 start to a 7-3 finish.

This is a good time to address the first complaint against Tebow. Tebow completes less than 50% of his passes! How can any NFL quarterback do that!?!?!?!³

But how important is completion percentage in the big picture? It's nice to watch a quarterback consistently completing all of his passes, but it's clearly not the whole picture. For a prime example, just look at the all time completion percentage leader, Chad Pennington. While a quite capable quarterback, Pennington is never going to sniff the Hall of Fame. The Football Perspective article from above shows that ANY/A is actually more predictive of future wins than completion percentage. So while Tebow's inability to complete passes is an obvious liability, the fact that his touchdown to interception ratio is so favorable, and that he throws for so many yards per attempt is an even more positive of an indicator of Tebow's future success. And a extraordinarily positive indicator at that. Theoretically, I could stop here and have made a diligent argument supporting Tebow's ability as a rosterable NFL quarterback by evaluating his passing, but Tebow brings much more to the table than just his passing.

Rushing

So let's talk about Tebow's rushing, a skill that more and more young quarterbacks are incorporating into their games. He was the second leading QB rusher in 2011 with 660 yards behind only Cam Newton, despite not playing the first four and a half games. He picked up only 5 less first downs than Robert Griffin III did this year (he would have been the third leading rusher in 2012 behind Newton and RGIII). At his position, he is easily a top 5 rusher even with the emergence of last year’s rookies and Colin Kaepernick. And while he fumbles more than Newton, he doesn’t fumble at higher a rate than RGIII, Kaepernick or Michael Vick, and the first two have so far gotten a pass on discussion of that issue.

As for helping the scheme as a whole, the Denver Broncos finished the season 1^st in rushing yards, and 6^th in YPC. That’s even accounting for the first 4 games under Kyle Orton when the offense averaged only 86.5 rushing yards per game. For perspective, Denver averaged 164.5 rushing yards per game FOR THE WHOLE SEASON (including Orton's starts). When sorting by attempts, you’d have to go down to the 12^th ranked Philadelphia Eagles (who had nearly 100 less attempts) to find the next a rushing attack that was more efficient than the Broncos that year. Just take Willis McGahee as a case study. He went from 3.8 yards per carry the year before (and getting released by the Ravens) to 4.8 yards per carry in 2011. This year he averaged nearly half a yard less per carry, and got released at the end of the season (although that had almost as much to do with his late season injury as his performance).⁴

This year with Peyton Manning at the helm, the Broncos were 16^th. And although they did change their offensive system significantly, they had only 65 less rushing attempts than last season and were still 8^th in the league in attempts. And despite the fact that they now have a quarterback who can 'open up the defenses with his passing' and an offensive line that was coming together as a unit for the third straight year (and had 'improved' tremendously the year before), they averaged only averaged a measly 3.8 yards per carry this season, nearly a yard less than with Tebow.⁵

Intangibles

As for the intangibles, those are hardly worth mentioning to the degree they’ve been espoused. We all know about his Christianity, his generosity and his hard working nature. We all know he is one of the nicest people on the planet and a team-first guy and a natural leader. And we know he found a way to squeak by teams during that 2011 season. But how can you measure intangibles versus just dumb luck? It’s hard to do. Still, there’s something to be said to how Tebow responded to his situation.

How about in that Steelers game with everyone doubting him? Tebow showed up big. He came through in regulation,with a touchdown and 236 yards in the air plus a touchdown and 50 yards on the ground, with no turnovers. And when the Steelers dared him to pass in OT, he answered. They gambled, he responded with a 80 yard touchdown pass. And while defenses may adjust in the “he can’t make a basic pass in single coverage in OT defense”, it was their prowess on the ground that pushed the Steelers to load up the box.⁶

And as miserably as he failed in the Patriots game that followed that, it’s important to remember to remember that that Patriots team went 15-2 against teams not named the New York Giants that season, and it would have been a difficult matchup for anyone, let alone when the defense collapses as the Broncos defense did that night. It would have taken more than a Tebow miracle after the 28 point deficit they developed in the first half.

Despite his failure to draw the Broncos out of THAT hole, Tebow has developed a well-noticed panache for 4^th quarter comebacks. He already has 6 to his name, and while you have to be in a hole to climb out of it, it traditionally says something about the quarterback to have the demeanor to succeed with the odds against you. He was second only to Eli Manning in 2011 in 4^th quarter comebacks.

There seems to be an intuitive sense that 4^th quarter comebacks should be important to the evaluation of the QB. Shouldn’t the better quarterbacks come through when it means the most and when the defense knows that you need the score?  (This would also be an interesting time to bring up the idea that Tebow is a “game”, not a “practice” player, and that he finds a way to ‘bring it’ at game time. However, I don’t know how true that is, so I won’t explore that any further).

