Bear Grylls has a Netflix show out, “You vs. Wild“, that is not too different from the show that made him famous. It is an interactive show, where viewers can decide his fate by choosing the path on a quest of survival (now you can help him not drink his own urine). For example, in the first episode he has to save a Doctor deep in the jungle. He makes a dramatic entrance off of a plane right into a river (something out of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc). Almost immediately, the viewer must decide if Grylls should hack through the forest with his machete or use wade through the river to get to the Doctor. Next he comes to a crocodile, then must eat something disgusting, etc. etc. It goes on like that for 30 or so minutes. Over and over you choose how Grylls is going to navigate this intense life threatening world. Viewers can replay the episode and decide a different path. (I don’t know for sure, because I didn’t finish it, but viewers should.)
Netflix is realizing an opportunity sports fans have been wishing they could do for years…Choosing the outcome for another person is a past-time of arm chair quarterbacks. We all would have slid more if we were RGIII. We all would have entered the draft right after finishing in the top five of the Heisman voting if we were Bryce Love. We all would have called a run if we were Pete Carroll in SB XLIX.
Tim Tebow has another career he is trying to get going (rough segway, forgive me). He wants to play baseball. He isn’t great at baseball, but he is trying. Trying his damnest. Tebow isn’t new news. Frankly, Tebow is old news, but this NFL pre-season, I have been reminded of what could have been. I wonder, if we were to replay his episodes, could we have forced him to embrace just being a football player? Would we as the viewer saved him from himself. I mean, God made him to play football….
Taysom Hill is a fledging star, a coaches dream attitude player, an honest to goodness “do it all” kind of guy, the media’s “Swiss-Army knife” . Here is a fact: Taysom is insanely athletic and built for the NFL. He found an opportunity and he took it. His situation is much different than where Tebow found himself initially in the league (mostly due to the fact that Tebow refused to entertain any other position than QB and Hill wanted to just be in the league). But the other fact is that Hill has embraced just playing the game of football. And you must appreciate that paths to the league can determine a person’s belief. However, Tim Tebow, arguably one of the greatest college football players ever, refused to adapt and he died. His draft profile stated:
Tebow really struggles with his accuracy. Release is far to slow to fit balls into spots against NFL defensive backs. Release point and mechanics (elongated, wind-mill delivery which comes out too low) likely need to be altered. Was not asked to run through pro-style progressions and struggled reading defenses, especially those with NFL concepts, in college.
NFL.COM/COMBINE
Wait… what? He struggles with accuracy? His release is to slow? His mechanics are bad? He can’t read defenses?
Watch his best NFL game highlights below. The draft analysis ain’t wrong.
These are the highlights. His stats on the game: 10-21, 2 TDs, 316 yards. Four of those completions went to Demaryius Thomas for 204 yards, about 65% of all his yards. His career stats show a marginal quarterback. (I love that Tebow’s hometown on his ESPN bio is Manilla, Philippines. Sure he was born there, but c’mon. That isn’t his hometown. Someone tell me otherwise!)
There are glaring differences in Tebow and Hill style of play and ability to at quarterback. Hill looks like a better passer in the NFL and is much faster (dude ran a 4.40, 40. GEE!). However, they share the same underlying truth, neither are/were franchise or starting QBs. And that is okay. It is pretty rare to be a starting QB in the NFL. Just accept it!
Being an NFL quarterback is the most difficult job in professional sports. Easily. Remember when it was rumored a few years back that Brett Farve was going to come out of retirement? That was funny, right? Those same rumors came up again… this year. The NFL is the league that over-pays for mediocre QBs because it is so damn hard. People think that Eli Manning (2 – Super Bowls) and Joe Flacco (1 – Super Bowl) SUCK. Jimmy Garoppolo has made $42M with the 49ers in two season with only playing nine games, throwing 267 passes, and has a 12-8 TD/INT Ratio. The Niners bet the farm for a guy with little film or evidence he would bring them back to the promised land (Jimmy was SMART). Then on the opposite end, Andrew Luck retiring puts the Colts back 10 years. He is the reason they have been somewhat competitive recently.
Sorry for the tangent…. this has been an entire tangent and maybe a waste of your time. So let’s get on with it.
Tim, should have embraced being a football player, rather than demanding to being a QB. We all would have chosen to be like Taysom and embrace the role of just contributing to the team. Tim woulda smashed people on special teams. He would have had all of these fun offensive packages! Packages called “Gator” or “Manilla” or “Mets”. Hell, I guarantee he woulda had a TD off of a jump pass. But, no, he go on this weird ride as a minor league baseball player/CFB analyst. Look, he is, by the world’s standards of money and fame, very successful…. but I think he ignored his divine calling to be the reincarnation of Jim Thorpe. And suddenly, Taysom Hill is doing it. I guess some players just know what it means to be a willing servant for the greatest game ever.
