My Pass Rush Plan For The D Line

I was on 1040 AM earlier this week and I was asked if the Bucs have a shot against the Packers. I said that they do have a shot but only if the Bucs defensive line dominates the game and gets Aaron Rodgers off his game. Now I know people are highly skeptical that this could happen and honestly while I think we have enough talent to do it I'm not sure we will get it done on Sunday either. However I did say the same thing two years ago before the game down here when the Packers were coming to town. And I think most people would agree we have more talent up front now than we did then. Sure enough that Bucs defensive line went out and had their best game of the season and helped lead the team to victory. But just like two years ago I understand the skepticism so I decided to post some thoughts about what our game plan up front should be in order to dominate their offensive line again in my opinion.

First let me talk about their Offensive line. The weakest link in my opinion is the left tackle. The reason being is his set is so predictable. He is basically going to kick step twice, then turn his shoulders and try to ride the defensive end past the quarterback. That makes it hard for a speed rush to work most of the time but it also opens him up to all kinds of well timed inside moves. My preference would be our right end take three speed rush steps up field low and hard then spin back inside but we don't really have a lot of defensive ends that like to spin. That is ok though because Adrian Clayborn has a really good inside rip move and a good bull rush to inside rip move as well. His biggest priority has to be to get off the ball low and hard first though. The reason is if he doesn't sell that he is going to try to run around the left tackle then he never will turn his shoulders and really jump on the speed rush. That means he will be in a better position to block the inside rush which will make it harder for Clayborn to win.

The right tackle is a back peddle guy and I'll be honest I always hated those kinds of pass blockers. He doesn't get much width on his kick step and he rarely jumps on the right end. What he wants is just to stay directly between the right end and the quarterback almost forcing you to run into him rather than around him to get pressure. The problem for the defensive end is that although the tackle is back peddling, he is also staying low and preparing to be bull rushed. So he tried s to give you only one pass rush to use in a bull rush and he is setting to block that same bull rush. That and the fact that Rodgers doesn't take many really deep drops makes for quite the conundrum for the left end.

I think the way you attack that guy is line up tighter (closer) to his outside foot, get a great get off, and try to beat him to a spot five yards behind his outside foot on every play. I believe that Michael Bennett has the explosion off the line and the speed to beat him to that point on a regular basis but this year he has started dancing at the line off his get off a lot. It is going to be hard for that kind of move to work this week because the right tackle isn't trying to jump on any inside fakes. He will just continue to back peddle putting even more space between himself and Bennett. I know the worry for most left ends most weeks is that the go too deep around the quarterback and allow him to step up in the pocket and or escape to his right hand. Just for this week I would suspend that worry. I would tell Bennett to speed rush outside until his tongue is hanging out. Eventually as he keeps beating the offensive tackle to that spot, even if he isn't getting sacks, it will cause him to adjust his pass set. And once he starts having to either bail out and or getting more width then he will be wide open for a bull rush/inside move. But I wouldn't try that until later in the game.

As for the two guards and center they aren't anything special but they work ok as a group. In general the guards are going to set back for speed and only jump set at the line either on play action or versus a blitz. Now this gives all of our defensive tackles the option of bull rushing or making a quick inside move off the snap. And because Rodgers doesn't take a deep drop its possible to get push in his face using just those two pass rush options. I wouldn't advise any of the guys to try to make an finesse outside rush this game because Rodgers is so effective at moving around the pocket and when necessary taking off up the field when he finds a lane to run. If you are going to bull rush you commit to it and go all in on the bull rush. If you are going to make a quick inside move do it right now and don't stop until you get inside and up the field. This will not be a game where the inside rushers can afford to be indecisive or get stuck at the line.

