This morning's Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN found itself traversing very odd ground as panelist Trent Dilfer presented a package on what a great job Trent Dilfer did at making new ESPN hire Tim Tebow awesome at playing quarterback. How awesome? "Tom Brady" awesome, if you believe ESPN.
It's an odd turn from the network, which had previously finally acknowledged that yeah, maybe they went a bit overboard with the Tebow stuff. Of course, now that Tebow is pulling checks from the Mouse, everybody's back onboard to throat the NFL flameout. Even ESPN personalities who have nothing to do with Sunday NFL Countdown chimed in to praise all things Tebow:
That's helpful, Linda. The whole segment is a disaster, what from Trent Dilfer pimping his own quarterback development side-job while trying to get his colleague Tebow hired by an NFL team—and then you have random dudes who show up and say Tebow's as good as anybody in the league. Here's the full transcript as recorded by closed captioning:
A month ago i got a call from Tim Tebow asked me to come down to USC where he's been training and give him a brutally honest evaluation where he's at. As we know, this past week, ESPN and Tim worked upon a deal to work with the SEC Network however he last not given up on his dream to play as quarterback in the national football league. My job is to see if he can pass well enough for that dream to become a reality.
Actually, Trent, your job is on a news program, serving as an NFL analyst.
Tebow: Every day i push myself to the limit. Every day i'm going to find the most out of every day. I'm going to work, i'm going to strive.
>>You have to throw it earlier and stay compact. Perfect.
Tebow: I've been able to understand over the course of the last four, five months, what it means to have mechanics. What it means to have foot work. What it means to be able to control your body.
>>All right. Three step slant off coverage. I want it out. Right now. That's all i'll show you. Okay? That's why your ball on this side has a tendency to do that. Finish with some energy. There you go. Good, good. Nice, Tim.
Boy, that came off good, though.
The process of rebuilding Tim Tebow's throwing mechanics, started on the usc campus with performance analyst Tom Haas.
>>I've never had somebody this strong. Timing, see consequencing, mechanics.
Haas knows mechanics. Joe Flacco, Tom Brady have passed through his facility.
Who the hell is this Tom Haas guy? The closed captioning clearly identifies him as "Tom Haas," but here's how he's identified onscreen:
We Googled for both "Tom House" and "Tom Haas" with "3DQB" and nothing came up. ESPN is making an argument that Tim Tebow's skills are equivalent to some of the NFL's most elite quarterbacks based on the words of a guy we can't even find on the Internet. (Update: we found him.)
>>I considerably was looking at 20%, to 25% better with tim.
>>I remember looking at tom and saying, we got some work to do. If. I'm seeing a lot of mechanical issue, timing issues.
>>There had to be really hard days where 99.9% of people would have tapped out and you just must love football more than you love what football brings you to keep doing that. Is that fair?
Tebow: There's some question about that. There are a lot of time when you're just being honest about it that it can get tiring. It can get a little frustrating. And you have to find that place inside of you that wants it.
>>To watch day in and day out, the motivation involved, not just for this day or next week, but for every stinking moment of every day that you're here, it's a pretty strong motivation. That's what i saw with Tim.
>>Would you put at the top as much as you've ever seen?
>>Yeah. He's up there for me with a guy named Nolan Ryan. That's in the same sentence two different sports, but same motivational muscle.
There goes Tom Haas (House?) again! Now he's ranking Tebow right there with The Ryan Express! What other bullshit could ESPN wring out of this dude-who-might-not-even-exist?
>>For somebody tightening everything up, this flick to the wrist. This check down, run-aways, options. Those are the ones, quick, quick, throwing darts. You can beat them with the ball. Now, good. Good. Same speed now locate it right here. Zone! Good. Nice location, too. Right there. Everything was perfect. Everything was perfect. Start throwing it as you're going there. Don't get there and then throw it. One movement. There we go. Perfect. Boom.
>> Why keep this NFL dream alive when so many people out there say you shouldn't?
Tebow: Because i love it. And when you love something and you're passionate about something, you want to go after it. No matter what my outcome is, it's okay, because i'm not going to have to turn around and live with regrets and say, man, i wish i would have trained hard. I wish i would have pushed myself. I wish i would have done more. Because every day, i've pushed myself to the limit.
>>I spent 365 days of the year looking at quarterbacks. High school, college pros. I don't have all of the answers. I do know this. If you put Tim Tebow on a football field with four other NFL quarterbacks, you didn't know who they were, and just watched the ball. Don't watch the player, just watch the ball. You wouldn't know which one is Tim Tebow and you wouldn't know which one is the NFL quarterback. I want you to watch this in context. This is one of the greatest players to play college football and he didn't know how to pass. I believe now he knows how to pass. Every GM, every scout, every person out there should go at least watch Tim Tebow now, because it's a different guy.
[This has been a paid advertisement for Tim Tebow, professional American football quarterback.]
For kicks, here is a short gallery of "Previously in Tim Tebow on ESPN":
To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog.