April 19, 2024

News Cymru

Two sides to every headline

Hasselbeck, Dilfer & Tebow – A Love Story

I was watching NFL32 last night on ESPN and the analysis just gets worse.

Denver had somehow managed to beat the Chicago Bears.

So ESPN had Trent Tilfer and Tim Hasselbeck  on saying how handsome and wonderful Tim Tebow was in the game.

How his feet were moving in harmony with his hands. How he was placing the ball away from defenders making it impossible for them to stop the pass. How Tim Tebow was destroying defences and so on and so forth.

What they failed to mention is that for 57 minutes of the game Tim Tebow had failed to put his team in field goal position.

What they failed to mention is that the only reason they won the game was because the field goal kicker Prater made an amazing 59 yard field goal to send the game into over time.

What Hasselbeck and Tilfer failed to mention was that the Broncos defense had kept Chicago down to 10 points.

Listening to Hasselbeck and Tilfer you would think that the Broncos won the game because of Tebow and not because of Prater.

It was embarrassing to watch.

Again Hoge was not on NFL Primetime this week and the level of analysis has gone down so far you now have Trey Wingo chiming in with his play “analysis”.

And then at the end of NFL32 Steve Young came in and you could see from Tilfer’s body language that he was hoping and praying that Steve Young was not going to take his and Hasselbeck’s analysis apart piece by piece.

You have to give it to Steve Young, he was the consummate professional.

He called a spade a spade, he said that for 50 minutes Tebow was an average quarterback and for the final 10 minutes he was one of the greatest players in the league.

Steve Young also highlighted a few things which Hasselbeck and Tilfer had not touched upon in any way.

Namely towards the end of the game the lines get tired, your offensive linemen and defensive linemen become more flexible and big holes start appearing.

This would certainly explain Tebow’s success the in the 4th quarter.

Steve Young also highlighted that what you do in the last 2 minutes of the game is exactly what Tebow did. Nothing special about what he was doing, it was standard operating procedure so to speak.

What Young highlighted was the Bears bad defense against the obvious passes which are made in the last 2 minutes of the game.

It was a bit pathetic to see Tilfer listening to the insight that Steve Young was bringing to the table and hoping that at some point Young was not going to say Tebow is a terrible quarterback for 50 minutes.

Fortunately Young let Tilfer and Hasselbeck of the hook big time, and they knew it.

The host of NFL32 has then gone on to say how the Broncos may consider having Tebow as a starter for the 2012 season but it is by no means a certainty. Thankfully someone on the NFL32 team put some perspective on the whole Tebow situation

Dont get me wrong, I am not against Tebow, what I am against is Tebow being pumped up by incompetent analyst cheerleaders on ESPN with fluff and no substance.

Tebow is exciting, no doubt about that but professional analysts need to show some perspective in the face of the mass media hype.

Thankfully Young came on and gave a true professionals performance. Hopefully we will see more of Young on ESPN, it is always nice to get the insights of a Hall of Famer.

Also, where the f**k is Hoge?

Get the latest updates in your inbox

I