The Tim Tebow Trial – The MMQB

Timeline of Sunday night:

6:34 p.m. ET: FOX’s Jay Glazer reports the Eagles will sign quarterback Tim Tebow, unemployed by any NFL team for the past 20 months, on Monday.

7:46 p.m.: ESPN’s Darren Rovell tweets, “98,000 Tweets on Tim Tebow in last hour.”

9:02 p.m.: Assistant coach in the NFL who knows Kelly but does not work with him says to me, “This is not a prayer. There’s a chance here. If there’s one coach in the NFL who could figure a way to use Tebow, it’s Chip. Maybe not every week, but in spots.”

10:22 p.m.: College friend of Tebow tells me Tebow “is very excited, but also very low-key. He just wants to go in [Monday, to the start of the Eagles’ offseason program] and fit in and say nothing.”

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Tebow signing with most teams in the NFL today might not lead this column, especially because I’ve got two other items I really like. Tebow signing with the Eagles leads the column because, as my anonymous coach says, Kelly will give Tebow a legitimate chance to be one of his three quarterbacks this season. I say “chance,” because that is what this is. NFL teams have 90 offseason roster spots. Quarterback is clearly the most important starting position. The Eagles now have presumptive starter Sam Bradford, presumptive number two Mark Sanchez and presumptive fighting-for-a-roster-spot backup Matt Barkley behind them. Now it’s Tebow versus Barkley and free-agent camp arm G.J. Kinne.

This morning, Kelly has five quarterbacks on his roster, which will expand to 90 players in the next two weeks, once the draft and the signing of free agents is done. Kinne might be gone then. Who knows? Barkley might be gone then, traded or released. But Chip Kelly wants to get a good look for himself at Tim Tebow in the offseason program and presumably at training camp for at least a while.

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I don’t blame him. I applaud him. You’ve got 90 spots on your roster. If you think a player has a chance to help your team win a game somewhere down the road this season, wouldn’t you want to take a look at him for a few months—for free? Because the Tebow trial will cost Kelly essentially nothing. Tebow won’t be paid any significant money until he makes the team, if he does, in September. In 2010 he was a first-round pick. He has a skill set that fits in Kelly’s spread scheme with an emphasis on quarterback runs (at times). I still think Kelly wants to have a mashing-type running game, with a physical back (he has that now, in DeMarco Murray) and a quarterback who, at least occasionally, can be a running threat.

Let’s be real about what this is: It’s a trial. It’s a chance. It’s a coach who doesn’t care about the distraction of having Tim Tebow in his camp, because he thinks Tebow might help his team. And about that distraction thing: Did you ever hear Bill Belichick or Robert Kraft or Tom Brady talk about Tebow being a distraction in Foxboro in 2013, when Tebow was on that team for the whole of training camp? No. That’s because he wasn’t one. He was cut by the Patriots because he’s not an accurate passer and didn’t fit their exacting scheme. Cutting Tebow was justified. Tebow didn’t deserve to be on that team. He might deserve to be a cog in the wheel in Philadelphia. We’ll see.

Tebow getting signed by the Eagles is not the decline of western sporting civilization. It is a coach running an offensive system that’s a good fit for a mobile quarterback just looking into whether one of the best mobile quarterbacks in college football history—and one, by the way, who beat the Dick LeBeau-led Steelers defense in an NFL playoff game—can be That Guy. No harm, no foul.

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Hall of Fame GMs on Winston vs. Mariota

The slog continues, endlessly. The NFL places the draft an arduously, ridiculously long 123 days after the regular season, and so we are left to be bored silly for 10 more days. I’m at the if-you-can’t-beat-’em, join-’em stage this week.

Before we learn the real story behind the Malcolm Butler interception, and why I think Big Ben is bound for the season-opener, and finally someone going on the record in San Francisco on L’Affair Harbaugh,two voices of sanity on the great quarterback debate of 2015.

In August, Ron Wolf and Bill Polian will become the first general managers since 1995 enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Both are still active in the game. Wolf has been a consultant to several teams in recent years, most recently the Jets in a scouting and coach-and-GM-advisory capacity. Polian works for ESPN as an NFL analyst, and has been watching tape of college players preparing to work the draft.

