This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Deemed to be the wrong sort of values, though. Isn't that the problem? If they can catch him out saying one thing and doing another, then he's a hypocrite and can be safely scorned. If he turns around and says "I am leaving all that, it's Problematic and I have converted to being a good liberal Democrat", then he's a brand snatched from the burning and can be held up as an example that you, too, can leave toxic masculinity behind. If he remains as is and keeps living out his values, that's very uncomfortable for the rest of us and since that makes us feel judged, we can only mumble about how he is bad and that is bad and it's all bad and he should stop trying to impose the white supremacist theocracy on us.
Speaking of former sports controversial figures, whatever happened to Colin Kaepernick?
The Tebow hate had very little to do with politics. While he was vocally anti-abortion and his politics were assumed based on his religious affiliation, he never made any direct statements about Obama or anything like that, or even claimed to be a Republican. The religion thing is a bigger part of it, but still not as big as people make it out to be. He won two National Championships and a Heisman Trophy while at Florida, and was about as prominent a celebrity as exists in college football, which isn't quite the NFL but is still pretty big. Even when he was inspiring rule changes after putting Bible verses in his eye black, he still didn't seem to inspire too much hate.
When it came to the NFL, though, Tebow was an athlete, which in the pros is damning with faint praise. He had no special ability to play quarterback, but was able to be successful in college by relying on his natural athleticism. There's a YouTube clip of Ray Lewis and Ed Reed talking to rookies about the importance of watching film, and one of them says that in college they may have been able to run and jump their way to success, but in The League that wasn't going to work. Tebow was successful in college because he was a big guy who could plow his way forward on QB runs or out of a scramble, and played in a system where he wasn't expected to win games with his arm. He was regularly among the leaders in rushing yards among QBs in the top college ranks (and not too far from one of the top rusher's, period), and he led the SEC in all kinds of passing statistics, but pretty much everyone who saw him play could tell that his ability was limited. His footwork was terrible, and his throwing motion was so long it would make Byron Leftwich blush, resulting in high, looping passes that could work if the receiver was "NCAA open" but didn't have a chance at hitting the tighter windows in the NFL. He had no concept on how to read pro defenses. His decision-making was terrible. Even his rushing ability, his strong suit, was built less on speed and more on sheer power.
the NFL at that time was at one of its various low-ebbs when it came to dual-threat quarterbacks. The last one drafted of any consequence had been Michael Vick in 2002. The last one drafted period had been Pat White, the year prior. And though his time at West Virginia was successful enough that fans wore white in honor of him at their last home game, he only lasted one year in the pros, never completing a single pass. The tide would start to turn the following year with Cam Newton, and reach its crescendo after the success of Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson led every head coach to salivate over what could be done with a raw mass of pure athleticism. But that tide is turning now after the failures of guys like Trey Lance, Malik Willis, and Anthony Richardson. And Tebow had less obvious ability than any of them. After he graduated, there was talk that he'd have a future in the NFL as a tight end or maybe a fullback, but Tebow was having none of it. This had been suggested before, but he insisted on playing quarterback. Coaches had been trying to fix his mechanics since high school, but he could always fall back on his athleticism so he had no incentive to change. By the time he got to the NFL, these problems had become so ingrained that they were beyond coaching; even if he made improvement, if under pressure he could only be expected to revert to what he knew from muscle memory.
All that being said, quarterbacks are at a premium in the NFL, and in a draft class thin on QBs, Tebow was taken by the Broncos in the first round. He didn't see the field much in 2010, but the following year, with Kyle Orton being terrible, he was given a shot, and he made the most of it. That isn't to say he was good, exactly, but he won games. He'd pass for like 16 yards in the first half but the defense would keep the game close and Willis McGahee would get yards on the ground and in the fourth quarter he'd get a few good completions, march down the field, and win the game in the final minutes. He even won a playoff game, and though the Broncos promptly lost the following week, he now has more playoff wins than Justin Herbert, Andy Dalton, and hall-of-famer Y.A. Tittle.