Now if you have been paying attention you might be able to paint a picture in your mind of how these different pass rush plans will all work together to put pressure on Rodgers. You have the right end coming inside getting quick pressure and cutting off running lanes, you have the inside guys getting push and or making quick inside moves to cut off running lanes and you have the left end coming around the horn in case Rodgers feels the push coming right at him from the tackles and right end and decides to escape by dropping deeper around the rush. And this isn't a game plan just for a few 3rd and longs, this is a plan I would have the defensive line execute on almost every drop back pass until their offensive line adjusted to it.

Don't get me wrong its definitely easier said than done for it to actually work out this way. The point is if every one follows their individual game plan and is decisive with their moves then it all fits together like a puzzle to put them in the best position to get pressure while not allowing Rodgers lanes to run around in the pocket.

I also believe the Packers' offensive line is susceptible to pass rush games but I would only use two. First and foremost I would use TEX games as the lead pass rush game. The defensive tackles start in a 3 technique, come off with a rip move in the snap then try to get to the offensive tackle's back. The defensive ends, and this is REALLY important this week, get up the field low and hard for at least 3 steps and when they feel the defensive tackle get to the tackle's back they loop back inside. If the defensive ends get up the field this week and really sell the speed rush the TEX games will be very productive. Especially since Rodgers will likely see the middle open up and believe he will be able to just take off running right up the middle. He will likely never even see the defensive ends looping back inside before they hit him. But if those defensive ends don't sell the speed rush then the game will get blocked up and give option time to slice our secondary up.

A TOM game with the two inside rushers would also be a good option against the Packers. I haven't had an opportunity to watch a lot of film and break down which way the center slides obviously but assuming the Bucs have then they should know which way the center is going in certain sets. And with the Packers' center being a guy who moves decisively to the side he his supposed to block and the guards taking deeper sets it opens it up for the defensive tackle away from the slide to make an inside move, get to the center's block and penetrate while the defensive tackle to the side comes off low and hard to attract the guard and center then loops around to the opposite B Gap. Its a little risky because if its run wrong or the center blocks in the opposite direction from where they anticipate then it could part like the Red Sea and give Rodgers a wide open lane to see down the field or take off running. But still it could be a home run for them so I would sprinkle it in.

The Bucs should definitely NOT us EX games this week where the end comes inside and the defensive tackle on that side loops around outside for contain. The reason is with the guards dropping back instead of coming forward its going to be hard to penetrate that B gap. And if the end doesn't get penetration the game doesn't work. I just don't see that working out well for us.

One overlooked advantage of using pass rush games also is that in my experience it helps defensive linemen recognize screens. The guys who loop inside or outside generally get to see the offensive linemen releasing down field. Thus they have an opportunity to get involved in defending the pass. That is extremely helpful when playing a West Coast offense like Green Bay's that uses screens almost as a part of their running game.

That would be my pass rush plan for the Bucs defensive line versus the Packers. It is just one man's opinion and for sure not the only way to get it done. But I do believe if they rush Rodgers in this fashion they would have a lot of success and as we have seen this year you aren't going to beat that guy with coverage. He is simply too good and he has too many weapons. But if he is on the ground he can't complete many passes so that is where my focus would be in the game plan.

See you on Sunday!

PS: Two things.

1. Albert Haynesworth doesn't seem to like to play with his left hand down. Its a small thing but technique wise it kind of takes his first step a little wide when he is lined up on the right side. For that reason I would keep him lined up on the defense's left side as much as possible where that isn't a problem.

2. JerMichael Finley isn't a good blocker at all at tight end. I know this post is about pass rush and the Packers aren't a big time running team but when they do dare run the ball with him lined up as a tight end at the end of the line our guys should totally dominate that match up.

Mike McQueary Is Full Of Shit!

A few days ago it was reported that the Penn State assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Mike McQueary, who was the graduate assistant in the Grand Jury Report that witnessed Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in the showers in the locker room in 2002, sent an email out to some former teammates of his from his playing days at Penn State asserting that he had in fact intervened to stop the rape contra the Grand Jury report and subsequent news reports about the issue. I believe the exact words he used were "he made sure it stopped".

