When word spread Tuesday that the Denver Broncos were looking to trade quarterback Tim Tebow and that Tebow preferred to be sent to a team in his home state of Florida, fans, players and front-office execs all over the panhandle anxiously held their breath.
Now that Tebow has been dealt to the New York Jets, they can all let out a sigh of relief.
Because in allowing Florida’s prodigal son to become the Big Apple’s problem, the Jaguars, Dolphins and Bucs dodged a real bullet.
Tebow would have been a disaster in Florida, regardless of which of the state’s three NFL teams took on the popular southpaw and his traveling circus. And all of them, even the Jaguars — no, especially the Jaguars — are better off without him.
Sure, the Dolphins and Bucs had their chance at Tebow, and I don’t doubt that they each had internal discussions about acquiring the league’s most popular player after Peyton Manning pushed him out of Denver. But neither emerged as serious suitors, and for good reason.
In Miami, head coach Joe Philbin and offensive coordinator Mike Sherman are implementing a West Coast style offense that would have magnified everything that is wrong with Tebow’s quarterback skills, from his poor mechanics to his general inaccuracy and inconsistency.
In Tampa, the Bucs already have a franchise quarterback in Josh Freeman, and the addition of top-flight receiver Vincent Jackson should help Freeman elevate his play to the level it was at in 2010, when he threw for 25 touchdowns and six interceptions while leading his team to 10 wins.
Jacksonville, however, is in an interesting spot and did become a key player in the pursuit of Tebow, making the Jaguars the only Florida team with a legitimate interest in or shot at trading for the Sunshine State native.
And the move would have made good business sense for new owner Shahid Khan, who really had no choice but to pursue Tebow after proclaiming during a radio interview in January that he would have drafted Tebow in 2010 had he been the owner at the time.
But, in truth, a ticket-sales boon would have been about the only good that could have come out of the choice to bring Tebow on board.
A Duval County product, Tebow became a god at the nearby University of Florida and would have put fans in EverBank Stadium’s increasingly empty (and tarped-over) seats.
But that’s about all he would have had to offer the Jaguars' faithful.
And for a franchise that has won just one playoff game since the turn of the century and hasn’t finished above .500 in five seasons, that’s just not enough.
Tebow’s cult following would have all but assured him the starting job in Jacksonville — how could they trade for the local hero, fill the seats with the unspoken promise that he’s the future of the franchise, and then not play him? It would effectively have ended the Blaine Gabbert era before it ever really had a chance to get off the ground.
But the Jaguars’ most loyal fans — the ones who were there for the 1996 AFC Championship game, the ones who measure success by wins, not headlines and jersey sales — know that Gabbert, not Tebow, gives the Jaguars the best chance to succeed under center.
Sure, Gabbert struggled mightily in his first year leading the Jaguars offense, but he had everything working against him. The team traded up to draft him early in the first round, so the expectations were already sky-high. Then he had no training camp to prepare for his rookie season and no experienced veteran from whom to learn the ropes.
The veteran mentor he did have, perennial second-stringer Luke McCown, was so futile in his first two games that he was benched in favor of Gabbert, who was thrown into the fire well before he was ready.
And when he got there, Gabbert came to a few quick and painful realizations. He had an offensive line that couldn’t block, plus receivers who couldn’t get open (and couldn’t catch the ball even when they did) — problems that would make any quarterback’s job a nightmare.
But for all his struggles, Gabbert still showed signs of promise and still offered glimpses at the potential that led to his No. 10 overall selection.
In addition to the invaluable experience of having a year under his belt, Gabbert will have a full camp this summer to continue to learn, adjust and improve, and he’ll have a passable veteran behind him in Chad Henne — who, incidentally, once went on record as saying that Tebow is “not an NFL quarterback” — actually pushing him to be better.
The Jaguars also have already spent big money on free agent receiver Laurent Robinson, and they're reportedly looking to add at least one other quality receiver in either Lee Evans or Legedu Naanee later in the offseason.
A move to bring Tebow to Jacksonville would only have complicated things for a Jaguars team that is finally getting a few quality pieces in place for Gabbert and hopefully just starting to find its identity — and maybe some long-overdue success.
Owning a football team is certainly all about the bottom line, and Tebow would have helped that cause, to be sure. But it wasn’t worth the risk for Khan to alienate Jacksonville’s small but devoted fan base — fans who truly wants to see the team win more than they want to see Tebow leading the huddle.
The same conclusion ultimately derailed any chance of Tebow making his next home anywhere in Florida: It’s more important to win games and fill seats organically than to fill seats with a big name and then struggle to give fans a reason to keep coming back.
Tebow would have brought throngs of people to the gates wherever he went, no doubt. But on the field, he would have served as nothing more than an ineffective diversion from the real, significant problems the Jags, Dolphins and Bucs face.
In the end, Tebow is nothing more than a popular distraction, and one that the fledgling football state of Florida definitely didn’t need.
Follow Sam Gardner on Twitter: @sam_gardner
