God’s Media Whore in New York Babylon

March 29, 2012
It’s like a scene from the early breakout of a zombie plague
 

Ok, I admit that I stole that one from some dude over on the Denver Post blog who was rejoicing over the miraculous news that the Tebow parasite has just been peeled off of the Broncos organization. I suppose it’s only fitting that my return to blogging would be a short commentary of how overjoyed that I was to hear that Tim Tebow has left the Mile High City for the Big Apple. Broncos VP John Elway has to get NFL Executive of the Century consideration for pulling this one off. Imagine that it was only a few short months ago after the most overrated quarterback in NFL history, Jesus Tebow was the king of kings after that fluke playoff win against the hapless Pittsburgh Steelers. Tebow passed for 316 (as in John 3:16) yards in a stunning 29-23 home victory (actually more like a hundred and change if you take away Demaryius Thomas’s YAC) that had Elway looking nauseated and like he was doomed to wear a crown of thorns and stand knee deep in a tub of the shit of Tebow worshippers. Then Tebow reverted to form against the Patriots in a brutal 45-10 loss that could have been 90-10 had Bill Belichick not called off the dogs in the second half.

Now as a lifelong Denver Broncos fan and hard core hater of Evangelical Christian swine there was nothing more grating than watching Tebow become a media created legend last season, fraudulently gaining the rep of some kind of great comeback quarterbacking colossus while stinking the place up for three plus quarters. The thing with the Jesus freaks in America today is that they are every bit as delusional as the same zealots that they routinely denounce in other countries (insert radical Islamic bogeyman of the day) and in addition to the false legend of the great Tebow they sure as shit didn’t know a goddamned thing about football. I admit that for the first time in my life that I was actually cheering like hell for the Broncos to lose every week, I had some sheer moments of joy such as watching the apropos devouring of Tebow by the Lions, the Christmas Eve upchucking of multiple interceptions and fumbles returned for TD’s in Buffalo and of course the sadistic dismemberment in Foxboro in which Tom Brady threw for 6 TDs before Tebow had four completions. I also had some moments of rage such as the second quarter of that Steeler win where I had to shut off my 50 + inch HDTV rather than risk taking a baseball bat to it. The freaks were seeing Tebow’s face in tortillas after the one and Elway was going to have that cross to bear and the shame and ulcers to go along with it for years.

Then as the Christers like to say “it was God’s will” and lo and behold the Indianapolis Colts cut their ties with what was left of stat machine Peyton Manning. Now it’s a given that Manning who has suffered a serious neck injury and may never be the same, he’s also 36 but he hit the open market as the greatest free agent in league history. Elway, while he will never admit it saw his way out of the Tebow tribulations and put on a big time push to sign Manning, fiercely competing with the Tennessee Titans and the nearly 90 year old Bud Adams who was prepared to pay an unlimited sum of money for one last chance at seeing his transplanted Houston Oiler team make the Super Bowl. Denver won, Manning was signed to a huge contract and Tebow was a done deal in the Mile High City. The little bastard was traded within a matter of days to that great city of Satan New York, there is some very sweet schadenfreude in watching all of the peckerwoods pony up 70 or bucks for their kelly green number 15 jerseys for them and all of their rotten little indoctrinated fucking kids.

While I have never really liked Peyton Manning much, I have always thought of him as a crybaby and the white bread corporate pitchman of the NFL I am ecstatic to have him for the sole reason that he was the ONLY quarterback capable of putting the sword to the neck of Tebowmania in Denver. Shit, I could care less if his fucking head falls off the first time that he drops back in training camp – TEBOW IS GONE. Now if Manning does go down the Broncos are kind of fucked in that the backup (at least prior to the draft) is Caleb Hanie but really, Hanie would have beaten the new Christ had Marion Barber not run the fucking ball out of bounds late in the game on December 11th and then fumbled in overtime allowing kicker Matt Prater to kick two 50+ yard field goals and give Tebow the credit for the win. Anyway, the point that I am trying to make is that Mr. Hanie from Green Acres could probably have a better completion percentage than formerly orange Jesus without the circus.

As for Tim Tebow, he has gotten exactly what is fitting for a media whore like him, a prime gig in the media capital of the western world. This is going to be one hell of a show to watch, the Jets are already possessed of the most dysfunctional locker room in the NFL and the introduction of the cancer that is Tebow is going to eat them alive. Already the NY tabloids are hyping him like the second coming of Namath and the NFL and Jets organization are singing glory hallelujah as that high-priced (likely made in sweatshops) Tebow merchandise flies off the shelves. Quarterback Mark Sanchez, the embodiment of underachieving suckitude and already hated by local fans is now about to feel the wrath of the Tebow blood cult as well, those vermin ruined Kyle Orton who was left to slink out of town a broken man and Sanchez is next. The rumblings from the Jets locker room are already ugly and the season is going to be must watch entertainment for all. It’s especially funny to see the arrogant loudmouth Rex Ryan talking smack, he is like a man who has unwittingly ingested a slow acting poison and who will soon be dead while not knowing it yet. Again, it’s going to be a beautiful thing to behold this glorious appearing in the teeming metropolis of Gotham that has been denounced by the likes of radical cleric Pat Robertson as being so full of homosexual and liberal evil that the thousands of innocent Americans who died on September 11, 2001 in the American Reichstag Fire actually deserved to die.

