Former Florida Gator Tim Tebow Sees His NFL Road End

Tim Tebow's football playing career has come to an end. Photo Credit: Alex Shepherd

The Jacksonville Jaguars have waived former Florida Gator Tim Tebow, the club announced today. The former Heisman Trophy winner was attempting a football comeback as a tight end. Tebow was waived in the first round of roster cuts as NFL teams were required to move from 90 players to 85 on Tuesday.

''We knew that it was an uphill battle for Tim,'' Meyer said. ''Elite warrior, elite competitor, but he’s also 34 years old. Players loved him, locker room loved him, but it was the right thing.”

Tebow—who led the Gators to a 2008 National Championship and was a vital part of the 2006 National Championship—had not played in a regular season NFL game since 2012. He had not been on a NFL roster since 2015. This was the first time the quarterback had ever attempted to play tight end.

In the interim, he has spent time in the New York Mets minor league organization, playing outfield. His baseball career was a resurgence from the sport he played at Nease High School (along with football).

The Tebow experiment in Jacksonville was largely thanks to former Gators coach Urban Meyer having been hired as the Jaguars head coach back in January. It's the three time National Championship coach's first foray into the NFL and he has surrounded himself by those he's comfortable with from his college days.

Meyer's and Tebow's relationship has always been notoriously close, with the former being a father figure to Tebow. It's why many believe Meyer was willing to try out Tebow, despite his age and inexperience.

In the Jaguars first preseason game on Saturday night—a 23-13 loss to the Cleveland Browns—Tebow received minimal snaps on offense. He was targeted once and tipped the ball back on an incompletion, leading to a play that was originally called an interception. He seemed to be targeted another time, but another receiver stepped in front of him and caught the ball.

The more important aspect for a tight end is to be able to block, something with which Tebow infamously struggled. He also didn't play on special teams, a kiss of death for a depth player tight end.

“It was special teams," admitted Meyer, as to why Tebow was in this first round of cuts. "This whole roster management is really critical as we journey here into the next two weeks. Two of the special teams phases are tackling and he had never tackled. That’s what I found myself and I still find myself, all of us. Every off day we’ll have a two-to-three-hour meeting about roster management, and it comes down [to that] because we expect to be very good on special teams. The tight end position is one of those [positions], and tailback, if you can’t contribute on special teams, that’s a tough go.”

The signing was met with criticism not so much because of Tebow himself, but because of the willingness on the coaching staff's part to bring in an older player for essentially an experiment, and risk taking a younger player's spot. A Jacksonville native, Tebow drew ample attention from fans at Jaguars practices, scrimmages and the first preseason game. For his part, the tight end stayed relatively out of the spotlight, as much as possible. He did not meet with the local Jacksonville media during his time with the club. The only time he mentioned his time with the Jaguars on social media, was when announcing he'd been released.

As for what's next for Tim Tebow, he still has a standing job with ESPN and the SEC Network as a college football analyst, a role in which he has excelled. And as he said when inducted into the Gators ring of honor in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, "I was born a Gator, I played as a Gator. I'll die a Gator."