Philadelphia Eagles: What if Tim Tebow switched to tight end in 2015?

Welp, it’s (almost) official; after weeks of mild anticipation, the Jacksonville Jaguars intend to sign quarterback Tim Tebow to compete for a spot at tight end.

If you’ve been keeping up with the NFL as of late, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as Tebow has been increasingly linked to the Jaguars since Urban Meyer joined the team as their seventh head coach, but with the 2021 NFL Draft officially passed and Trevor Lawrence finally in place at QB1, I guess the timing was finally right for Ian Rapoport to make it semi-official.

Why is this relevant to the Philadelphia Eagles? What, you don’t remember that one, incredibly weird summer where the City of Brotherly Love hosted the Heisman Trophy winner for the final gasp – to that point anyway – of Tebowmania?

So, with the former Gator back following a half-decade siesta in the world of baseball, one has to ask: What if Tim Tebow had switch to tight end all the way back in 2015? Would he have actually made the 2015 Philadelphia Eagles?

Would Tim Tebow have stuck around with the Philadelphia Eagles at TE in 2015?

More from Section 215

The Philadelphia Eagles were a weird, weird professional football team.

Howie Roseman was stripped of his player personnel power, Chip Kelly was given carte blanche to build the roster however he linked – landing players like Nelson Agholor, Eric Rowe, and Jordan Hicks in the draft and DeMarco Murray and Miles Austin in free agency – and after seemingly defeating Michael Vick to become the team’s starting quarterback, Nick Foles was jettisoned to the then-St. Louis Rams for the sleeved one himself, Sam Bradford.

In hindsight, none of those personnel decisions made a whole lot of sense, as the two best players of the lot, Agholor and Hicks, both left the team for greener pastures in free agency, but I digress.

With Bradford in place as his ultra-accurate spread quarterback, surely Kelly was ready to go into a make or break season that could either cement his place as the Eagles’ long-term head coach moving forward or kick him back to the college ranks, right? Surely he wouldn’t do something crazy and try to shake things up in a spectacular way, especially after finally winning personnel control away from Jeffery Lurie’s favorite front office employee of all time, right?

*sigh* if it were so simple.

No, despite having Bradford, Mark Sanchez, and Matt Barkley under contract, Kelly took a page out of his good friend Bill Belecheks’ book and signed Tim Tebow to a one-year contract on 4/20/2015 to compete for a spot in the QB room.

That obviously didn’t happen; Tebow was not a particularly good thrower of the ball during his tenure with the team – which is sort of important when you play quarterback – and was ultimately waived just prior to the start of the regular season.

But what if Tebow hadn’t joined the Birds as a quarterback? What if he wasn’t so married to his position name and instead wanted to just stick around at the NFL level playing professional football no matter what? Would a 25-year-old Tebow have been able to transition to tight end a whole lot easier than his 33-year-old future counterpart?

In a word, yes.

Measuring in at 6-foot-2, 236 pounds, 4.7 speed, and a 115-inch broad jump, Tebow is built very similar to another former Florida Gators quarterback who switched to tight end with the Eagles by the name of Trey Burton, who just missed Tim in Gainsville by one season. Assuming Tebow’s quarterback hands translated seamlessly from throwing balls to catching them, there’s little reason to believe he couldn’t have at the very least been a viable prospect at the tight end position as he learned the more technical aspects of the position (aka blocking).

Would Tebow have ever been able to put it all together and become a true blue “traditional” tight end in time for the 2015 or even 2016 season? Honestly, we will never know. For every Logan Thomas or Blake Bell who successfully made the transition from quarterback to tight end, there are a slew of players like Tyrone Swoopes who weren’t quite able to get the deal done.

But what about the 2015 Eagles depth chart? Would there have even been a place for Tebow on the roster? That, too, depends on what the Eagles wanted to do.

Assuming Tebow flashed enough to earn a long-term look but wasn’t ready to see the field with regularity, the Eagles could have surely set aside a roster spot for him on the 53 man roster at the expense of a player like Jerome Couplin, Denzel Rice, David Molk, or Jonathan Krause. Again, he probably wouldn’t have been afforded too many chances to actually see the field, as the trifecta of Zach Ertz, Brent Celek, and Burton was pretty well locked in place, but theoretically, he could have stuck around, especially if he was willing to play special teams.

So, if the Eagles could have stashed Tebow on their active roster, the next question that needed to be answered is should they have done so? That, my friends, is the $900,000 question.

During his tenure with the Eagles, Kelly liked to shake things up and run some wildcat quarterback from time to time, largely with college QB Brad Smith. If Tebow could have turned himself into a viable TE2, his ability to take the field under center from time to time could have been a serious asset for a team looking to play fast and get creative, especially considering Bradford wasn’t exactly built for the read-option. Considering Celek was already 30 in 2015 and would only go on to play two more seasons in the NFL, it wouldn’t have been the worst idea to look for a viable second option to compete alongside Burton, especially if he could provide value as a blocker.

Then again, if Tebow was more of a gimmicky TE3 used from time to time, would his presence have really been worth the hassle? Even if in 2015, when he was playing in the fourth quarters of preseason games, there were fans claiming that Tebow deserved to start over Bradford for no reason in particular. Would Kelly have wanted that kind of external criticism, especially when the season started going off the rails down the stretch?

No (insert Kombucha Girl gif here).

Next. Philadelphia Eagles can dominate the 2022 draft if Jalen Hurts succeeds. dark

In hindsight, Tim Tebow really should have transitioned to tight end back in 2015, as his athletic gifts would have eased his transition from quarterback a whole lot easier than in his mid-30s a half-decade later. Had it worked out, the Philadelphia Eagles very well may set aside a spot on their roster for his services, and he could have potentially become a player a year or two down the line once Brent Celek officially hung up his cleats. While it’s impossible to know how that experiment would have turned out, or if it would have even continued on if Chip Kelly was still replaced by Doug Pederson in 2016, it surely would have had prolonged his first tenure in the NFL a whole lot longer than a six-year switch to play minor league baseball. Oh well, good luck in Jax Tim, it’ll surely be interesting to watch.

Home/Philadelphia Eagles