You just can’t make shit like this up.

Anyway, enough of the sports for now, I’ll be back railing against the evils of religion and politics soon.


No Christmas Miracles Bitch: Tebow Exposed

December 28, 2011
Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam. ‘Cause sunbeams are not made like me.
Don’t expect me to cry for all the reasons you had to die. Don’t ever ask your
love of me.
Don’t expect me to cry.
Don’t expect me to lie.
Don’t expect me to die for thee.
– Nirvana (Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam)

Much was made about media created phenom Tim Tebow’s pregame meeting with amputee High School quarterback Jacob Rainey who was flown to Buffalo for a nice bit of Christmas theatrics before Sunday’s Broncos vs. Bill Game. By the end of the afternoon, it was apparent to all but the blindest of the blind that Rainey could have given the now reeling Broncos a better shot than the most overrated quarterback in NFL history, at least the kid wouldn’t have thrown four picks. Just a bit of the sheen had worn off of the Mile High Messiah, Timothy Richard Tebow’s halo after a butt ugly beatdown by the Patriots but the chosen one’s Christmas Eve performance gave a new definition of the word fiasco. And to haters like myself all that I can say is – Hey, I fucking told you so. I admit that it’s been difficult to tolerate the two month running assault on common sense and football tradition that was the great Tebow PR machine, shredding up all those skeptics of the glorious ascension of the new American idol and at least according to some poor, wretched souls, the second coming of Christ himself. The amen chorus of the national punditry, the mouth-breathing “Christian” flockers and the sinister theocratic parallel universe had become so infatuated with the newborn king and his celebrity that apostates virtually had their tongues ripped out with fire-heated, cast iron tongs. The “all he does is win” meme was peddled like so much snake oil dipped religious folderol until it was finally shorn of its figleaf Saturday at Ralph Wilson Stadium when it was as if God himself chose to finally put to rest the absurdity that he really gives a rat’s ass about football. 


Tim Tebow, a quarterback who can’t throw has somehow been imbued with superhuman, dare I say divine powers for leading the theretofore woebegone Denver Broncos during a winning streak where the Mile High monsters eked out one close win after another largely to the credit of their balls nasty defense and kicker Matt Prater. Tebow of course got all the credit for the resurgence and in predictable manner is now being shorn of any of the blame for the last two losses. The Tebow winning streak was more than just a simple mirage, it was the type of mass insanity that conjures up memories of apocalyptic conjecture about smoking guns being mushroom clouds, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq-bin Laden alliance to bring down the World Trade Center. The lazy swine in the sports media, absolutely pathetic with the exception of Dave Zirin, a giant among men with special note going to the ridiculous assholes in the Denver media market (Mark Kiszla, Woody Paige etcl) who joined the Tebowing terrorists in running the lamentable Kyle Orton out of town and pressuring the now doomed John Elway into installing, on the basis of hype and unrelenting pressure rather than any sort of merit their glorious loveboy at quarterback pushed this insanity. They are the Judith Millers of the national madness of Tebowmania. ESPN transformed itself into the Tebow network, and the naysayers about the greatness of Jesus Tebow were mocked, shunned and bent to conformity, much in the way that Bushreich critics were dealt with in the run up to the attack and occupation of Iraq. 

Any serious look at the Tebow winning streak by an objective football fan would see that the young man had very little to do with winning those games, he played better than could be expected in many but that sets the bar extremely low. After exorcising Orton the Broncos came back after 55 listless minutes to beat the Miami Dolphins juggernaut that was winless at the time in overtime 18-15, the South Florida stadium was filled to the brim with Tebow worshippers on Tim Tebow Day and the “legend” was launched. A bump in the road the next week when Tebow was mauled by the Detroit Lions in an embarrassing 45-10 home thumping still has the Christers squealing about religious persecution over their mocking of Tebow. Next up was a comeback win against the hated Oakland Raiders in the Black Hole. The 38-24 victory had more to do with a still rusty Carson Palmer throwing three picks, speedy Denver kick return specialist Eddie Royal taking one to the house and resurrected running back Willis McGahee making mincemeat out of the Raider defense in the second half for two long TD runs and 163 yards. The Raider win was out of an option package that belongs in high school and college so Tebow got all of the credit for executing the win, coach John Fox had listened to the Tebow cultists and changed the offense to fit their boy’s skill set. Next up was a 17-10 win against the dismal Kansas City Chiefs in which Tebow completed only two fucking passes! 

