Manhattan offers worship services at all hours of the day, with some places bearing witness to the Good News till 4 a.m.—not to mention all those millions of nonbelievers walking around to convert—and a young player with a healthy thirst for Christianity could really have himself some fun here,” said Jets coach Rex Ryan, adding that the sheer number of churches in New York means Tebow could tithe himself into bankruptcy if he’s not careful.
Tebow has come to expose something weirdly profound in our culture. This is America, circa 2012: 43 percent of the people who know about Tebow believe divine intervention is a factor in his success. African Americans (60 percent) and Latinos (81 percent) believe God’s hand is reaching down to create more perfect spirals for #15.
Exhibit A in the case of our failed education system.
The inevitable end of the Tebow train. The New Orleans-San Francisco game was obviously the better game, but Denver-New England was equally compelling. For a second. The thing about the way the Broncos have played with Tebow of late is that it allowed anyone so willing to suspend their disbelief. “They can’t really hang with the Patriots.” “Yeah, but have you seen what he’s been able to do? You never know.” This is the real Tebow Legacy—and it’s why we love sports. Not because we want to see Tebow fail and not because people call him a “winner,” “gamer,” “underdog” or any other euphemism for “not very good.” We love watching sports because we love watching crazy shit happen. Sometimes that crazy shit is a wildly over-matched team beating its superior. Tebow and the Broncos piloted that roller coaster ride for half the season and made people think that the crazy shit happening before their eyes was actually more than just crazy shit happening before their eyes. It’s true, you never do know, even when you should know better. There’s no way the Broncos had a chance but even the most die-hard anti-Tebowists out there couldn’t have felt completely confident saying that going into the game. There is always that doubt—or hope, depending on your perspective—that something crazy and inexplicable will happen (Like Alex Smith and Vernon Davis looking like Steve Young and Terrell Owens). Eventually though, it becomes too much to handle and we want the world to right itself and last night it finally did.
Skip has a unique ability to at once inspire and infuriate, all the while attracting viewers. However, we also have talented sports personalities like Jemele Hill, Stephen A. Smith, Rob Parker, Jon Ritchie, Eric Mangini and others who have strong opinions and are able to back them up with knowledge and facts.
ESPN Front Row admits, inadvertently, that Skip Bayless does not have opinions that can be backed up with knowledge and facts.
But the intensity of the derision strikes me as unwarranted, in that it outdoes anything directed at, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, accused repeatedly of sexual assault, or other players actually convicted of burglary, gun possession and other crimes. In a league full of blithe felons, Tebow and his oppressive piety don’t seem like such horrendous affronts at all.
Frank Bruni, correctly pointing out that the well-meaning zealot, though we may find him unbearable, is usually better than the creepy maybe-rapist.
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