Hiding in the grass since mere hardship steered him into an early retirement, Plummer plummeted onto the scene this week by calling out current Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow for his beliefs. While everyone enjoys a good Tebow ribbing these days, Plummer’s background makes him an easy target for backlash.
When asked about the Broncos QB recently, Plummer had some choice words for No. 15.
“Tebow, regardless of whether I wish he’d just shut up after a game and go hug his teammates, I think he’s a winner and I respect that about him,” Plummer told XTRA Sports 910 in Phoenix on Monday.
“I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ then I think I’ll like him a little better,” he added. “I just would rather not have to hear that every single time he takes a good snap or makes a good handoff.”
All this coming from one of the sport’s biggest quitters in recent memory.
Sure, Plummer wasn’t the best at his craft, but the quarterback admits that he simply couldn’t keep up with expectations.
“I got to where I got tired of the perfection that was expected non-stop and endlessly,” Plummer told Arizona Sports 620’s Doug and Wolf. “I wasn’t perfect, I never ever claimed to be; I made dumb mistakes. I put our teams in bad situations, but you know I never gave up and I always kept trying.”
That’s right, a professional quarterback and former second-round NFL draft pick couldn’t handle the pressure of simply doing his job. He couldn’t handle adversity at the workplace, even at the sum of millions and millions of dollars. So he quit. At age 32. To take up handball. Seriously.
Whatever anyone wants to do with their career is their business, but when a man of such fortitude calls out a player getting by (and winning) on the skin of his teeth thanks to nothing more than hard work and persistence, it should fall on deaf ears. Just because he thanks Jesus Christ for spiritual guidance you have to tell him to “shut up?”
Says the 10-year-old in me: Why don’t you shut up? You’re a quitter.
And here’s a little reminder: Quitting is the opposite of everything sports and competition stands for, no matter the level. Quitting is exactly what you teach your son, daughter, student, protege, teammate and neighbor not to do. It’s the last thing, miles behind even failure, that you want to see or hear out of an athlete. Out of anyone, for that matter.
“No matter what I did it was never good enough,” Plummer said. “It just got to be, like, a little too much for me. … I just said, ‘Screw this, I don’t want to live like this anymore.'”
You’re right, “screw working harder.”
“Screw toughening up.”
“Screw football” and fade away, only to speak up when someone shines where you failed.
That’s probably what Tebow would say, right?
There are many things that Tebow says and does that irk football followers, but why is he singled out? Stevie Johnson actually blamed God for a dropped pass — is that what you’d rather hear, Jake? Follow a few athletes on Twitter, and you’ll see they seem to thank higher beings every day for each and every one of life’s little details. Not that it bothers me — it’s just the truth.
While this debate will never be resolved, what each and every football person can agree upon is that the former Gator has never and will never consider tossing in the towel. He’ll never pull a Plummer.
Tebow may not be the poster boy for quarterbacks — heck, he probably has the fifth-best arm on his own team — but what Tebow does represent is the drive, determination and everything you’d want in a teammate. Everything you’d want in a human being. Everything Plummer, who went 2-6 in his first eight starts, wasn’t.
Tebow, now 5-3 in his first eight starts, is the anti-Plummer — and for that, we should be singing his praises.
Gonna cry over that pun, Snake?
Photo via Flickr/hexacorde_x
