Shahid Khan Says Tim Tebow Didn’t Want To Play For Jacksonville Jaguars
Tim Tebow gave the stiff arm to his hometown team, the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In an interview with Tania Ganguli of The Florida Times-Union, new Jaguars owner Shahid Khan confirmed that Tebow did not want to play for his hometown team.
Instead of upping their offer to a third-round pick and forcing the Denver Broncos hand in the trade negotiations, the Jaguars matched the New York Jets offer and allowed Tebow to choose where he wanted to go. In the eyes of Khan, there was no reason to bring in Tebow if he did not want play for the Jaguars.
“That would have been the worst thing for Jacksonville and the worst thing for him,” Khan told Ganguli. “He didn’t want to come, obviously. … Any one of the 53 players we have, have to be committed to Jacksonville, making us be the best team we are. The question was: Did he want to come? And if the decision had been taken out [of his hands] and we got him, that would not be good for him, or for us.”
The Jaguars made what they felt was fair effort to bring Tebow home, but in the end it was just not meant to be. By the end of negotiations, the Jaguars had matched the Jets offer of a fourth-round draft pick and had offered to pay $3 million of the $5 million advance the Broncos had already paid Tebow.
While Khan has been enamored with possibility of acquiring Tebow since he purchased the team back in November, Jaguars general manager Gene Smith has a different opinion of his talent on the football field. Smith showed Khan all of the scouting work he did on Tebow leading up to the 2010 NFL Draft and explained why he decided to pass on him with their first pick.
Regardless of how Smith felt, Khan still felt compelled to make a play for Tebow.
“He’s special to Jacksonville,” Khan said.
In the end, however, Tebow felt that the Jets were going to provide him with the better opportunity to once again become a starting quarterback in the NFL. Tebow also pointed out in his introductory press conference on Monday that he felt more comfortable with the Jets coaching staff.
While this interview showed that Khan was indeed very interested in bring Tebow home, he probably will never be able to please the small portion of the Jacksonville fanbase that wanted to see Tebow in a Jaguars uniform next season.
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