{"id":27694,"date":"2015-04-21T15:20:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T19:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=27694"},"modified":"2015-04-21T15:20:34","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T19:20:34","slug":"after-signing-tim-tebow-the-philadelphia-eagles-should-sign-michael-sam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/04\/21\/after-signing-tim-tebow-the-philadelphia-eagles-should-sign-michael-sam\/","title":{"rendered":"After signing Tim Tebow, the Philadelphia Eagles should sign Michael Sam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In what may be the Chip Kelliest move yet of a dizzying off-season, the Philadelphia Eagles have signed quarterback Tim Tebow<\/a> to a one-year contract.<\/p>\n

And why not? The former Heisman trophy winner hasn\u2019t played in the NFL since 2012, and his career mark of a 33.4 quarterback-rating is pretty dismal (even granted that QBR seems like a weird and dubious statistic). But the Iggles already have four other quarterbacks with sub-par passer-ratings<\/a>, so why not add a fifth? Might as well bring in one more to compete for the team\u2019s third-string QB slot \u2014 after all, your third-string quarterback isn\u2019t going to make or break the team\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\"TebowIggles\"<\/a>
So, this happened. (Eagles team photo via Twitter.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mainly though, this seems like another magnificent case of Eagles head coach Chip Kelly trolling sports radio and the media. Whether or not Kelly is the football genius that many claim him to be, he\u2019s never dull \u2014 even during the off-season. Kelly has spent the winter dismantling and (maybe) rebuilding his team in his own image \u2014 trading away his starting quarterback, the team\u2019s all-time leading running back, and key members of its defense and offensive line. (My wife\u2019s LeSean McCoy jersey is now as out-of-date as my DeSean Jackson jersey.)<\/p>\n

But this is a Tim Tebow story \u2014 meaning it\u2019s only secondarily about football. The guy isn\u2019t most famous for his limited playing time with the Broncos, Jets and Patriots, but for the ostentatious\u00a0gesture he trademarked. Tebow is most famous for \u201cTebow-ing\u201d \u2014 kneeling in prayer during games in an extravagant display of religious devotion.<\/p>\n

Tebow\u2019s outspoken white evangelical faith has made him more than a quarterback. It\u2019s made him a culture-war icon. He\u2019s become a representative of a particular brand of Christianity \u2014 one that emphasizes preaching and public prayer. And, whether or not it\u2019s what he intended, that has also made him a representative of a particular brand of religious politics \u2014 a partisan ideology that emphasizes anti-feminist and anti-gay culture-war issues.<\/p>\n

Signing Tim Tebow will thus bring with him a whole new set of fans \u2014 people who may or may not care about football, but who have very strong tribal affiliation with the strains of religion and politics he has come to represent. Even if Tebow never steps onto the field in an Eagles uniform, it\u2019s likely the team will sell a lot of Tim Tebow jerseys to those who want to wear that tribal affiliation literally on their sleeves.<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t there a risk that signing Tebow could also alienate<\/em> other fans from other tribes? The white evangelical Christianity of the culture-warriors defines itself by what it\u2019s against, and the people it defines itself against may feel slighted that the Eagles have brought back a symbol of the religion and politics that opposes them. Isn\u2019t that a big risk to take for a player who\u2019s been out of the game for years and whose primary success was back in college?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I think the Eagles should follow up by signing another player who\u2019s been out of the game for a while and whose primary success was back in college: Michael Sam.<\/p>\n

Like Tim Tebow, Michael Sam is a gifted athlete who accomplished some remarkable things on the field as a college player. Like Tim Tebow, Michael Sam is a charismatic guy spoken highly of by former coaches and teammates. And like Tebow, Sam\u2019s identity off the field has overshadowed his record in the game itself<\/a>. Sam makes headlines not because he was the SEC\u2019s defensive player of the year, or because he demonstrated he can rush the quarterback at the NFL level, but because he is the first openly gay athlete at the elite college level that the NFL has ever had to contend with in public.<\/p>\n

Signing Michael Sam to the same kind of one-year contract that Tebow just got could be huge for the Philadelphia Eagles. Imagine this: The front page of PhiladelphiaEagles.com features two jerseys for sale \u2014 Tim Tebow and Michael Sam \u2014 side by side under a\u00a0banner headline reading \u201cPick Your Side: Offense or Defense?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cha-ching!<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019d be a culture-war proxy election, fought with dollars. They\u2019d make a fortune<\/em> \u2014 maybe even enough to pay for one of those wild fan-imagined scenarios where the Eagles manage to trade up to draft Marcus Mariota.<\/p>\n

Plus, it just seems like a very Chip Kelly kind of thing to do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Signing Michael Sam to the same kind of one-year contract that Tebow just got could be huge for the Iggles. Imagine this: The front page of PhiladelphiaEagles.com features two jerseys for sale — Tim Tebow and Michael Sam — side by side under a banner headline reading “Pick Your Side: Offense or Defense?” Cha-ching! It’d be a culture-war proxy election, fought with dollars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-27694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-religious-right"],"yoast_head":"\nAfter signing Tim Tebow, the Philadelphia Eagles should sign Michael Sam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Signing Michael Sam to the same kind of one-year contract that Tebow just got could be huge for the Iggles. 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Imagine this: The front page of PhiladelphiaEagles.com features two jerseys for sale -- Tim Tebow and Michael Sam -- side by side under a banner headline reading "Pick Your Side: Offense or Defense?" Cha-ching! 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"After signing Tim Tebow, the Philadelphia Eagles should sign Michael Sam","description":"Signing Michael Sam to the same kind of one-year contract that Tebow just got could be huge for the Iggles. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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