The streak continued in prime time on the NFL Network with a 17-13 comeback against the mouthy fat Rex Ryan and his now eliminated from the playoffs New York Jets, Tebow gets some credit here as his late touchdown run sealed the win. Win # 5 came at San Diego with the Chargers in freefall riding a five game losing streak and in overtime when their kicker was caught by the television cameras pissing in a bottle o the sidelines and then blowing the game winning kick, allowing Prater to win it with his own FG. Win #6 was an aberration being that it came against the woeful Minnesota Vikings who are still in some sort of post Brett Favre fugue state and have one of the worst defenses in the league. Said Vikings were also without superstar running back Adrian Peterson and were starting a rookie quarterback in Christian Ponder who threw three interceptions, the last one a gift to Denver’s Andre Goodman that set up another winning Prater field goal. Tebow threw for 202 yards in this one, 144 of them to a receiver, Demaryius Thomas who was labeled as such a bust that apparently nobody bothered to even cover him. With the Tebowmania in full throated frenzy and the fleet of bandwagons growing by the minute the myth took a hit with win #7, a 13-10 overtime win at home that was one of the greatest choke jobs ever by the gutsy and injury riddled Bears. With the Chicago defense having kept Tebow down and the Broncos scoreless for nearly 58 minutes collapsed. With Tebow having tossed a late score to Thomas to cut the lead to 10-7 the Broncos failed to recover an onside kick with 2:08 to go. Enter the latest goat in Chicago sports history, replacement running back Marion Barber who inexplicably ran out of bounds to stop the clock and save the Broncos around 40 seconds which allowed Prater to kick a 59 yarder to take the game to overtime. In the extra stanza, Barber broke through the line to redeem himself and while heading towards the winning touchdown that would ring down the curtain on the fabled Tebow’s winning streak fumbled the ball! Minutes later Prater kicked the winner. Barber, who is a stone Jesus freak himself had the second worst week for a former Dallas Cowboy turned Chicago Bear but only because Sam Hurd was busted by the Feds for his role in setting up a drug distribution network. The Tebow fans would swear that Barber was blown out of bounds by the breath of God himself and that Jesus was right there causing the Barber overtime fumble. 


The next week wasn’t so good for the Mile High Messiah. A nearly unprecedented second Sports Illustrated cover appearance in less than a month and a classic skit on the haven of liberal demonology that is Saturday Night Live during which Jesus himself told Tebow to take it down a notch, the national media frenzy over a matchup against Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots were a one-two-three combination that not even Orange Jesus would be able to overcome. The SNL skit was hilarious and went viral, bringing the condemnation of the Christers bleating about mockery of their religion and bigotry, the second being a thing that they are intimately familiar with when it comes to gays, Muslims and liberals. Radical cleric Pat Robertson taking a rest from anti-gay demagoguery and blaming natural disasters on the wrath of God towards a society that tolerates homosexuals came out and howled in mock outrage as well. The Christers sure can’t take it when they themselves are scorned and dragging their Manchurian Candidate Tebow through shit is akin to raw blasphemy right up there with the infamous Piss Christ. The latest target of these neo-Nazi swine is HBO comic Bill Maher who had the audacity to gloat on TWITter about Tebow’s rancid Christmas Eve performance in Buffalo: “Wow, Jesus just fucked #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler “Hey, Buffalo’s killing them.”.  There are now calls for boycotts against HBO for Maher’s comments – why don’t these anal retentive, fired to the max with hatred and insipid pigfuckers just get a life already? Not that Maher is a favorite of mine personally, he is a virulent anti-Muslim bigot in his own right who at least in that regard has much in common with the Tebowers, teabaggers and the rest of the filth that inhabits the right wing in this country. He is also a sleazy apologist for Israeli atrocities but come on, while most of us know that it’s utter bullshit isn’t this country supposed to stand for the ability to engage in free speech? The Tebowers are a bunch of charlatans anyway, how many of them actually went to church on Christmas morning this year and how many stayed at home to engage in the act of worship of mammon over the teachings of Christ and fornicated like horny rats on their living room floors in an orgy of festive gift wrapping and made in China consumer goods? Jesus Christ, just fuck these people already. Go away and emigrate to Iran or Israel if you all enjoy living in a totalitarian theocratic state.

But I digress…

The Denver Broncos are now 8-7 and after two consecutive turds laid by Tebow are facing a must win game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday to get into the playoffs. The same Kansas City Chiefs who claimed Kyle Orton off of waivers last month and now the one who was so brutally scourged and run out of Denver on a rail gets the chance to come back and pound in the nails.

Shit, the irony is delicious isn’t it?

Just my two cents over the morning cup o’ Joe


The Great Tebow Crusade: A Sports Metaphor for a Delusional Nation

August 18, 2011
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable…. A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill.

– H L Mencken

Tim Tebow as a successful starting NFL quarterback? Michele Bachmann as the next U.S. President? Jesus Christ! Of course both of these scenarios are a fantasy as well as a product of a form of non-reality based magical thinking that has come to define American society over the past three decades. There is a deeply entrenched national unwillingness to own up to systemic problems, grossly immoral wars of aggression, a miserably failed economic system that has been falsely pimped off as being a “free” market and the inability to take an honest look at the history of the American empire that hasn’t been revised, sanitized and strained through John Wayne’s dirty underwear have all contributed to our current plight. This is a land where despite massive poverty, joblessness, homelessness and rampant inflation where people actually believe that they too can become a millionaire. This is a land where in true Orwellian style war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and God is on our side. Americans for the most part still believe that they are free despite the growing police state that surrounds them, that their nation is prosperous rather than on the verge of bankruptcy and that all will be alright despite the evidence that things will never be “right” again.