There’s also correlation between 4^th quarter comebacks and general success at the position. The top five QB's in 4^th quarter comebacks among active QB’s are Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Drew Brees, who all have at least one championship ring and a starting job as long as they want it.⁷ Obviously the sample is biased, as you have to play a lot of games to make a lot of comebacks, but they all have 4^th quarter comeback rates at about 15% of the games they play. As you go down the list, those higher on the list are generally considered better quarterbacks. Matt Ryan has already passed Vick, Phillip Rivers, Carson Palmer, and Jay Cutler, four guys who have never quite cut their teeth as the “elite", or shown that they are guys who can take their team deep into the playoffs. Rookies Andrew Luck (4), Wilson (4), and Griffin (3) all have been lauded with general acclaim, and are already showing their 4th quarter chops. And if you look at the list of year-by-year leaders, most leaders (save Vince Young) were upper tier NFL QB’s at some point in their career.

Tebow has a rate of nearly 38% of his starts ending in him making a 4th quarter comeback, which is extraordinary compared to the other quarterbacks. He is 9-2 in one score games. Every game he started in 2011 that was remotely close he won, except the season finale against Kansas City. At some point, more than just luck and an excellent kicker is involved. The ability to make plays in crunch time has to enter some significance in indicating whether someone is a capable NFL QB.

Conclusion

Tebow deserves neither the hype nor the ridicule that he routinely receives. This is a man who followed up one of the most celebrated college careers ever by ably leading the Denver Broncos to the second round of the playoffs, before being ousted for one of the greatest passers of all time, and being pushed into the equivalent of football purgatory, the offense of the New York Jets. And despite being minimally used and entirely miscast on their team (Punt protector? Wildcat quarterback? Fullback?), he never complained once.⁸

Tebow succeeding in the NFL isn’t based on a position change, or some innate ability to win games, but on the cold, hard stats of success. This is, again, a guy with 16 starts to his name, who has played under three different coaches, and was supposed to be a project, not the finished article when he entered the league. A guy like Alex Smith was a joke before Harbaugh came in, and in the right system became a viable NFL starter and a legitimate game winner. And for some reason, teams are sticking with the guys mentioned earlier, believing that one day the talent they show will mature into an elite NFL starter. Tebow is at least a lower tier NFL passer, and an elite NFL rusher from the QB position. He’s a natural leader and hard worker. He has shown enough to be given a shot. Let’s look at that table again (abbreviated) and include rushing numbers.

	Career Starts	Comp. %	YPA	ANY/A	Rushing Yards/ Attempt	Rush Yards/ Game	TD/Int+ Fumble
Sanchez	62	55%	6.48	5.5	2.7	5.5	80/117
Bradford	42	58%	6.26	5.8	2.6	5.1	47/58
Ponder	26	59%	6.19	5.5	5.4	17.5	33/38
Gabbert	24	54%	5.61	5.1	2.3	6.2	21/36
Tebow	16	48%	6.71	6.5	5.0	28.3 (47.3 in 2011)	29/24
Tannenhill	16	58%	6.8	5.23	4.1	7.4	12/19
Weeden	15	57%	6.55	5.6	4.3	13.2	16/26

*Notes:

Touchdown to Turnover Ratio incorporates rushing touchdowns and fumbles

So, you say, what IS stopping teams from signing Tim Tebow?

It clearly isn’t about NFL QB skills. As they say, it only takes one team to believe in you (as Tebow found out in the 2010 NFL Draft), to get you signed. Hell, the Chicago Bears just signed a guy with 19 career touchdowns and 45 career turnovers by the name of JaMarcus Russell.⁹

Front offices take chances all the time on lackluster track records. The Arizona Cardinals viewed Kevin Kolb as a franchise QB (and handed over their top corner, a second round pick, and a fat contract to prove it) after a season in which he had a 61% completion percentage, a 6.33 YPA (4.52 ANY/A), and a 7-7 Touchdown to Interception ratio. He promptly spent the next year shuttling between failing on the field and getting fixed in the training room, before losing his starting job the next preseason to John Skelton.¹⁰

Guess how long it took the guy who spend the end of last season fighting John Skelton¹¹ and Ryan Lindley for his starting job to get a new NFL gig. Two weeks. Somehow his agent convinced the Bills that his track record is worth $13 million over two years. Tebow’s contract? Two years, $1.38 million, almost $12 million less. So whatever the experts say about Tebow’s inability to get a contract signed, it’s not at all about his ability as a quarterback. People take chances on a whole lot less.

