Tebow drafted in first round

Only time will tell how Tim Tebow’s pro career pans out. But, so far, he’s off to a good start.

Despite all the haters who said Tebow wouldn’t get drafted or, if he did, probably wouldn’t be picked as a quarterback and certainly wouldn’t go first round, Tebow was selected with the 25th pick in tonight’s NFL draft. Good for the Jesus Christ Football Star. Unfortunately, though, Timmy was picked by the Denver Broncos, which, against my wife’s protest, means Tebow is now a four-letter word in this house.

On the eve of the draft, ESPN.com ran this excellent story about “Fame, Fortune and Being Tim Tebow.” Here’s an excerpt:

With Tebow, the unbending three-word rule is this: Expect the unusual. Once you accept that, it’s easier to understand the amazing phenomenon that has sprung up around him, or why the piping-hot debate about where he should go in the NFL draft has turned into something of a national obsession.

People love Tebow. People hate Tebow. People doubt him. People rave about him.

Tebow, more than any athlete in recent memory, tends to polarize people without doing anything really wrong. Or at least criminal. He’s been called one of the greatest college players ever. Yet he’s also been parodied as “The Chosen One” and blamed for the just-passed NCAA rule banning messages on the little black patches players wear under their eyes (though Reggie Bush actually started the trend years earlier). He’s been both celebrated and mocked for the way his hyper-intense college coach, Urban Meyer, had a post-defeat speech Tebow gave two years ago all but promising a national championship cast on a metal plaque, then bolted onto the side of Florida’s stadium to immortalize it. This, though Tebow still had his senior season to play.

Who else does this stuff happen to? Who else provokes these sorts of responses?

NFL talent guru Gil Brandt has predicted Tebow will be a late first-round pick. Others say he’ll be a bust wherever he’s drafted.

(skip)

When asked for the weirdest question he fielded during his NFL team interviews, Tebow says it came from a club executive who asked him, “Would you rather be the starting quarterback for our franchise, or the governor of Florida?”

Tebow, smiling as beatifically as ever now, said just what you’d expect him to say: “I told him I want to be a starting quarterback first. But later? Why not both?”

Read the rest here.