Number of the Day: Tebow's 316

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

            --John 3:16

Three hundred sixteen yards and an overtime Playoff win. A charisma and style that clearly draws in other players, coaches, and fans. Tim Tebow is many things. Make of him what you will, but know that whether you believe he's an angel from God, a Twitter buzzword, an NFL miracle worker, or simply a lucky son of a gun somebody, somewhere, will label your judgement as blasphemy.


He is not the first to kneel after a touchdown. He is not the first to put fist to forehead after a win. He is not the first to bless God, point to the sky, or inspire children in hospital beds to keep on fighting, and I'm not saying any of these things do not make him, for lack of a better word, good, but the momentum of coincidence is a powerful train once it gets rolling; and I can think of no better word to describe Tim Tebow than coincidental.

So many other teams would not have taken him in the first round, and on so many other teams he would still be riding the bench, or, perhaps, if his team were in any other division, his team wouldn't have even made the Playoffs. And, what if a reporter had never asked him about his sex life while he was at Florida, or what if his opinions on abortion were left unstated? Would he be just another football player thanking God after touchdowns then? Because we've seen all that before, from quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, almost any player who's ever crossed over from here to there at the goal line, so what is it that makes Tebow a symbol to be eternalized?

After a day like today, even the greatest of cynics has to wonder when coincidence crosses the line into becoming an act of will--human or otherwise--and that's why so many of us looked at each other as Demaryius Thomas crossed into the endzone on an eighty yard bomb and said: what was that, or what is this?And the infinite answers available to that question appear to say as much about us as they do about Tim Tebow--whatever he is to each and everyone of us is exactly what we want the world to be.