Tim Tebow endured a lot of criticism during his short-lived NFL career.
He was scrutinized for his play as well as for his Christian faith.
But Denver Broncos general manager John Elway threw Tebow under the bus in one jaw-dropping book.
NFL Hall of Famer John Elway won two Super Bowls in his last two seasons as a player.
As an executive, he built the Broncos into a Super Bowl champion in the 2015-16 season.
One of the final pieces of Elway’s team-building project was to sign soon-to-be Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning.
And the quarterback that Manning took over for was Tim Tebow.
Tebow led the Broncos on an improbable playoff run, and won a wildcard game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
But Tebow’s magical year didn’t earn him many fans in the Broncos’ front office, especially not Elway.
Elway recently released a book that smears Tebow as egotistical and greedy on top of being a bad football player.
According to the book “Elway: A Relentless Life,” one Denver staffer called Tebow “the most self-centered humble guy I’ve ever met.”
The book says that the Broncos thought Tebow was “simply awful” and “struggled to understand concepts in reading defense and executing the offense.”
An anonymous teammate said of Tebow, “He has no idea what’s going on out there. If the first read doesn’t work, he’s just making it up.”
But perhaps the most damaging part of the book was the assertion that Tebow was greedy.
From the New York Post:
“The former Heisman Trophy winner reportedly angered Broncos management during the 2011 season by making a ‘cottage industry’ of speaking gigs, which the ultra-Christian quarterback charged $50,000 at various churches…Elway’s wife, Janet, allegedly asked the quarterback to make an appearance at a charity event. Tebow’s brother reportedly told her it would cost $50,000, and Janet declined, saying her husband didn’t pay for such appearances.”
Tebow hasn’t yet had a chance to respond, and he probably won’t get into a back-and-forth over the issue.
It’s impossible to know if the claim is true and there are two sides to every story, but Elway clearly is not putting Tebow in a positive light.
Christians in general are under siege in the culture.
Secularism is on the rise, and Christian voices like the hilarious satire site The Babylon Bee are constantly hit with “fact checks” even though their articles and headlines are clearly comedic.
Despite the claims made by anonymous sources in Elway’s book, Tebow has been a positive ambassador for Christianity.
Tebow continues to pursue his dream of playing Major League Baseball while also working on film and television projects as a producer.
Tebow has endured a lot of slings and arrows, so Elway’s book will be nothing new to him.