It’s everything surrounding Tebow that scares teams. Don’t let anybody ever fool you; the only thing executives care about is their jobs. Not the organization's history, the fans, or the players. Luckily for fans executives incentives usually falls in line with what is best for the team (winning). But signing Tebow brings inherent risk for the executive. With JaMarcus Russell, the average fan might see a handful of articles and half a dozen mocking tweets, and forget about it. With Tebow, every fan gets an ESPN text alert, a segment on every Sportscenter for the next two weeks and a whole preseason of coverage. Suddenly the public knows your name. If your starting quarterback struggles at all, the chants will start up at every game: "TEBOW! TEBOW! TEBOW!" If you take this gamble and you fail, you’re crucified.

On the other hand, if you don’t take the chance, nobody really notices. No one is seriously questioning the Jets decision to not give him a chance to start¹² or the Jaguars decision to not pursue him. The worst case scenario for Dave Caldwell, the Jaguars GM, is that Brady goes down and Belicheck and has Tebow putting up Pro Bowl numbers (a la Matt Cassel 2008). Even if that happens, the next offseason Caldwell simply points to the numerous high profile Tebow critics and says nothing that he had heard said that this guy can play quarterback in the NFL. If he becomes a solid backup, a guy who inserts some creativity on the Patriots offense, no one even thinks about questioning Caldwell. Most fans don’t think about the opportunity cost of not pursuing players (unless they become superstars and the opportunity was obvious), only the cost of the players you did pursue. Why should an executive, especially one who just got this job, put his fate into the hands of Tim Tebow?

That little hypothetical details why people around the league are so hesitant to acquire Tebow. I’m sure there are teams that legitimately question his ability to play based on his mechanics and see him as unsalvageable. But there are also GM’s who might have taken a shot on a guy with a decent resume if there wasn’t the risk of losing everything they had worked for their entire careers on a guy who's still a virgin.¹³

There are just very few people with immunity in the professional football business, people that don't have to worry about their job at all times. With most “projects”, especially ones without the cost of draft picks or guaranteed money, there’s almost no risk. Tebow is different. 

And, luckily for him, the Patriots are different. Belicheck is the one coach in the NFL who can take a chance like this without feeling the full brunt of the consequences. He can contain the media, he’s got a certified Hall of Famer at quarterback,  and most importantly, is at no risk of being fired.

There’s a reason that Belicheck goes for it on 4^th down more than any other coach in the NFL. There’s a reason he takes chances on guys like Corey Dillon, Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, and Albert Haynesworth. Sometimes his gambles work (Dillon and Moss). Sometimes they fail (the artist formerly known as Ochocinco and Haynesworth). But he has immunity from the most dangerous cost of failing (getting fired) and he understands that in football, like in life, some gambles are worth taking.

The case of Tebow is not a case of every NFL team deciding in unison that Tim Tebow is an even worse quarterback than Jared Lorenzen.¹⁴ This was a case of market forces preventing one of the most high profile players in the NFL the opportunity to restart his career after escaping the abject diaster that was the New York Jets. You can’t argue that Tebow doesn’t deserve a shot when looking at the data.

The question is, why do people dislike him so strongly? Part of it is buying into the “beliefs” of NFL front offices. Part of it is the 24/7 coverage that Tebow faces. Part of it is that we as fans have become snobs, eager to declare “regression to the mean” before we even appreciate the magic we just witnessed. And part of it is that the easy access and ability to declare our opinions has made us all amateur scouts and analysts¹⁵ who are conditioned to reject Tim Tebow’s throwing motion.

But I know, I can’t convince everybody of Tebow's worth. We've been preached to otherwise too often. But, over 3300 words later, I say relax. Instead of worrying about how Tebow is an absolute piece of garbage, worry about something else, like say, what if he's actually Jesus and everyone who has cursed him out on Twitter is going to Hell? Now that would make a great Sportscenter segment.

ESPN, Wikipedia (as verified by various news articles) and Pro-Football-Reference were used as resources

Footnotes

1- And possibly an attractive significant other. This is going to get a little heavy on words and analysis, so I thought I'd have a little fun at the beginning. I swear that if you just want to read about Tebow, this footnote is entirely unimportant. They get interesting from the third one down. Except for the ones about John Skelton. You can skip those too (two).

Mark Sanchez- We all know that when he isn't dabbling in l7 year old girls, he does pull enough to land a few dates with Eva Longoria and Kate Upton. Like in football, his accuracy is poor, but, I mean, it IS Kate Upton. 

Sam Bradford- His history is a little mysterious, but he has dated model Karlie Kloss, and is rumored to currently be in a relationship with Kelsey Kurtz. I'm a fan of the consistency in the initials, although there's an off-chance that both of their middle names are Katie.

Christian Ponder- Have you seen Sam Ponder? If you're even the least bit attracted to women, that answer should be a yes.

