Tim Tebow to Jacksonville at #10

There has been talk in the last couple of years about the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars moving to Los Angeles or some other locale. I think Jacksonville can be a viable NFL franchise, and I’m rooting for them to take Tim Tebow with their 10th pick in the first round of the NFL’s 2010 draft. There are lots of reason’s why, but here is part of my argument.

I remember about four years ago reading a quotation from University of Florida coach Urban Meyer about Tim Tebow’s decision to pick Florida over Alabama. Coach Meyer said something like “If Tebow doesn’t come it sets our program back 10 years.” It seemed a crazy statement at the time, but it doesn’t seem so crazy now. There is something about the young man. He combines significant athletic gifts with intelligence and character.

This last aspect, character, is a big part of my argument for Jacksonville to take the “risk” of selecting Tebow so early in the draft. One of the great things that I appreciate about Tebow is his deep Christian faith, a faith that permeates his life pursuits and seems to have steadied him in the midst of the near idol-worship levels of devotion by Florida football fans. Unlike any other college athlete that I can think of Tebow has shown that he will invest himself not only in football but in his nearly home city of Jacksonville.

If they take Tebow, I think in 10 years we’ll be reading about Jacksonville being the model franchise of the century’s second decade, as Indianapolis and New England are argued to be the model franchises of the first decade of the 21st century. 

Indianapolis is a good example of the possibilities. In the run-up to the last super bowl Indy quarterback Peyton Manning spoke about how Indiana, because of the Colts, has been turned into a football state. This applies to Jacksonville because one of the arguments against Jacksonville as a football business is that “Florida is a college football state.” Tebow in Jacksonville, like Manning in Indianapolis, will change that.

The numbers on Tebow are clear (See SI.com article), as is his character. To be sure, he will now be tested in ways that he never before has, but I am rooting for him for a lot of reasons. One of those is that I think he has been unjustly criticized football-wise. Mostly, I’m rooting for him because it’s a pleasure to witness the young man’s commitment to his Lord and the humility with which he does it.

I think that Urban Meyer’s belief about Tebow going to the University of Florida will also be fulfilled in Jacksonville… If Jacksonville will dare to have a “non-traditional” quarterback.