The second coming: Grantland, Tebow and a manufactured crisis

By Joe Schackman 

Grantland thinks the NFL has a superstar vacancy that only Tim Tebow can fill. They couldn't be more wrong.

Football is filled with religious iconography and terminology. There is Touchdown Jesus, Purple Jesus and of course the Hail Mary, to name a few. But like Judaism and Christianity, football fans are divided on the most important issue of all: the Messiah. Some believe that the baby-circumcising-superhero known as Tim Tebow is a budding NFL star, while others believe he’s just another college football stud not cut out for life in the NFL. Yet either way, Tim Tebow will change nothing about the culture of the league.

Jay Caspian Kang’s recent piece, Why the NFL Needs Tim Tebow, is an article that only ESPN’s spin-off, Grantland, could dream up. It reeks of founder Bill Simmons’ arrogance, and comes from the same minds that drafted a 5,000 word article on why we watch Entourage without once mentioning the word “fun.” Grantland, which has been generally solid, has moments of absolute ridiculousness. And this is one of them.

The tag line of this piece asks whether the “country’s most popular league [has] a star problem.” The league Kang is referring to is, of course, the NFL, which features two of the most prolific quarterbacks ever (say what you want about Peyton but he will be back and will still be an elite QB). On the field, neither has shown signs of slowing down. This is the same league that every Sunday suits up arguably its most exciting player ever in Michael Vick. He might not go down as a great quarterback, but he is at least the most electrifying player the NFL has seen this side of Barry Sanders.

So in short Jay, no, the NFL does not have a star problem. Absurdly, at no point does the article even mention Calvin Johnson ‑ aka Megatron - the NFL’s newest and brightest star on the revamped Detroit Lions. It even leaves out the likes of Ladainian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, Mario Williams and Ed Reed.

But let’s ignore that the article’s basic premise holds no water and move to what this is all really about: Tim Tebow.

Tebow may be an unusual player in the NFL, but to call him a budding star is a stretch. He is one of the greatest college football players of all time, no doubt, but his skill set does not appear to be suited for the NFL. His delivery is too slow, even after cleaning it up post-graduation. His decision making is questionable at best. This is not say he will be an utter flop. Rather, it’s to establish that Tebow is not the second coming of Johnny Unitas, let alone the football messiah.

Now, Kang does bring up the important point that NFL stars are mostly seen personality-less, padded animals that put their bodies, minds and futures on the line each week for our enjoyment.

“And given the NFL's rules against showing the slightest smidge of personality, it's clear that the National Football League wants to keep those three words as its focal points. Players are fined for "excessive" celebrations in the end zone. They are fined if they want to wear any alterations on their uniforms. They are fined if they speak out against the league or its governing powers … It is a deliberately constructed process that breaks down the individual player and replaces him with the Shield, thereby allowing the league to choose who will shine.”

But nothing about this is unique to football today. The league was built on the back of faceless superstars. Does anyone really feel like we know anything about football players from any generation? Do we feel so connected to Gale Sayers or Lawrence Taylor? Guys like Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long maybe, but that’s because we see them on TV. And even then their “personality” is in reality just what they play on TV.

Journalist Jeff Pearlman released an all-encompassing biography on the late, great Walter Payton last week. In the book, Pearlman reveals that Payton was having extra-marital affairs and was addicted to pain killers. Since those salacious headlines hit the papers, Pearlman has come under extreme fire from former coaches, players and fans. In fact, most people slinging the mud hadn’t even read the book. They didn’t know, nor did they even really care to try and find out, what Payton was really like. It has always been easier to chalk revelations of the messiness of life up to things like writers trying to sell books, rather than admit that our heroes are actual, flawed people.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, Kang compares the NFL’s stars to the NBA. That’s just a horrible comparison. You cannot make parallels between a league where each team consists of 12 players and the other fields 53.

Regardless, do we even know that much more about NBA players? Is Chris Paul’s star power so different then Calvin Johnson’s? They may not wear helmets, but they are nevertheless so guarded and tightly wound that we rarely get a glimpse into their real worlds. Whenever we do, it’s a debacle. This past July, ESPN ran an article in which the writer spent a night out in Las Vegas with Lebron James and his friends. It was not exactly a flattering portrayal of James, but it wasn’t a smash job either, just a genuine look at Lebron in his element. Within hours, ESPN execs killed the story to make sure as to not ruffle the feathers of the NBA’s biggest draw.

Hell, we even knew so little about Tiger Woods, a one-man team/superstar/legend, that he brought the entire sports world and a Hall of Fame career to a screeching halt when news of his rampant extra-marital affairs broke in late 2010 2009. Having a face doesn’t mean we know them.

So then, what makes Tebow so different? What about his personality transcends the boundaries that someone like Peyton Manning is unable to break through? Kang tries to convince us that it has to do with his squeaky clean image from college. But to believe that would be to learn nothing from the thousands of squeaky cleans that came before him and, at some point, came crashing from their pedestal. It would be nice if Tebow is as good a person as we have heard throughout the last few years. But we don’t know, and I have a strong feeling that Kang has no idea either. Yet none of this stops Kang from making the bold claim that, between Tebow and Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, “neither man really seems to care about what the NFL thinks.” That is quite a lot to ascribe to two people with whom Kang has likely never an extended amount of time.

I’m not saying Tebow’s lack of transcendent influence is a good thing. The NFL machine that sucks in football players and spits them out 10 years later with chronic health problems and little support is no way to go about running a league. But to say that the NFL is facing a star problem that only Tebow can solve is a joke, and it’s an even bigger joke if Kang actually believes what he’s written.



--Adam Cancryn contributed to this article