Tim Tebow won't be on the ESPN set this time around / AP
Tim Tebow finally made up his mind Wednesday morning, about 34 hours before the start of the NFL Draft – he won’t be attending the festivities in New York City.
But don’t fret, Gator fans – there will still be plenty of Tebow throughout tomorrow’s four-hour broadcast. According to the NFL Network, Tebow will spend draft day at his home in Jacksonville, and the network will have a camera crew on hand to interview him if and when he is selected in the first round.
(Surprisingly, it seems as if Tebow has shut out ESPN’s cameras in this process, which is unusual for the former Gator star.)
Tebow had been one of the NFL’s 50 invitees to New York (17 so far have accepted), but instead will stay home and spend the day with his family, friends and coaches from high school and college.
“I want them to be involved, because it’s not just a special moment for me, it’s a special moment for everybody who’s been involved in my life,” Tebow said Tuesday in an interview with the NFL Network, before he announced his decision. “For me to just take it as this is my moment, I’ve worked hard for it, well that’s being very selfish. It’s their moment, too.”
The move makes a lot of sense for Tebow – he can handle the stress of the draft experience at home with his family, yet still get plenty of exposure through NFL Network.
Critics will point to Tebow’s draft stock as the reason he won’t attend. But the notion of Tebow being drafted in the first round is now a lot closer to reality than myth.
The buzz that Tebow would be drafted ninth by the Bills or 22nd by the Patriots has died down and been replaced by growing buzz that the Vikings will select him with the 30th pick.
“At No. 30, the question I think they have to ask is: Is Tim Tebow a starting quarterback in the NFL in one to two years?” NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said. “If you answer that question ‘Yes,’ I think you have to pull the trigger if he’s there at 30.”
Peter King of Sports Illustrated has Tebow going to the Vikings in his official mock draft. Newsday’s NFL reporter Bob Glauber predicted the same scenario Wednesday morning on ESPN2’s First Take.
Most surprisingly, ESPN’s Mel Kiper, one of Tebow’s biggest critics who said three months ago that Tebow would be a fourth-round pick and would eventually have to switch to tight end, even agreed Wednesday morning on ESPN Radio that Tebow to the Vikings at No. 30 makes a lot of sense.
And if someone like Kiper agrees that Tebow could go at the end of the first round, then it’s possible he could go even higher.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has written about Tebow multiple times this week. The Vikings already have a positive experience with the Gators thanks to Percy Harvin, and head coach Brad Childress was in Gainesville two weeks ago as the keynote speaker at Urban Meyer’s coaching clinic.
The Star-Tribune quotes Childress as being a big fan of Tebow.
“I just think he’s the ultimate competitor,” he said. “From that aspect, he’s an A-plus.”
But the newspaper notes today that it is “dangerous” to believe the Tebow-to-Vikings theory because the Vikings desperately need a cornerback. Todd McShay has the Vikings selected cornerback Kyle Wilson in his mock draft. It is also possible the Vikings are using Tebow as a smokescreen to encourage teams behind them to trade for the 30th pick.
Seven teams have held private workouts with Tebow – the Patriots, Bills, Browns, Redskins, Broncos, Vikings and Seahawks – and Tebow said in his NFL Network interview that he has no idea which teams are genuinely interested in him.
“You think you’ve got an idea of some teams, (but) some teams might be putting up some smokescreens, some teams might be telling the truth,” Tebow said. “You just aren’t too sure right now.”
