The newspaper business is alive and well in New York City.
Well, I should probably rephrase that because it suggests newspapers in New York are immune to industry-wide problems that are causing death spirals everywhere else. They aren't.
But for anyone who loves newspapers and what they used to be, a trip to Manhattan is like a trip back in time. As in, you actually see a lot of people holding actual newspapers in their hands whether it's on the subway, at eating establishments or wherever.
Mass transit has to help sell papers, because you have a lot of people sitting for long periods of time. And as much as our society loves the immediacy of news on personal digital devices, New York shows that there's still some value in the printed word as long as the words printed are worth reading.
And in New York, the presence of a bunch of newspapers in constant, cut-throat competition translates into plenty of compelling newsprint.
So when I heard the news that Tim Tebow was traded to the Jets, the first reaction was:
"Oh, boy. This is going to be fun to watch."
As in, fun to watch Tebow existing in the middle of the most tempestuous, hyperbolic media climate on Earth. The writers up there don't do reverent. They don't do understatement. They don't do genteel.
If a team is on a long winning streak, it's the best team ever. If a team is on a losing streak, it's the worst team ever. It's a climate of extremes, with just about everything covered in breathless, apocalyptic fashion. And it's dang fun to watch some of the stuff covered from afar.
Whenever he's doing television, Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News strikes you as one of the most annoying, self-absorbed people on the planet. But he has a way with words, and his sports columns are worth reading.
Here are some of his Tebow takes in today's column:
People already think of the Jets as a circus because of the way their coach talks and acts and the way some of their players talk and act and some of the other players they have brought in and the way their season ended. Now they bring a brand-new circus to town. ...
Now they go hard for Tebow, who owned the pro football season until the Giants took it back after 7-7, who can run like a champ but can’t throw for 50% in a passers’ league, who has a throwing motion that looks as if it were put together with Scotch tape and paper clips, but who made the playoffs last season and won one more playoff game – off the Steelers — than the Jets of Ryan and Sanchez did. ...
The circus really can be a lot of fun. You just have to make sure you don’t end up looking like clowns in the end.
And this from Steve Serby of the New York Post:
Owner Woody Johnson has told us — with a straight face — the Jets passed on Peyton Manning. God forbid they should pass on Tim Tebow!
Not only did the Jets surrender fourth- and sixth-round draft picks for a gimmick quarterback with ungodly flaws and a seventh-round choice, they also agreed to fork over $2.5 million of the monies owed the Broncos.
Holy Heisman!
Welcome to the Ringless Bros. and Ryan and Tebow Circus.
The Jets lusting after Tebow the way they did, all but tripping over themselves to announce at 1:03 p.m. that they had “agreed in principle” to bring Tebow-mania to New York, only means that Sanchez better be the one praying.
It means the only commandment in the Sanchise’s football Bible now is Thou Shalt Not Stink. Or else.
It is further evidence the Jets don’t believe they have their Sanchise quarterback....
Will quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh be able to transform Tebow into a quarterback who could play the position the way it was meant to be played instead of one who throws ducks and completes 46 percent of his passes? Doubtful.
Will Tebow operating Tony Sparano’s Wildcat keep Bill Belichick up at night? Hardly.
But it undoubtedly will keep Sanchez up at night, and playing with the fragile psyche of your young franchise quarterback is risky and treacherous business.
Heck, even the New York Times -- traditionally the only paper in NYC that attempts understatement -- got into the act.
Tebow did win a national championship at Florida running situational packages as a backup his freshman season. This, of course, is not his freshman season. Tebow started 11 games last season and led the Broncos to an overtime playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now he will be asked, at first, to back up Sanchez, another inaccurate quarterback, who missed the playoffs.
Quarterback controversy, start your engine.
Perhaps no athlete in recent memory has engendered a following like Tebow, whose faith and success have elicited intense feelings from both supporters and detractors. That would only be amplified in New York, on the most headline-hungry team in the N.F.L. It is almost as if the Jets figured they could fix their circus by adding another polarizing performer, by not just doubling the hype that surrounds the franchise but by also growing it exponentially.
For years, dating to his days in Gainesville, Tebow has lived in a fishbowl.
Now he's advancing to the sharkbowl, and it's going to be darn fun to watch it all unfold.
LW
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