The illusion is perpetuated by the “media hologram” as the late, great social critic Joe Bageant referred to the ever present electronic propagandizing that allows for the facade of the mythical and now forever lost American dream to be promoted. Old Joe pegged our national media as “a feast of bullshit and spectacle”, the Romans referred to a pre-technology version of the distractions that masked the decline of their mighty empire as “panem et circenses” or as it is more commonly known “bread and circuses”. The national infatuation with pure fantasy and triviality that serves to distract and to make one forget is exemplified not only by movies, video games and cheesy tabloid celebrity scandals but in the ongoing games that are played, gladiatorial epics for the modern age. In this country, no sport is revered as much as professional football and no sports league is as saturated with the underlying cultural indoctrination of warfare, capitalism and patriotic fervor as the NFL. Now, the already overpowering affirmation of the glorious, capitalist warfare state is about to get religion as well. The story of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, a champion to radical American Cristendom and the coordinated push to transform a man child of mediocre talent into an orange clad savior, national celebrity and to likely serve as a springboard into national politics is a fascinating cultural study of an America gone horribly awry and steeped in a dangerous and terminal denial.

I must admit, I have a serious interest in the ongoing Tim Tebow melodrama for several reasons. First and foremost I fear the forces behind him and understand all too well the power of those who have been most accurately described by writer Chris Hedges as the “American Fascists”. I also have been deeply disgusted, dare I say ashamed of the ongoing infantilization and dumbing down of America over the last several decades, it has only become worse largely due to a corrupt, consolidated corporate media. I have come to despise the loathsome transformation of what was once the most powerful economy largely thanks to a robust and vibrant middle class into a sucking black hole of despair for the majority of the population due to the rise of the looter class and the new feudalism. Finally, I have always had a serious jones for professional football, not only the now fully corporatized NFL but for the Denver Broncos in particular. I grew up and lived a large chunk of my life in Denver where local team has long been a revered symbol of local if not regional pride. From my earliest days I have followed the Broncos. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly, still bleed Bronco orange and have hated the goddamned Oakland Raiders since childhood. The great Tebow crusade that is ongoing gives me a chance to not only take a detour from my trademark political screeds into the sports world but also to point out that the entire ongoing drama is just a microcosm of all that is currently wrong with this society. The tale of the young wunderkind, a wholly manufactured celebrity right up there with the Kardashians and the masses of adoring fans who have anointed the youngster as the second coming of John Elway despite the inconvenient truth that Tebow couldn’t consistently hit a horse in the ass at ten yards with a tight spiral is the story of a delusional nation itself.

Tim Tebow is the latest version of the University of Florida quarterback (eg: Danny Wuerffel, Doug Johnson, Rex Grossman) who largely due to the spread offense run by the Gators has immense success in college but is poorly suited for the big time. Despite leading the UF to two national championships, largely because of his size and running ability Tebow was not deemed to be a top pro prospect, he was a “project”, better suited to play a position other than quarterback and was likely only a third rounder even to the most optimistic. His last meaningful game for the Gators was a butt ugly 32-13 mugging by the Alabama Crimson Tide in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated. Tebow was crying as he left the field, the tracks his tears cutting swaths through his trademark biblical verses inscribed in eye black (the NCAA would ban such displays with the “Tebow Rule”), his dreams of NFL stardom potentially crushed. While playing in the Senior Bowl for the South team in an offense not tailored to him Tebow stunk the place out, the problems with his throwing mechanics were exposed, further damaging his pro prospects. But then the miracles began to be manufactured, thanks to a colossal public relations offensive Tebow would work diligently to change his throwing motion.

Enter the canny NFL traveler Jon Gruden who despite having never had the patience or wherewithal to develop young talent during his coaching gigs had somehow managed to get anointed as some sort of guru. Gruden stated with a strait face that Tebow could “revolutionize” the pro game and he himself would assist with polishing the turd pre-draft in order to ensure that Tebow would be drafted in the first round. Another former Tampa Bay Buc coach, the sainted Tony Dungy also spoke out on Tebow’s greatness, note that Dungy’s quarterbacking savvy was on display with Trent Dilfer and Shaun King, he inherited Peyton Manning when he was run out of Tampa after his team quit on him in the playoffs for the second year in a row. At least Dilfer eventually won a Super Bowl by riding the swarming Ravens defense, Gruden however has only journeyman Bruce Gradkowski to claim as his most successful pupil. Now with the woeful Bengals who are his fifth team, Gradkowski is still more known for his involvement in a federal gambling investigation from his college days at Toledo than for his actual on field achievements or more appropriately, the lack thereof. With the Christian right-wing propaganda machine and a big name like Gruden onboard Tebow’s NFL draft potential was in the full blown perception management stages. Despite naysayers like Dallas owner Jerry Jones who drew fire for stating that “he’d never get on the field” when commenting on whether the Cowboys would draft him and draft prognosticator Mel Kiper who projected him as an H-Back as well as another Eric Crouch a former Cornhuskers college star who couldn’t play quarterback in the NFL . So the table was set for the draft. All that Team Tebow needed was a sucker, and they found one in then Denver Broncos coach Josh McDaniels.