“Both guys have a chance to be successful [but] the bottom line is … adversity will come,” Bill Polian says. “I’ve got to go with the more sure thing in my mind—Mariota.”

Polian had to choose between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf in 1998 as general manager of the Colts, and between Kerry Collins and Steve McNair for the Panthers in 1995. Wolf, as Al Davis’ chief scout with the Raiders two generations ago, was a key man in the drafting of Ken Stabler. As Green Bay’s GM in 1992, Wolf traded with Atlanta for a third-string quarterback named Brett Favre.

I asked both Hall of Fame GMs over the weekend: If you had to choose between quarterbacks Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota in this draft, who would you take?

In fairness, both answered with asterisks, which I’ll explain.

“I’d probably lean toward Mariota,” Polian said.

“If I had to pick, based strictly on what I know now, I’d pick Winston,” said Wolf.

The provisos: Polian said it’s unfair to make a definitive choice without knowing everything your organization would know about the mental makeup and off-the-field behavior of the players. Wolf said “it isn’t fair” for him to judge Mariota with finality because he’s done much more work on Winston, even seeing him on the field in warmups before the Florida State-Miami game last fall.

As draft day gets closer, expert opinions remain split on whether Marcus Mariota or Jameis Winston will be the better NFL QB. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

With those “yeah buts” out of the way, it was clear in talking to both men they have strong opinions on these players.

“I’ve seen Mariota on tape—I’d have to see a lot more of him—and I’ve seen Winston in-person and on tape,’’ said Wolf. “I’ve been exposed to Winston more. I watched Winston versus Miami before the game, down on the field, and then will his team back from a 16-point deficit. He’s an imposing guy. He has everything you’d want in a quarterback. I thought he was superb. What I know about Winston I like a lot. I’d take him in a heartbeat.”

Polian: “My answer has to be equivocal, because what I don’t have is the psychological reports on the players. Particularly on Winston, it’s beyond important. Combined with Winston’s 18 interceptions this year, I’d have to go Mariota.”

I asked: “If the psychological report on Winston was clean, would it still be Mariota?”

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Polian: “Very, very close. But I’d probably lean toward Mariota, as I said. It’s closer than Manning-Leaf was. Way closer. More like Collins-McNair in ’95. With Mariota, I don’t think playing from the pocket will be an issue; he did a lot of that in the eight or nine games I saw. And he didn’t throw 18 interceptions either. On 14 of those 18 interceptions, Winston didn’t see linebackers underneath or he zeroed in on the receiver regardless of coverage.

“But look, both guys have a chance to be successful. They’re both gifted. Both have superior tools. The bottom line is, I know you’ve got to be totally dedicated to the job, to go through the learning curve and all the tough days you’re going to have early. Adversity will come. And I’ve got to go with the more sure thing in my mind—Mariota.”

Wolf sounded like he saw some Favre in Winston. In 1991, when Wolf worked the draft for the Jets as their personnel director, he had Favre the number one player on his personal draft list. The Jets, who didn’t have a first-round pick that year, were about to take Favre in the second when Atlanta swooped in to choose him. When Wolf got hired by Green Bay as GM late in 1991, Favre stayed on his mind, even though in Atlanta he had a crummy, party-filled rookie season.

“You have to have a conviction in that job, as general manager,” Wolf said. “I had one about Favre. I thought he was the best player in the draft the previous year, so one year later, what am I going to do if I can get him for our first-round pick? At the time, our quarterbacks in Green Bay were Don Majkowski, Blair Kiel and Mike Tomczak—a 10th and an 11th-round pick, and a free agent. You look around the league, and some teams have first-rounders backing up first-rounders. My attitude was you gotta keep going after it. If you have a conviction on a guy, you better go with that.”

Memo to Tampa Bay GM Jason Licht: The moral of this story, this year, is there isn’t a 100-percent sure thing, for a variety of reasons. You’d better go with your gut. The gut sounds like it’ll be Winston as we sit here, 10 days before D-Day.

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