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Suspicion Confirmed: Why America Loves to Hate Tim Tebow

I had always suspected that the reason that quarterback Tim Tebow seems to generate so much negativity is his Christianity.

And I’m not alone in suspecting that.

I didn’t see Tebow’s recent game against Miami. I have, however, seen Miami’s recent Monday Night outing and can tell you that beating Miami is not an achievement (apologies to my mother-in-law, but she knows it too!). Miami is absolutely horrible this year.

Worse, I understand Denver was behind the entire game, and Tebow only pulled it together in the last few minutes to send the game into OT.

So, you can hate Tim Tebow because he’s a mediocre quarterback. Fine. But there are plenty of mediocre quarterbacks in the NFL, why does Tebow draw so much more venom from fans and commentators?

Erik Manning, quoting George Weigel, put the problem into focus. Tim Tebow gets so much negativity because he wears his Christianity on his sleeve.

If Tim Tebow never put Bible verses on his eye black, never appeared in Super Bowl ads with a pro-life message, and never evangelized or went on mission trips, then he would draw the average amount of fire an in-over-his-head-in-the-NFL quarterback would typically see.

But his Christianity seems to triple the shots he takes in the media and from fans.

Christohobia at its finest.

Posted in Apologetics

The Catch that Wasn’t

Sep 18

Posted by Cory Tucholski

Normally, I only do apologetics posts here. But I’m really incensed by NFL’s week 1 fiascoe in Chicago that I’m posting on it.

No matter how many times I look at this, I only see an amazing catch–the game winning touchdown. Somehow, the NFL refs manage to see an incomplete pass. How is that?

Image via Wikipedia

You can clearly see that Johnson has both feet on the ground, in bounds. The ball has broken the plain, which should count for a touchdown. In every football league in the United States of America, it actually does count as a touchdown!

But not in the NFL.

As a side note, if he had caught that outside the end zone, and stumbled into the end zone, it would have been a touchdown. But because he caught it in the end zone, the horrible rule that it isn’t a rule (it’s a judicial interpretation of a rule, but not written anywhere in the rulebook) takes effect. Calvin Johnson must maintain control of the ball for the entire “process” of catching the ball. This “entire process” is whatever the ref says it is. That means that a beautiful touchdown play like this can be erased at the whim of the referee should he decide to erase it.
It’s frustrating as a Lions fan, because there hasn’t been much for us Lions fans to get excited about over the past few years. The Lions have been a terrible team any way you slice it. They have completely bombed out their defense with (I think I heard) seven new starters this season. Which is good, because they have been seriously lacking on defense.

But they’re seriously lacking on offense, too! They haven’t been able to field a decent quarterback. The coaches have all been disappointing, to say the least. Firing Matt Millen was probably the brightest spot of the last decade, given that most of this disappointment is his fault. Finally, I see this moment in a game I was sure was lost, and I got excited. Then, the ref called it incomplete. I yelled so loud my son cried for the next half hour inconsolably.

So the Lions enter week 2 as 0-1 when they should rightfully be 1-0. I guess I should expect no less from a team that consistently failed to deliver when they had Barry Sanders on their offense. However, it would be nice, if, every once in a while, the Lions would produce a WIN.