The Josh McDaniels era will forever live in infamy among Bronco loyalists. Two time Super Bowl winner Mike Shanahan whose legendary status had taken a big hit in the post-Elway years was sent packing after yet another disappointing season. Despite the availability of several better prospects owner Pat Bowlen picked the 33 year old Bill Belichick disciple right down to the game day hoodie. McDaniels immediately alienated incumbent starting quarterback Jay Cutler, himself a colossal asshole and the town wasn’t big enough for the two of them. The relationship became so strained that Cutler was shipped off to the Chicago Bears for a package of high draft picks and QB Kyle Orton. It was the first in a series of botched personnel decisions that would come to define the McDaniels reign of error. The Broncos had an immediate opportunity to hit it big in the draft by using the picks on quarterback Josh Freeman who is looking like a franchise player in Tampa and All Pro linebacker Clay Matthews but ended up with a running back with happy feet in Knowshon Moreno and linebacker Robert Ayers who was already looking like a bust by midseason. Not only did McDaniels waste those picks on schmucks but also traded away a future draft pick to move up in the second round and draft cornerback Alphonso Smith who was so bad that he was shipped off the next year to Detroit for scrub tight end Dan Gronkowski. That was a pretty piss poor acquisition for what would have been the 14th overall pick in the 2010 draft. It was a harbinger of what was to come under McDaniels.

Early on the Broncos were the surprise of the season in going 6-0 out of the gates. Orton was playing better than Cutler and Bowlen was looking like a genius. The high water mark of the McDaniels era was when the Broncos, dressed in their throwback mustard yellow uniforms with the infamous vertically striped socks bested Belichick’s New England Patriots 20-17 in overtime in the giant corporate cistern that is Invesco Field. Chock up a rare win in San Diego the next week and the Broncos went into their bye week with a full head of steam. Then the wheels came off. There were four straight losses, three of them to playoff teams but one to the heinous Redskins, one of the worst teams in the league. Orton couldn’t make a play to save his life and the defense blew up, by the time that the dust settled the season was over and the Broncos were 8-8. The worst indicator of just how much of an illusion that the 6-0 start had been though were two miserable home losses to hated divisional rivals to close out the season. In a 20-19 loss to the Raiders the Broncos gave up 241 rushing yards, 83 or so on 3 consecutive plays. They also did the impossible by making the lamentable failure that is Jamarcus Russell into a hero, the former top pick threw the winning touchdown in the waning seconds. Two weeks later in the season finale Denver was steamrollered by the Kansas City Chiefs, giving up 317 rushing yards, 259 of them to Jamal Charles in a humiliating 44-24 loss.

With a 2-8 death spiral largely being the result of a porous defense you would think that shoring up the D would have been a priority in the offseason. The Broncos finally were able to unload chronic malcontent receiver Brandon Marshall for more draft picks and despite the 2009 draft debacle were still standing well in terms of being able to reload. It would instead be the capstone that would come to define the McDaniels legacy, and it would hang over Denver like a brown cloud after his departure. But first, another notable McDaniels personnel move, he traded fan favorite running back Peyton Hillis who had rarely see the field in 2009 to Cleveland for the disappointing quarterback Brady Quinn, a former Notre Dame star whose NFL career has been a bust. Not only was Quinn buried on the depth chart but Hillis went on to be a star with the Browns, rolling to 1,177 yards, 11 touchdowns and landed on the cover of the mega-selling video game Madden 12. The 11 scores by Hillis were six more than Denver non-quarterbacks would tally all year.

In the 2010 draft McDaniels was wheeling and dealing, trading up and down like his mentor Belichik only that the average Madden player had more football sense. The Broncos despite their porous defense inexplicable spent their first five picks on offense before picking cornerback Perrish Cox, a sex offender. The first pick was spent on WR Demaryius Thomas who has yet to prove he can do anything but fumble and get injured. Then, with the 25th overall pick McDaniels grabbed Tebow away, despite the fact that several quarterback starved teams took a flyer on the Gainesville wonder. Also notable from the 2010 draft was an offensive lineman named Zane Beadles chosen 45th overall despite the fact that he wasn’t even listed in the fucking Sporting News draft guide. To the Christers it was mission accomplished, they had been successful in getting their Manchurian candidate into the first round, number 15 Bronco jerseys led the league in merchandise sales and there was jubilation in the virulent snakepit of hatred and homophobia Focus the Family headquarters that was about 2 hrs south of Denver via I-25. Radical cleric James Dobson’s organization had been behind the Tebow Super Bowl ad where he was trotted out to give a toned down anti-abortion, anti-women’s rights message during the big game. In Tebow they had planted the flag in order to in the words of Jon Gruden “revolutionize” the game by making it a showcase for their bastardized version of Christianity. Not that the NFL doesn’t encourage the promulgation of political memes (as long as they don’t come from guys like Rashard Mendenhall) in that damned near every contest – especially the big ones are a showcase for militarism and empire.

