Tebow Zone -- NFL.com's exhaustive document of every Tebow play this season -- was rather quiet after Sunday. The New York Jets' leading man and backup quarterback only lined up on three plays.
He rushed for 22 yards on the first one, and then handed the ball off twice for a 12-yard gain and a six-yard loss in the Jets loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. And then Tebow out. I never particularly expected Tebow to have a huge impact on the field unless Mark Sanchez really struggled, so the usage isn't a shock. But that won't stop the media from asking Rex Ryan about it.
For the first time, the Jets coach sounded a little annoyed about the whole topic Monday.
"We've always said from Day 1 we can do it 20 times, 40 times, 10 times, two times, whatever, but we determine that. It's not just going to be these specific things lined up, that's exactly what happened in this game," Ryan said via the New York Daily News. "I never said we had to do anything."
Ryan was asked specifically why they didn't let Tebow stay in the game on second-and-16.
"He can pass. Right now, we think Mark gives us the best chance to be successful in that particular situation against that particular opponent," Ryan said. "And those are things that we'll always look at, but I believe Tim can pass. We'll make the decision on when a guy's out there, when he's not out there and whatever."
As the New York Daily News' Manish Mehta points out, the Jets only had one moment where they gained first downs on back-to-back plays: Tebow was in at quarterback. On paper, this was a game we'd expect to see more of Tebow. He did well against the Steelers last year. Sanchez struggled through an awful 10-of-27 performance. The running game had no juice.
It's fair for fantasy owners to start getting impatient. It will probably take a lot of losses and repeated meltdowns by Sanchez for Tebow to be anything but a role player.