The Nuclear Option - Week 7 update

The trade deadline in 9 days effectively closes the door on major roster improvements. The odds of obtaining a starting-caliber player diminish greatly after then.  For the rest of the season, coaches are stuck with the players they have now, plus any left-over free agents they can scrounge up.

With that in mind, let's take a look at potential opportunities for Tebow:

The Nuclear Option - Week 6 update

Some development since last week. No need to wait for Monday night's game, as neither Luck nor Rivers is going anywhere. Let's take a look at potential opportunities for Tebow:

The Nuclear Option - Tuesday Morning Update

Wow, lots of changes since I last wrote about The Nuclear Option just a few days ago.  Most of the immediate opportunities have dried up for now.   The Jets, Raiders, Browns, Bucs, and Titans are going to go with what they have.  The Bills are going with chewing gum, duct tape, and unknown free agents.  The Jags are still in a state of denial.  Mallett is still a trade prospect at the deadline.  Details:

The Nuclear Option plays out

Last spring, in a blog post titled The Nuclear Option, I argued that Tim Tebow would be better to start this season not on an NFL roster.  I based my premise on the following assumptions:

1. No team would offer Tim a fair shot at competing for a starting position.
2. As a backup, he risked a repeat of the Jets debacle.
3. Several teams would lose their starting QB to injuries in the first half of the season.
4. Several more teams would discover their hoped-for starting QB stunk.
5. By midseason, several teams would be looking for a QB to salvage their season.
6. A desperate coach trying to save his job might be willing to take the risk with Tim.
7. If Tim was on another roster, he would be unavailable to take that opportunity to play.

So now we are 1/4 of the way through the season, and  the nuclear scenario has played out even faster than expected.  Below is a list of NFL teams whose franchise QB plans have already self destructed:

Patriots roster moves this week

Watching the Patriots roster moves over the last week.  There have been a lot of players subject to multiple moves, such as being released and then brought back, or signed for a few days and then released.  It is clear the last few roster spots are intentionally kept open this week to allow flexibility to bring players in for tryouts or to claim them before another team does.  The table below can help visualize this process.  Players subject to more than one roster move are highlighted in red.

Why did Bill Bilichick cut Tim Tebow?

It is hard for Tebow fans to take an objective view of why the Patriots cut him.  Tim's future has become more of an emotional issue than a rational one for us.  To get through the noise, we must learn to see the decision from Bill Belichick's point of view.

Sprinting

Lately I have been sprinting a lot.  If you are an older athlete, you should be too.

Sprinting, and by sprinting I mean really hard running at 100% of your capacity for short distances, is a great exercise.  Sprinting is an explosive movement that demands max effort; you are generating every ounce of power you can for every step. Sprinting recruits the fast twitch muscle fibers you may not have used since high school sports.  As a maximal effort movement, it stimulates the production of natural hormones that build muscle and burn fat. Just take a look at how olympic sprinters are built.  They do a little weight lifting, but most of that is from sprinting.

In my opinion, sprinting is far superior to distance running for older athletes.  The biggest loss of physical capability due to age after 40 is loss of muscle mass.  Sprinting builds leg muscle, while distance running breaks it down.  Look at world class marathon runners: skinny legs, spindly calves.  Now look at world class sprinters:  legs like bullfrogs.  I rest my case.

All Hail the ruthless brilliance of Bill Belichick!

Bill Belichick is an open book.  He will do whatever is in the best interest of his team, without regard to sentiment or appearance.  That's why he is one of the great coaches of his generation and will probably make the NFL Hall of Fame one day.  When Belichick does something, you do not analyze his actions in the context of appearances, agendas, or narratives.  You interpret and predict Bill Belichick solely in terms of how his decisions may benefit the Patriots.

Yet when Tim Tebow was cut on Sunday, some in national sports media immediately interpreted that action in the lens of their own narrative, namely that Tebow stinks so bad he could never be an NFL QB.  According to them, not even Bill Belichick could fix Tebow, and the Patriots had closed the door on him for good.  The media leaped to the conclusion that Tebow might be done in the NFL forever.