So the Jesus juice was flowing and the second season of Josh McDaniels was to begin with not only a putrid defense but a festering quarterback controversy. There would be no 6-0 start in 2010, the McDaniels death watch officially began with a for the ages 59-14 degradation at home against the Raiders that would all but knock the Broncos out of playoff contention by the time that trick or treaters began to make their rounds. By the time that their record reached 3-9, aided by an asinine “Spygate” style filming of the 49ers practices prior to a week loss loss in Wembley, England where McDaniels was nabbed imitating Belichik (who at least won when he cheated) Pat Bowlen pulled the plug on Little Napoleon. The interim coach, Eric Studesville handed the reigns to Tebow who delighted the zealots with his running ability in posting a win and a near win against stricken teams that had already given up the ghost. The larger motive in the Tebow promotion was likely the desire of Bowlen to sell seats in the final games, a 3-11 team with a pitiful defense that would give up a whopping NFL worst 471 points isn’t a very good draw. When Tebow ran for the winning TD against Houston on the day after Jesus’s fake birthday it was the high-water mark of his pro career. After another loss to the Chargers in which Tebow ran for 94 yards the season was mercifully over and the wreckage began to be sorted through.

Desperate for positive public relations Bowlen brought in John Elway to run the team’s football operations. The new leadership then brought in John Fox, a proven adult head coach and did the right thing in drafting for defense, landing top defensive prospect Von Miller with the first pick. The lockout though put the fate of the season in the balance and halted all player transactions. This allowed for the further fermentation of the Tebow meme as the media and the Christian subculture exalted that their champion would be running the team when the season finally got under way. The television networks nor the sponsors would feature Tebow prominently and as often as possible to juice ratings and bring in advertising dollars, their new Christ was ascending the mount. That was until reality set in. The lockout eventually ended, there being far too much money at stake for it not to and the teams reported to their respective training camps. Once in session it became very apparent to anyone but the Tebow cultists that their boy sucked, his heralded throwing motion change had yet to take hold and the lack of an off season conditioning program didn’t bode well for development. I mean you can only get so much work on the arm trolling the nation’s Wal-Marts and other gathering places for boobus Americanus to autograph copies of your best selling autobiography. According to those in the know, Tebow was throwing the ball in the stands, dirt and everywhere but where the playbook dictated. Then he did what many of his entitled generation did – he sulked. In a recent column by longtime Denver sportswriter Woody Paige Tebus whined that the starting quarterback job had been given to him but was “grabbed back away”. This of course was immediately amplified by the media and was decried by Tebow Nation as nothing short of heresy and they swarmed to his rescue. Even King James bestowed his blessing on Tebow; LeBron James that is, the perennially pouting overpaid, underachieving Prima Donna last seen quitting on his team a few months back in the NBA finals. As the saying goes, with friends like that…

And it has been on ever since. Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Morrissey has ensured that his email box will be filled with hateful diatribes from teabagging Tebow cultists by daring to publish the following piece of smoking blasphemy entitled Worship of Broncos’ Tim Tebow making for a dilemma in Denver from which I excerpt:

There are two competing groups when it comes to public opinion on Tim Tebow.

The first group thinks Tebow is God’s gift to humanity and that his NFL quarterbacking skills will catch up to his holiness if the Denver Broncos ever give him a chance.

The second group is creeped out by the first group.

AND –

But armed with the irrefutable evidence that somebody out there, or up there, believed Tebow was worthy of being a first-rounder, his supporters became emboldened. It’s why there’s a quarterback controversy in Denver right now for no good reason.

This is what happens when you reach to take a player who has a bigger reputation for piety than he does for touchdown passes. The pressure on John Elway, the Broncos’ new vice president of football operations, is significant. Tebow is much, much more than a football player. He’s a symbol for a large swath of people who see him as the best of what Christianity has to offer.

His autobiography, Through My Eyes, has been on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list since it came out eight weeks ago. His jersey was the third-highest seller in the NFL last season, despite the fact he started only three games.

There is nothing wrong with any of that. The people have spoken, and they like Tim Tebow. A lot. But the people shouldn’t decide who gets to play quarterback.

Elway, much like President Obama moved into his new office to immediately find a bag of flaming dogshit parked on the doorstep by his predecessor. Obama only preceded to make the disaster worse by stomping up and down on the bag, spraying liquefied dogshit everywhere by not only failing to correct the damage done by the Bushreich but further cementing his policies, escalating his wars and exacerbating the damage to the economy by catering to the whims of right-wing scum. Whether Elway will choose the same path in caving in to vicious thugs and mouth breathing, bible pounding swine by trading the vastly superior Orton away in order to go all in with Tebow has yet to be seen. The pressure will be intense and the national media spotlight which always seeking out controversy to drive ratings will be pointing the way towards Dove Valley like the Star of Bethlehem. 

By far the greatest challenge of Elway’s football career will be in just how he handles the weapon of mass destruction parked in his locker room with the “Tebow Thing” In dealing with not only the national media parasites but also local hack columnists such as the Denver Post’s Mark Kiszla’s man crush on Tebow. I excerpt this vomit inducing portion of a recent column entitled DenverBroncos Must Let Tebow Be Tebow:

 

Tim Tebow is not a paint-by-numbers quarterback. So why do the Broncos seem bent on turning him into Brian Griese, your plain vanilla game manager and the football equivalent of a certified public accountant?