When I saw this quote come come across my Twitter timeline it really pissed me off. First and foremost I thought it was bullshit. But even if he did more than what was in the Grand Jury report he didn't literally "make sure it stopped" because the whole reason there is an investigation in the first place is because there was another child who was sexually assaulted by Jerry Sandusky starting in 2007, five years later. And so I tweeted a message out to that general effect.

Subsequently there was a report from ESPN's Tom Rinaldi that an anonymous source told him that McQueary had in fact intervened. Now I am generally suspicious of any anonymous sourcing, especially when the source was termed as someone "familiar" with the investigation rather than someone who was actually "involved" in the investigation. Someone familiar with the investigation could literally be anybody including McQueary's own lawyer. But I decided not to question the veracity of the report because I felt like if it was a lie, with as big of a story as this all is now, some other news outlet would bring it all to light.

Two reports came out today that combined with some common sense make a strong case that McQueary is in fact full of shit.

Earlier today Sarah Ganim, who has done an awesome job reporting on this story even before most of us were aware of it, tweeted out this article. In the article she makes this declaration.

Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary never mentioned that he talked to police in 2002 after witnessing an alleged sexual assault by Jerry Sandusky of a young boy, according to a hand-written statement McQueary gave to police during the recent grand jury investigation.

The Patriot-News has viewed a copy of the statement and verified it through a source close to the investigation.

The Patriot-NewsPenn State assistant football coach and Jerry Sandusky case witness Mike McQueary has hired a law firm that specializes in employment issues. He is on paid leave from the university.

In it, McQueary states that he witnessed a boy, about 10, being sodomized in a shower and hurried out of the locker room. He does not mention stopping the assault, and does not mention talking to any police officers in the following days, the statement says.

The whole incident, the statement says, lasted about a minute, and McQueary wrote that he would not recognize the boy if he saw him today

Now its true that the Grand Jury report didn't have a transcript of everything every witness said. And that fact has led to plenty of speculation that maybe McQueary had in fact testified that he stopped the rape but it just wasn't included in the report. However this news account directly contradicts that notion completely.

Another claim in McQueary's email was that he had in fact gone to police, again contra the Grand Jury Report. But several outlets including USAToday looked into that assertion and found it to be false as well.

Those last two reports obviously call into question these new assertions both from McQueary's email and Rinaldi's reporting but I admit they aren't necessarily definitive. There is still a chance that perhaps he just didn't tell the Grand Jury about intervening but he had done so and it just didn't come up. Or maybe he did tell the Grand Jury and there just isn't any evidence that he did so. But if he did intervene and stop the rape that night in 2002 I just have one question.

What happened next?

I'm not talking about the phone call he placed to his Dad, we already know about that from the Grand Jury report.

What I want to know is after he stopped Jerry Sandusky from raping this young boy, by whichever means he employed, what did he do then? You have by his description a 10 year old or so kid who has just been sexually violated and I want to know what McQueary did to calm him down? What did he do to check and see if he was injured? What did he do to find out who the child was? What did he do to make sure that child got home safe?

But lets go back to the report from Sarah Ganim that I quoted. According to McQueary he probably wouldn't recognize the boy now if he saw him. And we know that so far investigators haven't been able to find the child and don't even know his name. Now you tell me how that is possible if McQueary really did intervene?

This wasn't some mugging in a dark alley that he just happened upon, this was a rape committed at his place of business in a locker room he was very familiar with both from his playing days and then later as a coach. So just yelling out for Sandusky to "stop it" and then continuing about his business wouldn't reasonably be considered enough to constitute "stopping" the rape.

And regardless of whether he called the police or not, he witnessed this child being raped and didn't attempt to call his parents? Or failing that at the very very least call him a cab to get home? Because Sandusky obviously brought the kid to the locker room with him or at least that is the assumption I think most people would have made that night. So if McQueary stops the rape how did the kid get home?

