Tebowned

Faith is a word that gets bandied around all the time in sports. You put your faith in an owner. They put their faith in a general manager. They put their faith in a coach or manager. They put their faith in the players. They put their faith in the fans to cheer them on, and the fans put their faith in the players to make the right decisions. The players put their faith in the coach or manager to put them in a position to make the right decisions. The coach or manager puts their faith in the general manager to let them handle the players the right way. The general manager puts their faith in the owner to allow them to build a team they think will win. The owner puts their faith in the fans to come out and watch.

It's the circle of sports life.

Rarely have sports faith and real faith intersected so publicly and controversially as they have with Tim Tebow, the Heisman-owning, God-fearing, championship-winning, circumcision-performing QB drafted 25th overall by the Broncos Thursday night.

I choose to keep my faith strictly within the sports realm, where I see results. That's how I see the world, how it's chosen to open itself up to me. I certainly don't begrudge anybody else their right to believe what they want to, so long as they don't force those beliefs on anybody else. Did Tebow do that at Florida? Only his teammates know for sure. He may or may not have with his personal faith, but there's no doubt that he did with his sports faith. He was a winner, and that is inarguable.

Do I believe he'll be a winner in the NFL? I don't. I don't think he'll ever be a viable quarterback in a pro system where he's required to consistently and accurately throw downfield. I think he should be more concerned with Mike 39 Razor than John 3:16. My "personal" faith in him is low; I don't think he's the "Mile High Messiah." (Or as BorL put it the other night during the Nuggets' loss to the Jazz, "You're the most negative fan I know.") But this isn't about my personal faith - it's about my sports faith. It's about believing that Josh McDaniels, Brian Xanders, and Pat Bowlen have watched hundreds of hours of tape, and presumably know what they're doing because they know their team, and they know what direction it should go. It's about believing.

I believe Tim Tebow will bust his ass. I believe he'll work as hard as he possibly can, while under the employ of the Broncos, to make the orange and blue winners, in whatever capacity is asked of him. That's about all you can ask for as a fan.

To borrow from something called ChaCha, I'm going to call Tim Tebow "Tim Tivo." In ten or fifteen years, I'll either want to rewind and watch all the highlights, or I'll want to fast-forward past all the misery and the horrors. Tim Tivo needs to pause, take a breath, and play. It's sink or swim time, now, for the Jesus fish of the NFL. There is no middle ground, no gray area. There never is when it comes to a leap of faith.