The extreme makeover of Tebow has revealed a clumsy robot in need of a system reboot. It’s pure folly to recast an improvisational player as a pocket passer.

Tebow needs to be Tebow.

After feeling the heat from criticism this summer, Tebow repeatedly expressed a desire Wednesday to “have fun.”

But where did the unpredictable fun in his game go? Whatever happened to the instinctive rambler who wore No. 15 for the Broncos? While it sometimes appears that Tebow’s technique has regressed since his rookie season, maybe the real problem is lost identity.

Basically this horses ass is proposing that the Broncos just do away with the offensive playbook and let Tebow play fucking sandlot ball. I understand that Christianity is a primitive and simple-minded form of thinking best suited for Neanderthals and other half-monkeys. The entire premise of letting Tebow freelance is ludicrous and dishonest, ever since a couple of guys named Flintstone and Rubble were chucking the rock around there has been a need for at least some sort of coherent offensive philosophy. Kiszla really bares his chops later in the column for comparing the orange clad 23 year old messiah with none other than Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, something that got the pouty, overrated loser Jay Cutler vilified for. 

More from Kiszla:

 

Here’s the funny thing. When worry lines crease the face of Broncos executive John Elway as he wonders how long it might take Tebow to realize even an improvisational master must learn to win games from the pocket in the NFL, old No. 7 starts to look and sound a little like Dan Reeves.

Nobody who remembers houses in Denver painted orange can forget. Reeves gave Elway the fourth quarter to become an NFL legend of the comeback drive, but only after forcing the Stanford grad to operate at 5 mph under the speed limit for the majority of games during the 1980s.

The conservative approach by Reeves irked Elway. It contributed to the demise of a relationship between a frustrated superstar and his stubborn coach. Denver sided with Elway. Reeves departed.

Is it just me, or does the apprehensive sweat on the back of Elway’s neck as he contemplates handing Tebow the car keys smell like karma?

No, actually it smells like bullshit and Kiszla should know better than to toss Tebow’s salad like that. While Dan Reeves offensive philosophy stank and did much to adversely affect Elway’s career stats, allowing petulant, lesser talented losers like Dan Marino, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning to dominate the record books at least Reeves HAD an offensive philosophy. The problem with the Reeves era is that the personnel around Elway sucked. When you are counting on running backs named Sammy Winder, Gerald Wilhite, Gaston Green and Steve Sewell to execute a conservative ball control based attack you are going to have serious problems. Couple that with receivers the likes of Vance Johnson (the best by far in Elway’s early career), Mark Jackson, Ricky Nattiel and Clarence Kay, a porous offensive line and a consistently inconsistent defense  and you have the real reason why Elway had to deal with the weekly stress of having to perform like (to steal it from Tebow) Jesus Christ in performing fourth quarter miracles. John Elway only became a Super Bowl winner when the level of talent around him was vastly upgraded in the final years of his career. 

Elway has become famous in NFL lore for “The Drive” comeback against the cursed Marty Schottenheimer’s Cleveland Browns in the 1986 AFC Championship game. But it wasn’t his greatest comeback, that was on January 4, 1992 in the old Mile High Stadium against the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans) in the divisional playoffs.

It was colder than a witch’s tit that day and myself and my buddies Rockie and Big Johnson were well prepared. We had scored four tickets in the legendary south stands for the game earlier in the week. The Broncos were coming off of a surprising 12-4 season and the first playoff game was against the AFC Central champ Oilers. We were well prepped for the game, like a mini-version of the loaded trunk of Hunter S. Thompson’s Chevy convertible in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas we were well stocked with booze, herb and other intoxicants. Having been running on very little sleep and still hung over (and in Big Johnson’s case badly so) from the night before we were nipping at the hair of the dog as we rolled into the outer parking lots. We were smoking dope and nursing Big Gulp cups filled with red beer (having stopped off at King Soopers on the way to the game for tomato juice) to gradually ease into the other stuff. The lots around the stadium were already filled with tailgaters and the smell of roasting meat hung in the January air. We grabbed a spot and began to get into battle dress, being back in the days before America became a proto-fascist, greed fueled police state where the ever present phony threat of “terrorism” gave license to avaricious owners to subject fans to everything but a body cavity search on the way in lest they smuggle in their own beverages and cut down on $9 beer sales we could get away with practically anything. We all carried those seat cushions only they contained cans of beer instead of foam stuffing, flasks of Jack Daniels sippin’ whiskey to take the bite off of the cold later in the game as dusk would fall. We also had also backloaded our cigarette packs with a number of marijuana joints. That would be good enough to get us through the afternoon; the only way that we could run short would be if the game went into overtime. After the game we would go and eat some good Mexican food and hit the titty bars.