These are all questions that should have easy answers if in fact McQueary intervened and "made sure it stopped". But it doesn't appear any easy answers will be forthcoming. More than likely because he didn't intervene and he is now just trying to cover his ass.

And as outraged as I was when I was sure he didn't intervene that almost pales in comparison to the anger I feel now knowing that he is trying to sell this fiction that he did. I understand that some will want to give him the benefit of the doubt but for me there is just no rational way that he intervened and stopped this rape and yet he couldn't recognize that child today, he doesn't know his name and he didn't do anything in the way of making sure he was transported home safely by someone other than the man who was just raping him.

He and whomever Rinaldi's anonymous source is, is full of shit and should be called out on it.

Why Joe Paterno Was Fired: The Grand Jury Findings

I wasn't going to blog about this. I felt that all of the news organizations and other bloggers would probably inundate people with so many different articles and posts that nobody would care what I had to say anyway. Besides it seems that most reasonable, after reading the Grand Jury Report in this case, all agree that Joe Paterno had to go. The only folks who didn't feel that way seemed to be people that either did not read the findings and or just have lost their moral compass blinded by loyalty to someone they have always seen as a hero. In that case its not likely I would be changing their minds anyway.

But at this point I feel a need to blog about it because some of the reactions from last night when the Penn State Board of Trustees announced Paterno was out, both in Happy Valley on on social media, have so thoroughly disgusted me that I think I need a release.

Lets start with this, we are talking about this incident today not because of Jerry Sandusky anally raping a child around the age of 10 in the showers of the locker room at the football facility and being caught by a graduate assistant, although that is what makes this story so much more morally reprehensible.

No, we are talking about this today because six years later in 2008 the mother of another child reported to her son's school that Sandusky had sexually molested him as well. Abuse that started in or around 2007, five years after that graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno, Athletic Director Tim Curley, Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Gary Schultz, University President Graham Spanier, and Executive Director of Second Mile Dr. Jack Raykovitz all had an opportunity if not a duty to stop Sandusky's serial underage rape of underage boys that stretched back at least into the mid 1990s with just one phone call to the police.

But not a single one of them placed that phone call. And we now know that their collective inaction led to at least one more little boy being molested.

These are Penn State University officials and an Executive Director of a non profit who refused to do what officials from a high school had the good sense and courage to do almost immediately in 2008, report the crime to the police.

Side note: I've seen some on social media repeating the lie that Paterno or Schultz or Curley or Spanier reported the crime to campus police. According to the Grand Jury Report that is demonstrably false. They investigated and no report was made to either a police entity nor a Child Protective Service official, which is required by law in such a situation, by any of them . And that is precisely why Curley and Schultz have been charged. Don't ask me to tell you why Paterno et al wasn't charged as well because I have no answers. I will say that if the law declares that what McQueary and Paterno did was "enough" then its obviously time to change that law.

It is precisely because of the investigation of the assaults reported in 2008 that we know anything about the other seven victims unearthed by the Grand Jury. Otherwise Sandusky would probably still be freely sexually assaulting little boys and that 2002 situation would likely still be swept under the rug.

He did "enough" or he did "what he was supposed do".

Ive heard Paterno apologists spew that garbage since the arrests and allegations came down last weekend. But if the fact that another child was molested after Paterno knew about the sexual assault Sandusky committed in the showers on a young boy isn't enough to prove what Paterno did in the aftermath wasn't enough, lets go back to 1998.

In 1998 Jerry Sandusky was Joe Paterno's Defensive Coordinator and had been for more than 20 years. It was also the year that a yet different mother had to report Sandusky for molesting her child. Where did this occur? In a shower. During the course of the investigation Sandusky both admitted to police that he had showered with this woman's little boy and possibly had sexual contact with him (he used the word "maybe"), he was also over heard by the police admitting the same directly to the child's mother.

