FOUR Tebow BITS: destinations, future, Hoge

1 » Despite ESPN presenting a narrative in which a team would only be interested in quarterback Tim Tebow at the behest of their owner and not the football operations department, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King believes there will (or at least should) be plenty of organizations interested in the former Heisman Trophy winner. According to King, Buffalo and Miami should be the two teams most interested in Tebow for the variety of ways in which they can use him aside from being a starter. King also thinks that Green Bay, New England and Baltimore (teams with strong coaches and front offices) could utilize Tebow in a similar fashion while also helping him improve as a quarterback. He also believes that the Denver Broncos should just keep Tebow, though obviously that is not a sentiment the organization or its power structure shares in any way, shape or form. “I do not join the chorus of the Tim Tebow Is Worthless Club. In the right situation, I would really want Tebow on my team,” he wrote. “I think he’s a valuable piece on a winning team, even if I’m skeptical he can ever be a long-term NFL starter.”

2 » Monica Culpepper, the wife of former Florida Gators defensive tackle Brad Culpepper and a recent contestant on CBS’s Survivor, recently told 970-WFLA radio that Tebow conveyed to her his desire to return to playing football in the state of Florida. “Brad and I just had dinner with Tim last week, and I don’t think this comes as a shock or surprise to him that Manning was actually going to go there,” she said. “And in all honesty, Tim said, ‘I miss home. I miss the South. And hopefully I’ll land somewhere in Florida.’ I sure hope Jacksonville takes him because he’s such a great kid, such a good player.”

3 » Other destinations that have also been mentioned as potential suitors for Tebow include Jacksonville, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Tampa Bay. A report from ESPN at 3 p.m. on Tuesday noted that Green Bay, Jacksonville, Miami and the New York Jets “have discussed a trade for Tim Tebow.” However, word out of North Florida is that returning home is not likely to be an option for Tebow as the front office is not interested in his talent regardless of what the owner thinks. Additionally, the Miami Herald‘s Armando Salguero shut the door on his local team, tweeting Tuesday afternoon that, “The Dolphins at this time have zero intention of pursuing Tim Tebow.”

4 » After absolutely bashing Tebow for a year and sounding off on him quite decidedly last August, ESPN NFL analyst Merril Hoge offered an extensive and (what sounded like a) sincere mea culpa about the second-year signal caller in an interview with ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike in the Morning on Dec. 12. Just over three months later, Hoge has reversed course again on Tebow, going so far as to insult him as part of a list of quotes the network released to the press following Manning’s decision on Monday. “The more I studied him in an NFL setting, the more disturbed I was that he has no clue what he’s looking at,” Hoge said. “His IQ as a football player is not very good. That is why they have to come down and make it some of a college-form system that he’s comfortable with in Florida. He can’t execute, from a cerebral aspect, a pro-style system.”