Here’s the thing about me and football: I enjoy it. I like watching it. I like seeing two well-matched teams struggle for four quarters. But that’s it. I don’t own any jerseys (couple of hats and a shirt, but that’s it). I root for the same team my father roots for, the Minnesota Vikings, even though I didn’t grow up in Minnesota. I also like the Ravens, as they’re the hometown team, and a good one. But I don’t cry when they lose (okay, maybe a little after that 1999 NFC Championship game).

And I don’t hate other teams that much, save for a lingering childhood enmity of the Redskins (due to the 1987 NFC Championship game, among other reasons). I don’t hate the Cowboys, like everyone else seems to. I don’t hate the Steelers, as everyone between Annapolis and the Mason-Dixon Line does. I don’t even hate the  Patriots, even though I agree that Belichick should have been seriously punished.

So I find the raging hostility to Tim Tebow a bit mystifying. People: he’s a football player, deserving of no judgement other than his abilities at same. He had the performance of the season this year, coming back to win games that the Broncos should have been out of. It ended yesterday, as I predicted, because the Broncos are not the Patriots, and Tim Tebow is not Tom Brady.

Tebow is what he is, and what he is doesn’t deserve the calumny or the obnoxious snark. He’s not the worst quarterback or the most overrated quarterback. He’s a Heissman winner struggling to put together a skill set that will make him successful as a pro, after discovering, like a lot of Heissman winners, that his existing skill set won’t do that on its own. And based on what I saw this season, he’s already a better player than a lot of guys who walked that path (Vinny Testaverde anyone?).

The “Tebowing” meme confuses even more. Maybe it’s because I’m a dirty Papist, but I “Tebow” several times a Sunday. It’s called kneeling, and us Godbothering Christers do it from time to time. He’s not hurting anyone. He’s not howling out for the blood of Jews or Muslims or Whores and Fornicators or Gays. He’s offering thanks to the deity he believes in. If he wasn’t white, no one would even notice.

So let it the hell go already. You don’t know the guy, and he doesn’t know you. He puts on a uniform and plays a highly-regulated gladiatorial game for your entertainment. Significance redounds to him precisely to the degree that you grant it. If you insist on hating him, he will never care.