Now I can't fathom how he wasn't charged in that case and I imagine most other reasonable people cant either. And unfortunately we may never get to the bottom of how that happened because the prosecutor assigned to the case has been missing since 2005 and is now presumed dead. However according to the Grand Jury Report Gary Shultz admitted that he was aware of the 1998 investigation and that the University Police, which are under his umbrella, reviewed the case against Sandusky. Further he admitted the similarities in the two cases of something sexually inappropriate happening between Sandusky and a child in the showers!!!

The report doesn't express whether Joe Paterno was aware of the 1998 investigation and or also saw the similarities in the two assaults, but lets look at what happened a year later in 1999. Sandusky was long thought to be the heir apparent to Paterno as Head Coach of the Penn State football team and he was in the prime of his career coaching wise at 55 years of age when suddenly he "resigned". But in the Grand Jury Report we do learn that just a year after he avoided being charged with molesting a child in 1998, Sandusky was molesting yet another little boy who was told by Sandusky himself that Paterno informed him he would not be the next Head Coach in May of 1998 shortly before he "resigned".

Don't you have to wonder what precipitated this meeting and change of heart from Paterno towards a man who had coached under him for so long and helped him win 2 National Championships? Don't you have to wonder what the justification was that Paterno gave him that day?

Biggest of all don't you have to believe that Joe Paterno, who many have thought over the years was the most powerful man in Pennsylvania and many more have been sure was the most powerful man in Happy Valley, knew all about the 1998 investigation?

And if that was indeed the case how can anyone look themselves in the mirror and believe that Paterno did "enough" in 2002 when a very similar assault occurred, and when he knew that Sandusky was never reported to police and instead was just "disciplined" by the Athletic Director. I mean Sandusky was still allowed on campus at least up until last year. Am I or you or anybody else supposed to believe that Paterno never saw him on campus over the last 9 years acting as if nothing ever happened?

While I'm at it I have to point out how absurd going to the Athletic Director about someone who is no longer employed by the University is. What exactly was the Athletic Director going to do? He couldn't fire him, he couldn't suspend him. I suppose he could have rescinded his privileges on campus but he didn't even do that. Instead he "banned" Sandusky from bringing kids on campus with him, as if the kids just there was the problem. And Curley himself admitted the "ban" wasn't even enforceable. The Grand Jury Report doesn't explicitly saw Paterno was told what the "punishment" would be for Sandusky but it does say McQueary, the graduate assistant, was told. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to whether Paterno was told too but in my ind its not even a question.

For some reason when discussing Paterno's firing some people bring up McQueary and the fact that he hasn't been fired yet as some reason to be upset or push back on the idea Paterno deserved to be. Well for me its simple. They both deserve to be fired and probably prosecuted for not reporting the assault to police. McQueary may in fact deserve to be fired more than Paterno, but that doesn't change the fact that Paterno deserved to be fired too.

Let's keep in mind that the Grand Jury found that Schultz and Curley had lied to them and yet Paterno released a statement shortly after the story broke that closely echoed their testimony and contradicted his own. In my mind that alone is enough reason to lump him right with those scumbags and bring him up on charges as well. However, again, the law may be unfortunately be on his side even if common decency isn't.

When the story first came out I saw the words "graduate assistant" and immediately assumed he was fresh out of college. But it turns out McQueary was 28 years old when he witnessed Sandusky raping a little boy in the shower. That's plenty old enough to be man enough to step in and stop the assault and protect that child, but he didn't. One detail that I missed until today was that McQueary didn't immediately leave after he witnessed the assault. According to the Grand Jury Report he was still at the complex when he called his Dad to tell him what happened. And how sorry does a father have to be to tell his 28 year old son to leave the complex and allow that assault to continue?

Pretty damned sorry in my opinion.

Another thing I hadn't realized until I read a profile on McQueary today was that he was the quarterback for Penn State while Sandusky was still the Defensive Coordinator. So i think its safe to say he was familiar with the man. And yet from that day until now he never, not once, picked up the phone to call the police after it was apparent nothing was being done to bring him to justice. No, instead he stayed at Penn State and rose through the ranks all while Sandusky was still enjoying his retirement as well as access to the campus.

