CBS Sports game analyst Randy Cross believes Tebow haters are bashing him for his outspoken Christian opinions.

“People, especially the media, root against him because of what he stands for,” said Cross.

The 3-time Super Bowl champ added: “My personal belief is there are people in the media, people in the stands, who are predisposed to see a guy like that fail…Just because he’s so public about the way he feels.”

My gut response is to mock Cross for being a barking gongbat. I could say things like “yes, it’s true, America hates Christians. Especially the media. I mean, the mere 85% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian constitutes an almost invisible minority. I know, I know, the president is a Christian and so is the VP and well over 90% of our Congressional representatives are Christian and the Supreme Court features seven Christians and all of our major presidential candidates in both major parties for as far back as anybody can remember have been Christians. And almost all of our past presidents were Christians (you have to go all the way back to Lincoln to find one we can even debate over). Hell, even sports franchises are building their operations around the evangelical litmus test. Still, you can make statistics say anything.

“And sweet hell, on top of this he’s saddled with the crippling disadvantage of being a white male. He’s like a modern-day Job.”

That said, there’s no doubt that Timmy’s PDPs (that’s public displays of piety) get on some folks’ nerves, and it’s also no secret that I’m one of them. So there’s a grain of truth in that part of Cross’s formulation, at least. I mean, hypothetically, if three out of 309 million Americans “root against him because of what he stands for,” then that means Cross is technically correct. Stupid and irrelevant, perhaps, but correct.

My larger problem, though, is this: Cross is subtly propagating a sinister little meme that I’m hearing more and more of in the last week or two, as Tebow’s lack of talent as an NFL quarterback has migrated him further and further down the depth chart. Depending on who’s talking, this myth takes a couple of forms. First, everybody hates Tebow because of his religion. And second, this prejudice is why he isn’t being given a chance to show that he’s truly a fantastic QB on the field.

You don’t hear this last argument being worded exactly that way, for the most part, but listen to Denver sports talk as much as I do and you come to understand that 90% of the conversations about Tebow are being conducted in code. When people are talking about why they love Timmy, they don’t say outright that’s it’s teh Jesus, but the religiosity is the only way of explaining the things they do say. Despite how people talk, Tebow isn’t the only “good kid” in camp. He’s not the only one who’s strong in what he believes. He’s not the only one who works his ass off or who has had to overcome obstacles. He’s not the only one with “intangibles” and “character.” And I’ve already explained in detail what’s going on when they trot out the ultimate code word, “faith.” (It’s not about race, either, because a lot of the other hard-working Christians who have overcome obstacles and have great intangibles are white.) So when the chatter turns to why he isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet, it’s not surprising to hear even more code from a vast, paranoid religious majority that seems to believe the government is going to start rounding up Baptists and shipping them off to concentration camps next week.

There’s so much wrong with what Cross and his ilk believe that it’s hard to know where to start. But I’m going to try.

On point one, that people hate Tebow because he’s a Christian:

• As noted above, everybody’s Christian. I can’t speak to what’s in people’s hearts, but my best guess is that the percentage of NFL players and coaches who claim to be Christian is even higher than 85%. I may be wrong, but I have seen no evidence to suggest that it’s lower. Listen to players talk. Watch the prayer huddles after the game. And think about the culture of conformity that attends any activity involving intense male subcultures. If I were going to hate on Christian athletes because of their religion, I’d have to stop watching American sports entirely.
• I don’t know who all these millions of people hating Tebow are, because his jersey was the #1 seller for much of 2010 (he finished third for the year). That doesn’t mean nobody hates him, but it does suggest that he’s not exactly Public Enemy Number One.
• As for the idea that the media hates Tebow, well, that one made me laugh so hard I nearly swallowed my own nose. Randy, the media I’m familiar with worships Tim Tebow about as hard as Tim worships the Lord, and why not – he’s great for their business. I may not have a full list here, but best I can tell he’s been featured on the cover of ESPN, Men’s Fitness, Sports Illustrated, GQ, 5280, The Beckett Football Magazine and Sporting News. And if you’re keeping score at home, ask yourself this: how many times in the past three years has Tebow been the subject of some story or other on your television? Good, now how many of those, percentagewise, were negative stories? In my case, the answers are “millions” and “less than 2%.”
• Oh, and by the way, Randy, you’re “the media.” Just saying.

