Posted Sat Jan 8th by Josh Temple
Many Bronco fans and football media are in frenzy this afternoon following Peter King’s appearance on NBC’s pre-game of the Saints at Seahawks matchup. King stated that he had a conversation with John Elway in which he quoted the new Broncos V.P. as saying:
“I don’t think Tim Tebow is a good NFL quarterback at this time.â€
PK went on further to say that fans shouldn’t be surprised if Josh McDaniels lands in Minnesota as the new offensive coordinator that McD might push the Vikes to try and swing a big trade deal to bring Tebow to Minnesota. That along with his Elway quote figuring that the Broncos would be willing to facilitate this trade scenario.
King’s statement went out like a shot heard round the world (or the Rocky Mountains at the very least). Broncotalk’s Ian Henson immediately posted the news linking PFT’s version of the story which might be a tad, how do you say, sensationalistic? Shortly after this spread like wildfire Elway released the following statement via Twitter:
“To clarify my thoughts on Tim Tebow,†Elway said. “I think he’s a very good football player, and if anyone can turn themselves into a great QB, Tim can. Myself and our entire organization think very highly of him. We are pleased with his first year as a Bronco. Any speculation that the Denver Broncos are considering moving Tim is completely false.â€
I would think that pretty much decimates any further controversy or trade rumors. ESPN AFC West columnist and former Denver Post writer Bill Williamson stated that the Broncos organization learned from the Cutler and McDaniels standoff:
The Broncos nipped a potential issue in the bud Saturday when new Denver football czar John Elway made it clear the Broncos are happy with quarterback Tim Tebow and that the team has no intention of trading him.
However the story doesn’t end there. Pro Football Talk went on to say that Elway didn’t end the trade rumor, just made it clear as mud for leverage.
Frankly, Elway didn’t do much clarifying in those remarks. Instead, he did a lot of ignoring. He said what he said to King, and the fair inference is that Tebow would potentially be in play to be moved, especially if the guy who drafted him in 2010 can persuade his next team to make a play for Tebow.
And we wouldn’t expect Elway to do anything other than say that the Broncos don’t plan to trade Tebow. Either he’s telling the truth, or he’s trying to obscure the truth in order to build leverage for an eventual deal.
What isn’t being said here is there are forces covering each other’s bases. Peter King came out with his original quote on NBC which we can only assume is accurate. However, the quote matches Elway’s original statement on Tebow during his introductory press conference where he called Tim a dang good football player, now we just have to turn him into a dang good quarterback.
It sounds like King omitted the second half of whatever Elway told him in the interview to use it as a juicy storyline. When John came out and made his statement on Twitter it left a little bit of egg on King’s face.  PFT followed up by saying that Elway is hiding the front office’s true motives. Is it that, or are you standing up for King after he put himself out there on national television and it came back to bite him? Lets remember that NBC hosts King on Sunday Night Football as a regular analyst and that PFT became a subsidiary of NBC back in 2009.
They can attack Elway and perpetuate this myth further, all we can do is speculate as to why. We hate to speculate, as that’s how all of this “news” started in the first place. Elway cleared the air with his statement. It sounds like King needs to come forth and do the same. Otherwise this is a dead issue.
Published on 01/08/2011 at Sat Jan 08 21:17.
Tagged: Bill Williamson,Jay Cutler,John Elway,Josh McDaniels,Mike Florio,Minnesota Vikings,NBC,Peter King,Tim Tebow.