So you're damn right he should be thrown out on his ear as well.

But that's the point. They all should.

And that included Joe Paterno.

So far there have been reports that 12 or more new victims have come forward since last weekend. Unfortunately I think its likely there will be even more. And many of them may be victims who were assaulted after 2002. We already know of at least one and one was more than enough to clean house. Because even one more victim after 2002 exposes one undeniable truth.

None of the people who had an opportunity and a moral responsibility to end this back then did "enough".

And they all probably should've been fired long before now.

ICYMI

So yesterday I went on the radio around 4pm on 1040 AM with Tom Krasniqi amd Ronnie "Night Train" Lane to talkAbout the Penn State scandal and then did my regular Tuesday night hit at 8:25pm on the 2 Hand Touch show with Old School aka Derek Fournier to discus the Bucs' loss to the Saints on Sunday. I havent really posted many podcasts on this blog lately but both of those topics got me fired up for obviously different reasons and I figured I would share it for anybody who might have missed it.

Check it out.

My thoughts on Penn State/Jerry Sandusky/Joe Paterno et al.

My thoughts in what happened to the Bucs against the Saints.

Tim Tebow Sucks....And That's Ok

Tim Tebow sucks at being an NFL quarterback.

That is an objective fact at this point.

I could go all sabermetrics on you and list a LOT of statistical categories to back that statement up, but I won't. The truth is the "Tebow" argument is no longer, if it ever was, about objective facts. Its about raw emotion and what goes wrong when one player's fans not only will not accept reality, but also attempt to force THEIR reality on everybody else.

I'm a fan of Tim Tebow as a person. I think some of the things he has done in his life are incredibly remarkable and would be even if he weren't a Heisman Trophy winning, College BCS Championship winning, first round drafted NFL football player. But being a great person does not equal being a great player.

Never has, never will.

Rest assured there have been plenty of great guys who just weren't good enough to play in the NFL at every position. A recent example is Myron Rolle. This guy was a Rhodes Scholar. Let me repeat that A RHODES SCHOLAR!!! And to be sure he is an impressive young man. But although many casual football fans were outraged that he wasn't drafted until the 6th round it turns out he wasn't very good at playing safety in the NFL. And that's ok too.

It happens.

But the central problem in the Tim Tebow debate is that his fans refuse to allow anyone to acknowledge the reality that he isn't very good right now. Any person who dare point out that he has completed better than 50% of his passes in only one game of the five he has started is derided as "hating" on him, usually for something other than his football play like his devout Christian beliefs, by many of his fans.

Ben Roethlisberger in his "bad" rookie season completed over 66% of his passes.

Doesn't really matter if the person pointing it out is themselves a Christian. Nope, all that matters is that you dared to "diss" Tebow.

Vince Young completed over 51% of his passes his rookie season.

I played football for quite awhile and a 50% completions percentage has ALWAYS been the demarcation line for bad quarterbacks. I don't care how many yards you run for. I don't care what leadership qualities you display. If you can't complete 50% of your passes then just about every analyst is going to admit you aren't an NFL quality quarterback.

Right now out of 33 quarterbacks ranked only 1 has less than a 53% completion percentage this season.

But now people seemingly want to change the rules of the game for one guy. A guy who has a lot going for him indeed, but if you can't complete half of your passes how can you even be considered an NFL quarterback, let alone a good one?

And the irony of it all is that because these fans, and lets be real many people in the media, are trying to force those of us who know a little something about football to lie and say Tebow is a good quarterback when he isn't they are making more and more people turn against him. And they are making themselves look like fools in the process.

Donovan McNabb and Rex Grossman have both been benched this year while completing more than 55% of their passes.

