Senior Bowl Surprises ?
Tim Tebow QB Florida – Big surprise! I never thought for one minute that he would struggle with his mechanics, did I? Oh, right…I did! Good grief, is anyone surprised at all? The truth is that Tim’s real problem is all in his feet. His release is not the real problem. He shows a good arm and is accurate when he throws in rhythm. He is fearless against a rush and his arm speed does not get faster when he sees the rush coming causing problems with accuracy. Tim Tebow is not Vince Young. When you look at my profile of Vince Young (in the free THR archives), you will see that what I said about Vince Young back then is what is being said about Tim Tebow now. I can only believe that everybody who thought that Vince Young would be the next great QB who would change the way QB’s are measured (from then on) are upset because Vince is not living up to their expectations and instead, is living up to mine. Let’s be honest — Vince Young’s mental stability is fragile. This situation at one time was almost a replay of the Ryan Leaf “Nightmare in San Diego”. As always, the next player usually feels the effects of a former bad decision and that next player happens to be Tim Tebow in spite of the success of Aaron Rodgers (QB Packers). Go figure!
So, what is the big difference between Vince Young and Tim Tebow? They played in the same offense, have the same technique problems coming out in the draft, but Tim is being branded as a 3rd or 4th round draft choice and Vince was the third pick of the 2006 draft! Tim has a stronger arm, throws with more accuracy, exhibits more football intelligence, has better work ethic, character, mental stamina and is coachable. Vince had none of these attributes at the time he was drafted. After I profiled Vince, I got inundated with e-mails suggesting I do things to myself that would cause me excruciating pain. Fortunately for me, I’m not flexible enough to do any of those things that were suggested, so I gave up. I did not have the work ethic or mental stamina to complete the task. Sorry about that!
I mentioned before the difference in Tim Tebow and Vince Young that did not involve techniques and now I’ll give you my suggestion on how to correct Tim’s biggest technique flaw. Tim needs to take some dancing lessons to address his footwork. His set up is too slow and he does not show quick feet. Add that to his long release and you do have a recipe for disaster so, what do you do? Do you pass on a kid that is an absolute franchise potential QB because he has something in his techniques that has to be corrected? If you did that, you would pass on every QB that comes out in the draft! You can do one of two things to correct Tim’s slow set up and feet. You can teach him to dance, coach him and wait for him to correct this problem and go through the normal growing pains of drafting a franchise QB or….you can bring in an offense that Tim can run right away and give your team, the fans, the coaches and a young franchise QB some success. The answer is that you can draft Tim Tebow and bring in the Pistol Offense. You can run every running play and passing play in the NFL book from a pistol offense. It seems simple to me… you can fit the QB to a system that magnifies his positives and minimizes his negatives. Isn’t that what most teams do when they draft a QB? Oh, by the way, don’t fall for that garbage that the pistol offense is difficult to implement. College players are learning it and they don’t get paid millions of dollars and have the practice time that an NFL team has. All you have to do is draft some very good players who have played in a pistol offense! You would be surprised how quickly the new teammates will pick it up! I have this saying… “Because something is new and different does not automatically preclude you from implementing it and being successful at it”.