In other contexts, this wouldn't have been a problem, but Tebow's existing public profile and relationship with the media did him in. If the same results were had by a nobody like and Easton Stick or Sam Ehrlinger type, the story would be about the defense and the running game and how they're winning despite expectedly poor QB play. If it was a guy like Duck Hodges who was working on a sod farm or something before getting the call to the big leagues, it would be a story about determination and never giving up. If Tim Tebow is the same person, except his personality is such that he's arrested for firing an unlicensed handgun during an altercation outside a nightclub, it wouldn't have made him more likeable, but the story would be about how he's a gritty guy who can take a sack and run for a first down on third and three.
But what doesn't fit is a guy who has won two national championships and a Heisman, who was drafted in the first round, who had a big enough public profile to do endorsements, to play so poorly and be rewarded for it by winning. He was already enough of a national celebrity by that point that whatever he did in a game was going to be newsworthy, and the Christianity threw the whole thing into overdrive. The fact that he was openly Christian wasn't the issue; there are plenty of pro athletes who have made their religious beliefs known. Phillip Rivers is also an Evangelical, and no one seemed to ever give him shit for it. But, aside from being a far better athlete, Rivers was also never as in-your-face about it as Tebow was. He went out of his way to make his religion a story, thanking God in every interview and genuflecting in the end zone. It became cloying, and in the light of the Broncos continuing to win in spite of his poor play, one could be forgiven for getting the impression that he was specifically attributing his teams success to divine intervention. Furthermore, he became a lodestar for people who cared more about religion than sports. His jersey was among the best-selling in the NFL. The people who wished him the most success, though, apart maybe from people in Denver, were those who weren't so much impressed with his playing ability as they were his evangelism.
Tim Tebow was hated because he completely upended puplic perception of what a pro athlete was supposed to be. If he had played better the religion would have seemed less important, and his success would be deserved. If his poor play cost his team games, he'd be another bad quarterback on a bad team and nothing special. Maybe Orton gets his job back.If it turned out his personal life wasn't as squeaky clean as he made it out to be, then the ensuing scandal would overshadow anything about his play or his religion, and the holy rollers who were buying his jerseys would be disowining him, and even if the Broncos continued on their trajectory, fewer people would care. But the right combination of things happened to allow religion to overpower sports, and fans don't like that. I'd talk about Kaepernick more, but it's more or less the same story, except with politics—a player with an existing public profile from (college, making the Super Bowl) ignites a national discussion about (religion, politics) far out of proportion to the player's actual ability. People have limited tolerance for these things being allowed to creep in where they don't belong, and to the extent that it's inevitable, they prefer that it at least involve someone whose value as an athlete justifies cutting them some slack. When the catalyst is a mediocre to awful player, and those most invested in taking the player's side aren't those typically invested in the game itself, things can turn ugly.
I think this is an understated part of it: wildly popular backup quarterbacks are not a thing any team/coach wants to deal with.
To be clear, he wasn't a backup at that point. Denver had given up their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks to be able to draft him (even though they probably could have drafted him later), and once Kyle Orton was benched there was no expectation that he was going to be anything but the starter. The team received a lot of criticism at the time for giving up essentially their entire draft to reach for a guy who nobody else was seriously interested in. The idea initially was that he could be in some kind of RB/QB/TE/WR combo role, but after he was drafted he made it clear that he was only interested in being quarterback. People who knew football could tell that he wasn't the answer, but Tebow fans only saw the Ws piling up. As soon as the Broncos signed Manning the following offseason Tebow was promptly traded to the Jets in a move that their then-GM admits was a mistake, especially since the circus he would bring was unneeded on a team that was probably going to lose anyway, especially in a media environment like New York. To be fair there were other reasons why they had to trade Tebow that are strictly football-related, but his career fizzle in New York, and even though he had been demoted to third string by the end of the season, he was still the subject of disproportionate media and fan interest.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Thank you for this, it makes sense. So good in college but not got the talent for the big leagues, which annoyed the fans (why the hell are we over-paying this loser who is dragging down the team?) and for those who didn't care a rap about football, the overt Christianity was the red rag to the bull.
If he just stuck to drinking, gambling, dog-fighting, and slapping his girlfriend around like the rest of the ordinary sports millionaires, it would all have been okay! 🤣
Funny the behavior we punish in our heroes.
Tangentially, I have come to see hatred of religion as the first and largest red flag that someone has converted to a new one.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link