We got to our seats just before kickoff and settled in for the game and it didn’t start out well, the Oilers had taken the opening kickoff 70 yards in less than two minutes. A good amount of fans were still milling around trying to settle in and the Broncos were already down a score. The first Denver possession resulted in nothing other than a punt and the Oilers promptly drove for a second score. By early in the second quarter the loyal fans in Mile High were restive as Houston quarterback Warren Moon or “Warren Coon” as the shamelessly fucked up Rockie and Big Johnson were heckling him, much to the delight of many in our vicinity in the south stands quickly grabbed a 21-6 lead. Rocky and Big Johnson had recently discovered the Rush Limbaugh show and like many angry white male losers the siren song of the grand poobah of white cultural populism they were easily ensnared by the trolling net. Myself, being apolitical at the time really had no understanding that they were in the early stages of a disease that would come to define our country for the coming two nightmarish decades. A new form of country that would later be exemplified in the rise of Tim Tebow as a bizarre sort of Elway doppelganger to Broncos fans.

By the fourth quarter Denver had closed the gap to 24-23 thanks to a botched extra point by kicker David Treadwell. The Bronco defense, after a horrific start had held Houston to only a fourth quarter field goal in the second half. By the time the Broncos got the ball for the last time, they were pinned at their own two yard line by a Houston punt. Then it was Elway time, a mixture of skill, desperation and improvisational wizardry that was the real deal, not the sort of bullshit that Mark Kiszla writes in advocacy of Tim Tebow. John Elway converted two fourth downs on that drive, the first time escaping a near sack and running for the marker on fourth and six to get a new set of downs with 1:38 left. After three straight incomplete passes due to a heavy pass rush, and with clutch receiver Michael Young having been injured on the drive, on fourth and ten Elway scrambled, held up and launched a strike to Vance Johnson who took the ball to the Oiler 21, a 44 yard pass play, a good deal of it on a run past the stunned Houston sideline and a sickly looking Warren Moon. After a ten yard Steve Sewell run Treadwell atoned for his missed extra point by kicking the winning field goal with 16 seconds left. The place erupted in pandemonium, Big Johnson jumped up, already hoarse from shouting at “Warren Coon” for the entire game and vomited on the couple in front of us who we had earlier been passing around a doobie with. Those were the days when Elway often had to win the games largely by himself and there is no comparison – zip, nada, zilch to the fallacious argument made by Mark Kiszla and the Christian Right P.R. machine that Tebow is just a younger version of John Elway. The first ballot Hall of Famer racked up five Super Bowl appearances, two of them wins, he also racked up 148 total wins, 300 passing touchdowns, 51,475 passing yards, 3,417 rushing yards, 47 fourth quarter comebacks, nine Pro Bowl appearances. And John Elway was the consensus top quarterback prospect in the NFL draft his rookie year, not a product of wishful thinking and public relations.

But I Digress…..

I too remember the days when fans painted their houses orange, died their lawns orange, sat in sub zero temperatures on the capitol steps in Denver immersed in a vat of orange jello to win Super Bowl tickets, dined on orange pancakes and orange and blue tortilla chips. My time as a fan preceded Kisla’s tenure as the resident Denver Post ass-suckler and I remember the bad old days before the miracle season of 1977 when the Broncos went 12-2 and to their first Super Bowl. Their quarterback was a Christian then too but Craig Morton didn’t flaunt it and use it as a raison d’être but back in those days Christians for the most part were humble and followed the actual teachings of Christ, not the devil’s gospel of Timothy LaHaye, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and their ilk more concerned with their political agendas than anything uttered during the Sermon on the Mount. Morton could also win football games in the NFL and had the league been a corporate juggernaut in those days he too would have led the Broncos in jersey sales. 

While Tebow couldn’t carry Elway’s jockstrap (despite what his cult may believe) hope springs eternal in Denver after the nadir of 2010. There are already whispers that the Broncos will be targeting a young gun in next year’s draft and if he falls perhaps Stanford’s Andrew Luck would be a great fit. It is obvious that Kyle Orton is not the long-term solution and Tebow is an albatross and the media circus only ensures that he will be a distraction that will ultimately split the locker room. In the new era of Elway and Fox it is already apparent to all but the delusional that Tebow, like the rest of the cancer from the McDaniels era must be cut out, the sooner the better. Miami needs a quarterback and Tebow could be a nice fit in the Wildcat offense that the team utilizes, he would also be back in the sunshine state and would sell tickets. The show would be also be very entertaining as he tries to mesh with former Bronco receiver Brandon Marshall who is already on the outs in South Florida. The answer though is that Tebow must go and the sooner the better, even if the Broncos get nothing in return, look at the first rounder for Dan Gronkowski, just chalk it up as another McDaniels failure, eat the loss and move on. That’s really the only way at this point, anything else will only delay the recovery.

As with so many things in this torn apart country the great Tebow debate comes down to those who live in a reality based world and a world of make believe. I never said that Tim Tebow wasn’t a good guy, only that he is a false idol who will never be a successful quarterback on the NFL level. Those who use the young man to shove their hateful religion down the throats of the masses are obscene, loathsome and cynical and in the end they are ultimately damaging Tebow himself. Then these are the type who could care less about compassion, empathy, fairness and human decency, the things that that long-haired liberal Jesus Christ preached about. They would just as soon burn everyone who disagrees with their hijacking of a religion at the stake using green wood, the bible warned of these people and they are legion, their burning hatred only surpassed by their failure to acknowledge that which is reality.  

Tebow may yet find quarterbacking success in the Mile High City, perhaps with the coming Arena Football expansion team that Denver is expected to land.