http://mmqb.si.com/2015/04/20/tim-tebow-signs-philadelphia-eagles-nfl/
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The Tim Tebow Trial
The Eagles are giving a chance to the lightning-rod QB who hasn’t played a meaningful down since 2012. Here’s why it’s a smart move by Philly. Plus, two HOF GMs on Winston vs. Mariota, a new look at the Malcolm Butler Super Bowl play and more
By Peter King
Timeline of Sunday night:
6:34 p.m. ET: FOX’s Jay Glazer reports the Eagles will sign quarterback Tim Tebow, unemployed by any NFL team for the past 20 months, on Monday.
7:46 p.m.: ESPN’s Darren Rovell tweets, “98,000 Tweets on Tim Tebow in last hour.”
9:02 p.m.: Assistant coach in the NFL who knows Kelly but does not work with him says to me, “This is not a prayer. There’s a chance here. If there’s one coach in the NFL who could figure a way to use Tebow, it’s Chip. Maybe not every week, but in spots.”
10:22 p.m.: College friend of Tebow tells me Tebow “is very excited, but also very low-key. He just wants to go in [Monday, to the start of the Eagles’ offseason program] and fit in and say nothing.”
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Tebow signing with most teams in the NFL today might not lead this column, especially because I’ve got two other items I really like. Tebow signing with the Eagles leads the column because, as my anonymous coach says, Kelly will give Tebow a legitimate chance to be one of his three quarterbacks this season. I say “chance,” because that is what this is. NFL teams have 90 offseason roster spots.
Quarterback is clearly the most important starting position. The Eagles now have presumptive starter Sam Bradford, presumptive number two Mark Sanchez and presumptive fighting-for-a-roster-spot backup Matt Barkley behind them. Now it’s Tebow versus Barkley and free-agent camp arm G.J. Kinne.
This morning, Kelly has five quarterbacks on his roster, which will expand to 90 players in the next two weeks, once the draft and the signing of free agents is done. Kinne might be gone then. Who knows? Barkley might be gone then, traded or released. But Chip Kelly wants to get a good look for himself at Tim Tebow in the offseason program and presumably at training camp for at least a while.
I don’t blame him. I applaud him. You’ve got 90 spots on your roster. If you think a player has a chance to help your team win a game somewhere down the road this season, wouldn’t you want to take a look at him for a few months—for free? Because the Tebow trial will cost Kelly essentially nothing. Tebow won’t be paid any significant money until he makes the team, if he does, in September. In 2010 he was a first-round pick.
He has a skill set that fits in Kelly’s spread scheme with an emphasis on quarterback runs (at times). I still think Kelly wants to have a mashing-type running game, with a physical back (he has that now, in DeMarco Murray) and a quarterback who, at least occasionally, can be a running threat.
Let’s be real about what this is: It’s a trial. It’s a chance. It’s a coach who doesn’t care about the distraction of having Tim Tebow in his camp, because he thinks Tebow might help his team. And about that distraction thing: Did you ever hear Bill Belichick or Robert Kraft or Tom Brady talk about Tebow being a distraction in Foxboro in 2013, when Tebow was on that team for the whole of training camp? No. That’s because he wasn’t one.
He was cut by the Patriots because he’s not an accurate passer and didn’t fit their exacting scheme. Cutting Tebow was justified. Tebow didn’t deserve to be on that team. He might deserve to be a cog in the wheel in Philadelphia. We’ll see.
Tebow getting signed by the Eagles is not the decline of western sporting civilization. It is a coach running an offensive system that’s a good fit for a mobile quarterback just looking into whether one of the best mobile quarterbacks in college football history—and one, by the way, who beat the Dick LeBeau-led Steelers defense in an NFL playoff game—can be That Guy. No harm, no foul.