On the second point, that he’s not getting a fair shot because of his religion:

• Let’s just say this straight away: if Tim Tebow had been your basic Catholic or mainline Protestant who pursued his beliefs without insisting on reminding us every time he opened his mouth (or every time he appeared on camera with the Bible verse glare patches under his eyes) he’d have been drafted in the fifth round. If he’d been a vocal atheist or agnostic or, the gods forbid, a Pagan or a Muslim or a Hindu, he’d have been lucky to talk himself into a tryout as an undrafted free agent. If you don’t think Skippy McDaniel was overly impressed by the player’s “character” you weren’t paying attention.
• Rick Reilly dismembered Tebow’s game in a much publicized column a couple of weeks ago. Which is what happens when you know a little about football and you watch closely. When Tebow drops back and the receiver runs a seven-yard out, there’s a chance that the ball will be underthrown. There’s a chance it will be behind the receiver. There’s a good chance he’ll hit someone on the sidelines in the numbers and if you’re in the front row or two of the stands you might get a souvenir. There’s also a chance that he’ll hit the receiver, although his statistics don’t recommend that you bet heavily on this outcome.
• More likely, he’s going to be unable to find an open man because he can’t read defenses (he was never really asked to do anything like this at the high school or college levels, and he has the same kinds of problems that other QBs coming from spread and running systems have had). No surprise there at all. In a recent interview with one of the sports stations here, one of the Broncos defensive players admitted that when Tebow is the QB, the defense plays differently – they crowd the running lanes and wait for him to break down and gallop into their waiting arms. He didn’t say it that negatively, but I’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting code lately.
• It’s also a pure joy to hear Tebow’s supporters talking about his ability to “make things happen with his feet.” Yeah, he raised hell at Florida, but there he was surrounded by talent that was usually superior to what was on the other side of the ball. However, his 40 time is in the 4.7 range, which isn’t special by NFL QB standards. Never mind trying to outrun some of the league’s many quick-footed linebackers – there are any number of defensive linemen who are faster than he is, and Head Coach John Fox can’t be terribly excited about handing the reins of the offense over to a guy who might get cheetahed by a nose tackle.
• If you think Tebow isn’t getting a fair chance you’re hallucinating. You don’t think everyone in the Doncs’ organization would kill to have a squeaky-clean Man of Faith^® as the face of the franchise? Think of the marketing potential. Think of the money. Denver is an exceptionally Christian market (and I say that as a guy who grew up in North Carolina, where some neighborhoods have more churches than convenience store). Lots of extremely white suburban megachurch types here, plus a huge Latino Catholic population that feckin’ loves Broncos football. These nuances are not lost on the likes of Pat Bowlen and his front office people. The only guy who might get more consideration than Tebow, despite having even less in the way of obvious experience and qualifications, would be Jesus Christ himself, should he return with an eye toward a football career. So if Tebow is the third-stringer, bet your ass it’s because he’s given the team nothing at all to hang its hat on. (And if you’ve watched him play, either in the pre-season or in three starts last year, you know that’s exactly what has happened.)
• In the end, you hear so much talk about Tim Tebow’s “intangibles.” The main reason is fairly simple: he has no tangibles to talk about. He can’t read defenses. He doesn’t understand how to run a pro passing offense because he’s never run a system remotely like it. And he cannot pass accurately. Period.

So, in summary, I guess I’d answer Randy Cross thusly:

1. Tim Tebow is hardly being oppressed. He’s gotten every chance in the world and then some, and there’s a great argument to be made that this is because of his relentless public religiosity. I can think of no other quarterback in history at this level who has been afforded more opportunities despite such glaring limitations.
2. Those who are sick of Tebow, either as a player or a person, have valid reasons.

