Mike Mayock Expects Tim Tebow To Be Here

I’ve written numerous times here on the site that Tim Tebow is probably going to make this football team.  It’s not that he’s outperforming Matt Barkley or he has become a great pocket passer, it’s because his ability to run with the football and execute the read option will cause problems for opposing defensive coordinators.  His presence on the roster will force defensive coordinators to prepare for that read option with the quarterback keeping the football and thereby steal time from those defenses as they try to prepare for the Chip Kelly offense.

NFL Network Analyst Mike Mayock was out at practice yesterday and before I could tell him what I thought about the Tebow/Barkley situation, he started talking about how the presence of Tebow on the roster was going to force opposing defensive coordinators to prepare for the read option with the quarterback keeping the football.  Mike talked about how Tebow’s ability to run with the football is a skill set that the other Eagles quarterbacks don’t have.

Next up he started having some fun by talking about Kelly putting Tebow, Darren Sproles and Sam Bradford in the game at the same time.  Would Chip decide to put Bradford at quarterback with Sproles spread out and Tebow as the lone back?  Or would he spread Bradford out to occupy a defender, then have Tebow and Sproles running a read option to the other side?  Regardless of what he did it would mean headaches for defensive coordinators.

He said putting those players on the field at the same time would be a great opportunity for Chip to force the defense into a matchup which he loved.  Mayock stressed matchups  in our conversation.  He said the league has become a matchup league, meaning teams draft and acquire talent that will cause matchup problems for defenses.  Offensive coordinators design their offenses with the intent of causing matchup problems for defenses.  There’s nobody in the league who is better at creating problems for defenses using matchups, than Chip Kelly.

Back to Tebow, I’m not going to get into all the details, but the read option changes the assignments of many of the defensive players and it forces defensive players, who just want to attack the play to be patient.  It’s a pain in the butt for defensive coordinators, that’s why you’re probably going to see Tebow on the roster throughout 2015.

One caveat that Mayock threw in at the end was the fact that Chip doesn’t have to declare whether Tebow is going to be activated or not until minutes before the game.  You know Chip loves creating these problems for defensive coordinators.  Kelly deep down is an offensive coordinator at heart.

Tebow still has a ways to go as he works on his throwing touch, but he has improved it quite a bit. Mayock and I think he’s going to be here.

On a sidenote:  Years ago when I was playing with the Eagles, I took a job during the offseason to lease commercial real estate for Rouse and Associates, which was a real estate development company founded by Willard Rouse, who built Liberty Place. The guy who was training me to sell those properties was none other than Mike Mayock.  He was still deciding what he was going to do after playing a couple of years with the Giants.  He’s done very well for himself and his family.  I’m happy for his tremendous success and the way he has continued to be such a down to earth guy.