Right away I had my suspicions that there might be more to the story.  There were just too many things that didn't add up.  Why would they bring him in for long term development, and then cut him loose before he had the chance to develop?  Why would they install a package of plays for him during training camp if they didn't think they would get return on the time invested?  It just did not make sense for the door to be permanently closed as the media narrative would have it.

Tebow may not be done in New England

All the media have assumed that Tebow getting cut means he is done forever in New England.  I'm not 100% convinced yet.  Possible evidence to the contrary:

1.  Tedy Bruschi said so:

"I could envision a scenario where he [Tebow] is initially cut and not on the 53-man roster, but he comes back at another point down the line. Maybe multiple times ..."

A Play-by-Play Analysis of Tebow Against the Bucs

This week was another awfully tough week to be a Tim Tebow fan.  His stats from the game were awful, and honestly he looked awful.  However, as Bill Belichick himself pointed out, sometimes what happened is not so obvious unless you understand what was supposed to happen.  With that in mind, I taped the NFL network rebroadcast of the game and watched all of Tim's plays multiple times in slow motion, looking for any glimmer of hope.  Here's what I saw.

What is Belichick up to with Tebow?

There has been a lot of speculation and consternation about why Bill Belichick signed Tim Tebow.  Fans and detractors of Tebow alike have wondered why he was signed and whether he would make the team.

The answer is simple.  Belichick wants to force opponents to spend time preparing for the Read Option instead of preparing for Tom Brady.

What happened to Tebow on Friday?

Authors caveat: this blog post is written for Tebow fans, by a Tebow fan.  If you don't like Tebow and don't think he belongs in the NFL, then do not bother reading further because it will just annoy you.  If you do find yourself annoyed, please do not contact me to tell me how wrong I am. Neither of us is going to change the other's mind, so best to just save yourself the annoyance. You have been warned. 

The past year has been incredibly frustrating for Tebow fans. If there could be anything worse than being forced to watch a full season of the Jets, it was watching the Jets and not seeing Tebow play. Add to that having to follow the odious New York media, then listening to humiliating pronouncements last spring that Tebow was finished in the NFL. Yeah, it has been a tough 12 months in the wilderness.

Tebow fans were elated when he was picked up by the Patriots. Here was the golden opportunity he never had: to develop in an established system, under a highly respected coaching staff, studying under maybe the greatest QB ever. More than anything, it was the simple knowledge that we could turn on the TV and see him play again, even if only for a few quarters in preseason games. After 12 months of waiting, it would be hard to overstate how primed we were to see him play and how hopeful we were that he would excel.

Our hopefulness made his 2013 debut on Friday night doubly difficult to watch.

Quantitative Analysis of Which Teams are Best Fit for Tim Tebow

See below the fold a complete table of Tebow's potential to play with every team in the NFL:

Why no team claimed Tebow on waivers

If you are a dedicated Tim Tebow fan, the past few days may have seemed like a never-ending pile of indignities. First, the Jets drafted Geno Smith. Then the Jets released Tebow. Finally, today at 4pm EST Tebow cleared waivers, with no NFL team claiming him.
Tebow clearing waivers seems especially perplexing. Why did this happen? Does it really mean that no NFL team wants him at all? Ever?
No. His price on waivers was simply too high.

A quick primer on Tebow and the waiver system

If you are a Tim Tebow fan like me, you are scouring the internet for signs of his next destination. If you want to fully understand the process as it unfolds, you need to know how the NFL's rules for released players apply to him.
Because Tebow has less than 4 years in the NFL, he is not classified as a veteran under the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Therefore, he did not become a free agent immediately when released by the Jets. First, he must go through the waivers process. Here's how that works:

Cutting Tebow before the Draft would be stupid

The latest Tebow-hater theme is how dumb the Jets are for hoping to trade him. Obviously no team would ever give up anything of value for Tebow, so the Jets should just cut him now and be done with it. So the thinking goes.
I'm not sure how many of these people actually believe that, and how many are just taking another cheap and easy shot at Tebow. Heaping scorn and derision on various targets is apparently a major pastime of the Twitterverse and Blogosphere. For example, there are apparently whole online communities devoted to hating Anne Hathaway. Go figure.
However, in the case of Tebow, even national sportswriters have picked up this theme. For that reason, it is worth demonstrating exactly how facile their argument is.