Sure, I admit that I personally dislike being flogged by his religious arrogance and presumptuousness. But do you have any idea what a small minority I am, both in general and on this issue in particular?

Randy Cross might do a little math, too. Because we have the hard data on how many Christians there are in the US. If as many people are put off by the 24/7/4ever proselytizing as he seems to think, then it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to conclude that a lot of those who are fed up with Tebow are themselves Christians. That means something, and “they root against him for what he stands for” isn’t it.

I believe in Tim Tebow’s right to believe in whatever he chooses. I also believe in the free speech rights that allow me and everybody else to weigh in on the subject.

I don’t believe that your religion qualifies you to be a quarterback in the NFL, though, and if more people are coming around to my way of thinking then I’m glad to hear it.

However, the reaction to the league’s announcement among a number of players, many fans and way too many overpaid pundits needs to be examined. If you pay attention to ESPN and the myriad other networks that follow the NFL you know what I mean. Analysts barely stopped short of Jack Lambert’s comment from back in the ’70s that we might as well put quarterbacks in skirts, lamenting that it’s a violent game, that you can’t risk changing how players approach tackling, that everybody out there knows what they signed up for, etc. Several players echoed these sentiments, with some seeming at a loss for how they could even play if they weren’t allowed to turn it up to 11. Saints fullback Heath Evans tweeted that the new rules will “hurt the integrity of our gr8 game.” Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison, one of the Week 6 offenders whose actions precipitated the league’s response, made a show of pretending that he might actually retire rather than try and play in the new, more restrictive environment (a proposition that Vegas sports books did not offer odds on).

The thing that struck me as I listened to this pro-anything-goes ritual being played out over and over throughout the week is that somewhere along the way we seem to have lost our ability to distinguish between the means and the end. If you’re familiar with the rules of the game, you might recall that the defender’s job is to bring the ball carrier to the ground. A hard tackle, in whatever technical form it might take, is the means by which this is accomplished. Drilling the hell out of the guy with the ball (or the guy trying to catch the ball, as the case may be) isn’t the thing itself, it’s the means to the thing itself. The rules of the game don’t care whether you separate the wide receiver from his spleen or trip him up by grabbing his shoelaces. Either way the whistle blows, the ball is down, 3rd and six.

But a distressing number of players and commentators are acting like crippling the offensive player is a birthright. It’s as though when you step on the field, there are only two options: attempted homicide or two-hand touch. If you take away the defender’s ability to rip a defenseless receiver’s head off, you might as well play in tu-tus and makeup.

Am I exaggerating here? Maybe a little, but not much. One player I heard interviewed yesterday said that they’re not out there trying to hurt anybody (hey, you’ve seen the video, you make up your own mind about that), but that if they just tap a guy on the shoulder and he runs down the field and scores they’ll lose their jobs. Really? Those are your only two choices?

Listen, I played football. I wasn’t very good, but I hit some people and got hit by some people. I got hurt a couple of times and unfortunately I inflicted one significant injury (textbook tackle, but the guy’s knee just gave on him). I’ve never opened my mouth about an injury that resulted from a clean play, though, and I never will. I’m a fan of the game, and watch both college and pro every weekend during the season. I appreciate the physicality and appreciate a good, clean hit that goes in service of getting the ball carrier to the ground (and, for that matter, let’s tip our hats to the guys in the trenches – it’s not as spectacular, but the mayhem that the O and D lines wreak on each other is something to behold).

But dammit, this isn’t the Colosseum and the game isn’t between the Lions and the Christians. No doubt some fans are there for the blood and revel in hits that are, in some cases, a threat to the careers (and even lives) of the gladiators. We can’t do anything about the pathology of each and every person watching the game. But you don’t pander to it, either. Today’s players are bigger, faster and stronger, and they’re outfitted in body armor that can be as effective at inflicting damage as it is at absorbing it. You hear the word “projectile” quite a bit in this context, and there’s a reason.

