Tim Tebow, the one-time Denver Broncos wunderkind who is now an ESPN commentator, may end up back in the Mile High City, suited up and ready to throw a football.
Only not as a Denver Bronco.
Tebow has been offered a job as quarterback for the Denver Gold, a still-theoretical team of the newly christened A-11 pro football league, according to Denver Post columnist and ESPN regular Woody Paige.
The A11FL, as it’s called, already has six teams enrolled — in New Jersey, Chicago, LA, Tampa Bay, Dallas and San Francisco. The finalists for the remaining two franchises for its inaugural season are Detroit and Denver.
“We would love to have Tim Tebow join our league,” commissioner Scott McKibben told Paige, in an article in the Denver Post. “We have talked with his lawyer, and his agent, and we have made an offer.”
The offer includes a percentage of team ownership, Paige reported.
The upstart A11FL league joins a long list of often ignominious predecessors, including the short-lived XFL, which lured viewers with WWF-style shenanigans like sending a cameraman into the cheerleader’s locker room during breaks. The XFL was also panned for the poor quality of play on the field and it was disbanded after its debut season.
Most recently, Denver had a team in the Arena League, the Colorado Crush, which was owned by Broncos general manager John Elway.
McKibben told Paige the new league would learn from the past and not try to compete with the NFL.
“We’re not making mistakes other leagues did. We always will be a spring league,” he said. “We’re an aspiration league. There are hundreds of quality players who aspire to play in the NFL, and we’ll provide them with a chance to prove themselves. We’ll be playing in major population and media markets in NFL stadiums, and we have the No. 1 sports network partner in ESPN.”
Although he’s signed with the network, Tebow can bow out of his contract if he wants to play ball. He had an up and down two seasons with the Broncos that were often more notable — and controversial — for his knee-bending prayers than his athleticism. He was traded in 2011 to the New York Jets, but was released last April. He retains a large fan base in Colorado.
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