Dear Santa,
I know it’s early for my letter this year, but I really can’t wait this time. I’m only asking for one little thing, and if you make it happen, I won’t ask for anything else this year. I promise.
Please, Santa, can you send Tim Tebow to my New England Patriots? Please. This would make me so happy for so many reasons.
I want to see the Great Hooded One turn Tebow into the undisputed King of the Two-Point Conversion. The Patriots scored 61 touchdowns last season. Having Tebow run a two-point option after each of them instead of just kicking the PAT would have easily added 50 points to last season’s total. That’s more than 8 touchdowns or 16 field goals. That’s a huge swing. To be better than they already are, the play would only have to work 50 percent of the time, and Tebow averaged 5.4 yards per carry last year. Running an option from 2 yards out feels pretty safe to me.
And it could lead to one of the great football nicknames of all time: Timmy Two Points! Who wouldn’t love the name Timmy Two Points?
Adding another 50 points to the Patriots’ offense hardly seems fair, which brings me to the second reason this would make me so happy. It would be another way to confirm the evil genius of the Great Hooded One. It would be the ultimate Belichickian move to pick a player off the discard pile and use him to change the way the game is played. If, as some wags have suggested, Belichick is the football version of the Emperor of the Galactic Empire and Tom Brady has become Vader as part of his apprenticeship, then I say it’s time to bring in young Tim Skywalker. Can’t you just picture it, Santa? Brady calling Tebow and saying, “Join me and together we can rule the NFL.” Sure, this could all go wrong and Tebow could eventually be found looking for the right exhaust vent to destroy Gillette Stadium, but if there’s another Lombardi Trophy between now and then, I’m okay with that.
Santa, the PAT needs to go anyway. It’s boring, maybe the only boring score that happens in the sport. Last year, the Pats and their opponents were a combined 97 for 97 on PAT attempts. Replacing this chip-in with a genuinely exciting all-or-nothing 2-yard play would add excitement to the game. I need this as a fan.
There’s one other reason that Tebow coming to the Pats would make me happy. The two times the Broncos came to Gillette Stadium last season, the Massachusetts fan base went nuts. There were serious cases of Tebow Derangement Syndrome, all of which centered on his piety. There were debates about the appropriate place of religion in football and society. There were scores of radio calls predicting that someday Tebow would be found in a sex or abuse scandal of some kind. There were denouncements of the Christian “fanatics” who were rooting for him. I grew to love Tebow simply because of who hated him. So, Santa, watching these people root for Tebow as a Patriot would make me just about giddy every Sunday.
Thanks for listening, Santa.
Your friend,
Neil