Former New England Patriot linebacker Tedy Bruschi, now with ESPN, was critical of Tim Tebow last week.
“Stop talking to the media so much,” Bruschi said last week on ESPN’s “NFL 32”. “You need to disappear, okay, Tim Tebow? You’re not the starting quarterback, it’s Mark Sanchez’s team. I want my voice to come from my head coach and my quarterback — my starting quarterback. That message has to be consistent. I don’t want all this competition brewing, and every time you speak and anytime you talk about competition or anything like that, you’re twisting things,” he went on. “I want one voice. One quarterback, not two.”
What did Tebow think of these comments?
“To be honest, I just do what I’m told,” Tebow said. “I’m told on this day to talk to you so I’m going to talk to you. And to be honest, I just go about it however the Jets set it up. (I go by) the rules that they want us to follow, who they want us to talk to, who they don’t want us to talk to. I don’t get paid enough to make all those decisions. I just do what I’m told and try to do the best I can. I’m here talking to ya’ll because that’s what they want.
“So that’s something that you’d figure that Bruschi would understand though, just that I just do whatever I’m asked to do.”
That last line was a great point. You would think Bruschi would understand that Tebow is just doing what the PR department is asking him to do. He’s not running around downtown Florham Park yelling, “Please interview me – anybody – please interview me.”
But Bruschi doesn’t understand that. Why? Because he played for a team that has media rules similar to Red China. He’s never played for a team that is cooperative with the press.
He owes Tebow an apology.
Tebow is just doing what his bosses are asking him to do.