This isn’t the first time that football has come under scrutiny for its violence, and it won’t be the last. In fact, such debates are an intrinsic part of the culture of the sport and probably always will be. In football’s early days it was even more brutal:

Players wore very little padding and helmets were nothing more than a leather cap. Routinely, slugging and punching took place on the field and gang tackling was rampant. A favorite play was the “flying wedge” in which an entire team formed a V and plowed down the field like a tank. The players would often lock arms or even grab on to one another’s belts equipped with special handles. More often than not, the result was players strewn across the field and slugfests erupting. In 1905, there was roughly one-fifth the number of college football players as there are today, yet, 18 were killed and 159 severely injured in that one year alone.

Note that. 18 players were killed in 1905. It was so bad that President Teddy Roosevelt threatened to get the game outlawed. The following year? 33 players were killed, at which point the flying wedge was finally banned.

Would it be unfair of me to speculate that as these measures were being contemplated and enacted the same kinds of rhetorical tactics were employed as we’ve heard this past week? After all, the 51 players who died in 1905 and 1906 knew what they were signing up for. It was a violent game and if you legislated out the physicality, well, they might as well play in skirts, right?

In a given NFL week there are roughly 1700 active players. They can say what they want, but I assure you that none of them “signed up” to be killed or crippled by an opponent who believes that the rule book insists on laying people out. And even if the players did assent to such a code, do those players have wives and families who signed up to lose their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons to a game that has forgotten the difference between the ends and the means?

I applaud the NFL’s action because I love football. I love it way too much to see what’s going to happen to it when a player is killed on the field. And if what we saw during Week 6 were allowed to continue, make no mistake – it would only be a matter of time.

But how could he? she wonders. He not only loves the arts, he’s socially conscious. When she tries to reconcile his opposition to our recent wars with the fervor with which he watches this violent sport, her cognitive dissonance gets the better of her.  (The sexes, of course, could be reversed, or the same.)

She resolves to accept the situation, but discovers that she can’t handle the life of a football widow. It’s not long before she’s pressuring you to go out during game-time.

First question: How many games a year, if any, do you give up for her? Incidentally, the answer “Every situation is different” doesn’t count.

Second question: If she decides “I didn’t sign on for this” and insists that you give up all or more of football than you’re willing (I know: this may be a function of a relationship already in trouble), which would you choose: football — or your wife or girlfriend?

*Since I don’t follow college football, I can’t speak to the stresses that watching it places on a relationship.

Not especially gifted with speed, power, or quickness, Barber developed the patience to wait for holes to open and, with his superior field vision, specialized in cutting back against the flow of the defense. He thus avoided taking big hits and the major injuries that ensue. Responsive to coaching and renowned for his grueling off-season workouts, Barber encapsulated my single favorite attribute in a pro athlete: he found a way to improve every season.

His signature (second to last) 2005 season has seldom been fully appreciated. His 2,390 total yards was, at that time, the second highest in NFL history and he had three (count ‘em — three!) 200-yard games that season. Barber even had the good sense to retire in his prime, a la NFL “icons” Jim Brown and Barry Sanders.

His professed loss of zest for the game might have been hastened by the broadcasting opportunities offered him. Four major stations — ABC, FOX, the NFL, and NBC — competed for his services. He chose NBC and became a correspondent for the Today show an analyst for Football Night in America. But it soon became apparent that Barber was too preoccupied with his presentation — in other words, he came across as slick. After one season on Football Night in America, he was moved off the set and exiled to reporting from empty fields.

During his career, Barber stirred up controversy by speaking his mind on issues like star defensive end Michael Strahan’s holdout, Eli Manning’s leadership abilities, and Coach Tom Coughlin’s play-calling. But they were tempests in a teapot compared to taking up with a 23-year-old former NBC intern and leaving his wife on the eve of their fourth child’s birth. Finally, citing a morals clause, NBC — no doubt jumping at the opportunity — terminated its contract with him. Now he’s out a $300,00 job just as his wife is reportedly making exorbitant divorce-court claims.

Barber’s post-football life, characterized by professional failure, sleaze, and likely onerous alimony and child support payments, hasn’t shaped up as he carefully planned. While his football career remains for me perhaps the most rewarding I’ve ever witnessed, he’s just too slick for his own good.