Somebody should ask Tim Tebow if he knows anything about the Canadian Football League, specifically the Montreal Alouettes, who own his rights, should he ever decide to go north of the border and pursue his dream of playing quarterback on a full-time basis at the professional level.
In what can best be described as Timsanity, there are multitudes of people weighing in on Tebow and his future. In fact, one website, bodog.com, has even posted odds in which league he’ll play next should another opportunity present itself.
For the record, the National Football League is the favourite at 4-7, followed by the Arena Football League at 5-2 and the CFL at 4-1. This is all proof that you can bet on anything if you’re so inclined.
Tebow has already exhausted stops in Denver, where he had some success in two years and created the touchdown pose that created Tebowing, the New York Jets, where he spent a year becoming nothing more than an irritation on the big butt of head coach Rex Ryan, to a few months with the New England Patriots, who cut him following the end of the recent pre-season. If his career was like a stock, you’d say he has become like Blackberry (side note to myself, listen to your wife and dump the shares while you can).
But Tebow still dreams of playing quarterback at the professional level. Patriots head coach Bill Belicheck, who has been blessed with the services of Tom Brady, has not ruled out that the team will re-sign Tebow. Put it this way: if the team re-signs Tebow, it means something is wrong with Brady or they need to find some other poor schlep to stand on the sidelines with a clipboard and take notes.
There will always be desperate cries in Florida, where Tebow made a name for himself at the University of Florida with his athletic prowess and religious beliefs, to bring him back home (yeah, I know he wasn’t born there). The Jacksonville Jaguars couldn’t do too much worse with him, while the Miami Dolphins are always looking for a quarterback. But if either of the Jaguars or Dolphins wanted him, he’d have been there and done that by now.
Chicago Bears rookie head coach, Marc Trestman, who can count Tebow among the many quarterbacks he has tutored, has shown no interest in him. Trestman is riding the wave of excitement and great expectations among Bears’ fans who hope he will bring the team’s moribund offence back to life. If Trestman wanted so summon Tebow, this would create a media frenzy. Right now, Trestman has enough to worry about without added media attention. Trestman is also a lawyer who can weigh situations from a variety of angles, and right now this is considered just a little too obtuse.
Right now, Tebow is taboo in the NFL.
So there’s this talk that Tebow should go to the CFL, as if it is some sort of Shangri-La for all those players who have failed to make it in the NFL. Many noteworthy QBs have come to the CFL from the NFL and have found it is like a Rubik’s Cube because of the expanded field, the extra man, the 20-second play clock and the vertical movement to the line of scrimmage which forces a symmetry that isn’t mastered by all. If the CFL game was so easy, it would be filled with many former NFL players taking snaps.
But it is not that easy.
The majority of the quarterbacks in the CFL were overlooked by the NFL coming out of university because they didn’t have the prototypical size of a 6-foot-5 statue that weighs 230-plus pounds. Yes, some of the new-breed pivots are smaller and can scurry around the field like water bugs, but the old guard literally stand tall and move like glaciers. The only NFL quarterback who had any true qualitative and quantitative success in the CFL was Doug Flutie, who subsequently returned to the NFL after eight years in Canada.
In the CFL, teams can put a player on their negotiation list, which allows them exclusive right to enter into contract talks. A team can have a player on its list for years, or the players can be dropped and picked up with the regularity of a girl who is known to do more than just kiss on the first date. The negotiation lists are confidential, but things have a way of becoming public, which is why everyone knows the Alouettes own Tebow’s rights. They also own Vince Young’s rights.
The current head coach of the Alouettes is Jim Popp, who also happens to be the team’s general manager. He took over the coaching duties this year after only five games when Dan Hawkins, who was hired as Trestman’s successor, seemed to have little grasp of the Canadian game. He was considered a curious choice to begin with, but Popp had also signed Trestman who came to the CFL with no head coaching experience and no background in the CFL other than three days as a guest coach. All he did was make it to the championship game three times and win twice in five years. He also groomed quarterback Anthony Calvillo, who was already good but took his game to a higher level with Trestman. He is playing in his 20th season and has accumulated more passing yardage than anyone else in pro football history. There is the distinct possibility Calvillo could retire at season’s end, if only because of concerns for his health. He is currently nursing a concussion and his status is unknown.
If indeed Calvillo hangs up his cleats, the opportunity would never be better for Tebow. Since Calvillo became the Alouettes’ full-time starting quarterback in 2002, his backups have spent little to no time at all taking snaps. The Als will need to address this situation if Calvillo retires.
Popp, who is trying to hold his team together as the interim head coach, has gone on record as saying he has had no talks with Tebow or his agent about coming to the CFL. Popp said this with such conviction, it was like the fictional character Michael Corleone denying he is the Godfather when asked by a U.S. congressional committee.
When — and if — Tebow even acknowledges his interest in the CFL, it will swing the pendulum towards what can be categorized as “a story with legs.” Right now, it is all speculation.
Then again, if you’re interested in betting on what you think he will do, go ahead.