Tim Tebow lasted about three months with the Jaguars, and there’s a good chance his attempted transition to tight end will be largely forgotten when assessing his football career.
Troy Aikman isn’t ready to call Tebow’s tenure in Jacksonville a total failure, though, largely because the Hall of Famer believes a lot still can be gained from the 34-year-old’s short time with the organization.
“Albeit a short tenure, don’t discount the impact Tim Tebow had in helping Urban Meyer w his locker room culture,” Aikman tweeted Tuesday, shortly after Tebow’s release. “And knowing the respect Urban has for Tebow, his release sends message to team that this is business.”
Tebow and Meyer obviously have a strong relationship dating back to their time at the University of Florida, where they won two national championships together and the former won the Heisman Trophy as a quarterback in 2007. That bond more or less explains why Meyer was willing to give Tebow a chance to latch on with the Jaguars as a tight end this preseason despite him never playing the position and not playing in an NFL regular-season game since the 2012 campaign.
Tebow long has been considered a strong leader, no doubt. So, maybe he did share a little bit of knowledge here and there over the past few months. But the reality is it’s nearly impossible to jump back into the NFL after almost a decade away from the sport — especially at a new position, on the heels of spending five years playing professional baseball — and he therefore always was an extreme longshot to crack Jacksonville’s roster.
Despite Aikman’s claim, it’s fair to wonder how much pull Tebow really had in the locker room and whether any of his now-former Jags teammates will look at his release as anything other than an aging athlete who simply couldn’t hack it anymore.
