While everyone is trying to figure out if or when Tim Tebow will become the Jets’ starting quarterback, Tebow claimed Friday he is not worried about it.
Appearing on 1050 ESPN Radio, Tebow dodged questions about whether he wants to start. When asked if he thinks he’ll ever be a starting quarterback again, Tebow expressed uncertainty.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds my future. That is something that has always given me peace and comfort. That’s why I don’t have to worry about the future. I can just worry about today and worry about becoming better as a football player and a person.”
Tebow has been very careful to say all the right things since becoming a Jet last week. He continued to dance around whether he hopes to take Mark Sanchez’s job. The Jets have said he will be Sanchez’s backup and will be used in a special packages.
“My plan is to go in there and try to be the best quarterback that I can be,” Tebow said. “To try to improve every single day, to try to be someone that can help this New York Jets football team win football games, however that is, and reach my potential — be the best quarterback, best teammate, best football player I can be and just be someone that adds something to that locker room. That’s my goal.”
Nothing tripped up Tebow in the interview, which lasted more than 20 minutes. He even praised Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie for criticizing the trade before it went down.
“I think just from the Cromartie perspective, that’s great,” he said. “It’s great because he had his quarterback’s back. That’s what you want. You want guys that are supporting your quarterback. I think that’s great. I commend him. I’ve been friends with Cromartie, even though he is a [Florida State] guy, for two or three years now since we met at the ESPYs. I have respect for him, and I feel like he has respect for me. He was sticking up for his quarterback and good for him.”
Tebow said he has met a few of his new teammates, including linebacker Bart Scott and offensive linemen D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Matt Slauson.
Before his massive press conference Monday at the Jets’ headquarters, Tebow was working out in the team’s weight room.
“They had to rush me out of the weight room because I had just finished working out,” he said. “They were like, ‘We’ve got 15 minutes until this press conference.’ I was like ‘I’ve got one more set.’ ”
Everything, from where he ate dinner in New York to what he wore to his press conference, has been picked apart already. But Tebow said he is not worried about it.
“I don’t have to live the roller-coaster ride that the media lives of my life,” he said. “I just get to live day by day and worry about getting better.”
***
The Jets lost another of their free agents Friday. Offensive lineman Rob Turner signed with the Rams, his agent, Neil Schwartz, confirmed. Turner joins former tight end Matthew Mulligan in reuniting with former offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, now with the Rams.