Seahawks to join the "Nuclear Option"

Previously I wrote about The Nuclear Option.  To recap, that rather than accepting a backup job, Tebow should sit out the pre-season and wait for a team's QB depth chart to collapse during the season.  At that point, desperation to save their jobs might override a GM and HC's aversion to the "distraction" that Tebow allegedly brings with him. Several teams are in danger of finding themselves in that situation, mostly due to inaction during the off-season.
However, I did not expect a team to voluntarily move themselves into that category, and certainly not a team that got within one game of the Superbowl. But that is exactly what the Seahawks have chosen to do by trading away Matt Flynn and failing to obtain a suitable replacement.

The power of sleep

Last week I played three soccer games in 24 hours.  On Saturday night, I played a game of 8v8 on an over-20 league.  On Sunday afternoon, I played two regulation games in a row of 11v11 on a full sized soccer field in an over-25 league.  While both leagues are coed recreational leagues, both are also fairly competitive, with many players having played at the college level.  Everyone plays hard, especially in the 11v11 league.

I am 48 years old.  I have only been playing soccer for 3 years.  After the last game, I was physically exhausted, barely able to drive home, sore everywhere but especially in my lower body.

Yet the next day I felt fine.  I had plenty of energy and little soreness anywhere.  I even went to the gym for a squat workout.

So what happened?  Sleep happened.  I went to bed and slept for 10 hours.  I slept until I woke up and could not go back to sleep.

The Nuclear Option revisited

Last month I proposed that Tim Tebow consider the "Nuclear Option".  The premise of that option is that if Tebow cannot get on a team where he has a fair shot to compete for a starting position, he should decline to sign a contact and start the 2013 regular season as a free agent.  While a wildly risky approach, the reward would be the potential for Tebow to take a starting position once one or more teams' QB depth charts collapse during the regular season.  As a free agent he would be available when desperate teams start looking around for a lifeline, and he could pick where he goes, while he would not be able to take the opportunity if he was entrenched as a backup on another team.

Now that the major roster moves are firming up, let's look and see which teams are most likely to discover their plans suck.  Below are the Top 10 teams in draft order for the upcoming draft, and their likely starting and backup QBs.  All of them are there because of mediocre or poor QB play last year, and all of them hope to improve that play this year.

1. Kansas City: Smith / Quinn
2. Jacksonville: Gabbert / Henne
3. Oakland:  Flynn / Pryor
4. Philadelphia: Vick / Foles
5. Detroit: Stafford / Hill
6. Cleveland: Weeden / Hasselbeck
7. Arizona: Palmer / Stanton
8. Buffalo: Kolb / Jackson
9. New York Jets: Sanchez / Garrard
10. Tennessee: Locker / Fitzpatrick

Buying Tebow

Everyone is focusing on whether Tim Tebow will be traded.  But there are several ways for a team to acquire him:

1. Trade - Starting on March 12, any team can trade with the Jets to obtain Tebow.  They will have to give something of value in return, such as draft picks, other players, or cash.  Tebow keeps his existing contract, unless he later agrees to restructure. Most likely the Jets would take the most lucrative offer and not give Tim any say in where he goes.
2. Waivers - Because he has less than 4 years in the league, Tebow is not classified as a veteran by  NFL rules.  Therefore, if he is released by the Jets this year, he goes on the NFL waiver wire system. Each team has 48 hours to decide whether to claim him. The claiming team with the lowest standing last year gets him. Tim has no say in which team he goes to. They pay nothing to the Jets, and Tebow keeps his existing contract.  They can release him at any time, at which time he goes back into waivers. 
3. Free Agency - If nobody claims Tebow on waivers, he becomes a free agent.  Any team can make an offer, and Tim can sign with any team, at any time.  As part of the process the team will negotiate a new contract with Tebow.