I actually watched his last two starts and I will give you that he looked better against the Lions than he did the previous week against the Dolphins. And truthfully there were some dropped passes by his receivers. But he was still awful. But you have people like Skip Bayless who OBVIOUSLY didn't watch the game against the Lions who just one week prior were calling for the Broncos to try to tailor the offense to Tebow's strengths and open up the play book and then when they do exactly that he and they complain that they opened it up TOO much and didn't give him enough easy short passes to complete.

Let me just say clearly that that is a bunch of bullshit.

For much of the game the Broncos appeared to be trying to run a lot of the kinds of plays Tebow ran in college. The problem of course is that he isn't in college anymore and a lot of those plays are just not going to work against a quality NFL team. Especially with a quarterback as inaccurate as he is.

Hell I have to give the Broncos props for even attempting to totally change their offense in a week just to give him the best opportunity to be successful. To be sure other teams have been castigated for doing the same thing when they had an "unconventional" quarterback. Yet Tebow fans not only accept that the Broncos are changing to an offense that likely will reduce their chances of winning any games the rest of the season, they are demanding it!

And the sick part is that no matter what the Broncos do if Tebow isn't successful his fans will still blame everybody BUT him for his failings.

Kyle Orton was completing almost 60% of his passes when he was benched.

I saw countless people on social media lamenting how bad the Broncos' offensive line played because Tebow was sacked 13 times the last two weeks. Now again I remind you that I watched these games. His offensive line may not be stocked with All Pros but they have been doing a decent job. They can only blocks so long though and Tebow seems content to not throw the ball away and run around trying to make something happen even when nothing is there. Then there is also the hitch in his follow through when he throws the ball that all of the scouts and people who know football criticized him for when he was coming out of college. That hitch is directly attributable to at least one sack he took against the Lions when Cliff Avril came around and was able to strip him at a point in his windup where the ball should have been out of his hand.

I have to point out that the same offensive line only allowed 8 sacks in the previous 5 games with Kyle Orton starting but I know that for Tebow fans stuff like that doesn't matter.

Its also very interesting to me that these Tebow fans will laud his skills running the ball to try to bolster their case about him being a good quarterback. But many of these same folks were cautioning heavily about other running quarterbacks coming into the NFL saying their health wouldn't hold up. I know that some people would like to think Tim Tebow is indestructible but I unfortunately remember that hellacious hit he took against Kentucky in college when he received a concussion. If you think the same thing can't happen at the NFL level you are fooling yourself. And I'm not wishing that on him, just stating a fact.

Now here is the rub, none of us know what Tebow will be by the end of his career. There is a chance that he will find a way to fix some of his technical issues and over time become a more accurate quarterback. I personally don't believe that he will ever be a Pro Bowl type of quarterback but that doesn't mean he can't be a quality starter in the NFL. But the more I hear and see fans of Tebow ignoring reality and demanding I do the same the closer I get to rooting against the guy. That has nothing to do with his Christian beliefs and everything to do with the "Cult of Tebow"'s douchebaggery.

JaMarcus Russell, yes that JaMarcus Russell, completed almost 54% of his passes his second year which was his first as a starter.

So if you like Tim Tebow and want to see him do well please do us all a favor and just accept that right now he isn't very good. You can like him and root for him and still acknowledge reality, you do know you can do that, right?

At some point I just hope that the section of Tebow fans who think he can do no wrong will come to understand that most of the people criticizing him are doing so honestly. Is there a small minority of people criticizing Tebow for reasons other than his play on the field? I'm sure there are. But most of us either like the guy as a person or have no problems with who he is off the field. However we can't sit with blindfolds on complimenting the guy when our eyes tell a totally different story. That would mean compromising our integrity for the sake of people who don't seem to have any. And I, for one, am not going to be able to do it.

Who knows, by the end of the season Tebow may not suck anymore. Maybe he will improve his accuracy and lead his team to several victories to close out the year. But until that change happens he sucks.

And its ok to admit it.