Blaine Gabbert- Another mystery man, it appears he's dating former Mizzou basketball player Bekah Mills. Who does he think he is? Going out and dating a non-celebrity.

Tim Tebow- Currently devoted to our Lord and Savior. Which, if you think about it, is probably the most impressive thing he's ever done considering he won two national championships at the University of Florida. FLORIDA. The land of bikinis and retirement homes. That came out wrong. Let's try just "The land of bikinis." That's better. (Side note: He did date Camilla Belle for a while, if you really care for details and all that.)

Ryan Tannenhill- Lauren Tannenhill is actually all I remember from the 2012 draft. So there's that.

Brandon Weeden- Married Melanie Meuser in 2009. Which seems like a long time ago for a second year quarterback. He'd be what, a college sophomore at the time? So young to get married. Wait, what? He's 29 now? You're saying he's the same age as Aaron Rodgers? Oh. That's good for the Browns.

2- But, hey, I'm not saying he's not.

3- This is also a good time to note that he does complete almost 50% of his passes, which isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Tebow misses 1 of every 10 passes compared to his peers (if we assume 60% is baseline, although that's probably above average). It's not like he throws it into the ground every time and just makes a miracle pass to win the game.

 4- This year's Seahawks, generally considered a quality rushing team, had 10 less rushes for 52 less yards. The difference between Tebow and Wilson is only 171 yards, and Tebow was also slightly more efficient at 5.4 ypc versus 5.2 ypc. In addition, compared to McGahee, Marshawn Lynch is considered an elite running back. (If you believe that, great. If you don't, click this link for a preview of the 2011 season, where McGahee was outside the top 50 running backs for 2011, this one for a review of the 2011 season, where McGahee was not in the top 10 despite being 8th in the league rushing, and finally, on this article on the 2012 season where Lynch was #7 for the 2012 season. McGahee was #20, but note that we're also comparing 2011 McGahee vs. 2012 Lynch, not 2011 Lynch. Also, Bleacher Report is iffy, but can provide a decent perspective.)

5- Tied with Green Bay, the NY Jets, Indianapolis, and Oakland, a list of who's who in Can't Run the Ball Weekly. And yes, Manning uses the running game differently than Tebow did, so some regression would make sense, but that doesn't mean that they should fail so spectacular when running the ball, especially with the same O-line.

6- This is a good time to defend another point of contention from those who actually admit that Tebow had mild success as a starter in 2011. Yes, defenses will learn to adjust to Tebow, but the Steelers, with their vaunted coaching staff, had a whole season of tape to study on Tebow, and chose that gameplan. That gameplan failed. And although teams will adjust as they always will, Tebow will also improve and grow more comfortable. It's a natural process that most players adjusting to the NFL go through. And a player who has won a playoff game only 16 games into his career, he deserves a chance to show he can continue to win games. There's a reason that no quarterback since 1970 has started and won a playoff game and then never started a game after that.  

7- The only two other quarterbacks with Super Bowl rings are Joe Flacco (who until recently, and probably even recently, has not been seen as part of that "elite" group) and Aaron Rodgers (who has spawned his own articles- here, here, and here- on his lack of 4^th quarter comebacks).

8- In fact, the best the vociferous New York media could come up with all season (and I can't even find the article anymore) is that Tim Tebow apparently confided to his friends (or an "anonymous source") that he was frustrated with the New York Jets game plan. That's it? It's the heyday of Geno Smith firing his agent for not going #1! Who simply goes about his assigned role doing the best he can? This is the 21st century for Christ's sake.

9- And let's say hypothetically, that even if it was, it’s not like the NFL has some super track record of spotting QB talent. Lest we forget, Tom Brady was a 5^th round draft pick, while the aforementioned Russell was an overall number one. People in the NFL can get things wrong.

10- Not the dead English poet.

11- Still not the dead English poet.

12- In my humble opinion, starting Tebow could not possibly have been a worse decision than continuing to trust Mark Sanchez, and heaven forbid, Greg McElroy. Hell, they were planning to have Sanchez go at it for the starting job with a guy (David Garrard) who hadn't played in 2 years! Although good news for Jets fan, Geno Smith seems like he's going to fit in great into the New York Jets "headline or bust" culture. 

13- Which incidentally would be a hilarious problem to have. I would totally watch a movie where the main character was an NFL quarterback who couldn't get a job because he was a virgin. "They say football is a game decided by inches, his legacy would be decided by the fate of three." This is almost viable. Somebody get Christopher Nolan on the phone.

14- Shout out to the man who has a both a Super Bowl ring and a job as commissioner of the Ultimate Indoor Football League

15- I acknowledge the hypocrisy as I write this