By Mark Thomson

Before I start listing reasons why I think Tim Tebow will be an unsuccessful NFL quarterback, I want to first explain that I am in no way ‘hating’ on Timmy. Personally, I love the guy. By all accounts, he’s a great teammate and an even better human being. He’s one of the most popular players in the league (he had the fifth highest-selling jersey amongst NFL players last year) and is, as my good friend Caitlin Opperman ’12 once put it, ‘dashing’. However, I ultimately believe he’s going to be regarded as a bust. Last week’s game against the Dolphins was a perfect example of how bad he can be. In the first half, he completed three out of five passes, (one completion for every sack taken). After three-and-a-half quarters of football, he was 4-14 for 40 yards whilst leading his team to a whopping zero points. At that point, he averaged 2.86 yards per attempt and missed several receivers horribly. This was against a team that gives up well over 250 yards per game and hadn’t registered a victory in 2010. Yes, we all know that the Broncos ultimately pulled out the 18-15 victory. The Chosen One made some good throws down the stretch and came up with a huge two-point conversion that sent the game into overtime. However, good quarterbacks don’t put themselves in that big of a hole against winless teams led by Matt Moore. Even mediocre quarterbacks would be up by a touchdown at that point. I’m pretty sure the immortal Jamarcus Russell would have found a way to put points on the board. (Actually, scratch that.) The very fact that he came back to tie the game in regulation does a great job of hiding that for the vast majority of the game he was, in a word, horrendous. I’m much more comfortable basing my judgment on the larger sample size from Sunday’s game-54:37 of terrible quarterbacking versus the 5:23 of excellence. In overtime, he didn’t even attempt a throw. That’s how much confidence John Fox and his coaching staff have in their star quarterback who supposedly led the comeback. They let Tebow drop back once in overtime and he rewarded them by getting sacked for a three-yard loss. If it wasn’t for a DJ Williams’ sack and forced fumble of Moore in overtime, Denver kicker Matt Prater would have never been in a position to win the game. I’m probably placing too much importance on this one game. But looking at his statistics throughout his career, he’s completing 48.7 percent of his passes. That’s .3 percent higher than Ryan Leaf’s career completion percentage and 4 percent lower than that of Russell. In addition to his woeful accuracy, his throwing motion makes Philip Rivers look like Peyton Manning. He plays the quarterback position like the vast majority of his passing plays are broken. His physical style of play will likely get him injured sooner rather than later, as he shows no recognition of when to slide. He holds the ball far too long in the pocket, forcing his receivers to make plays for him on the occasions where he doesn’t take a sack. Yes, he’s charismatic. But one doesn’t win football games based on charisma.