The Jets are on the defensive again, this time about their use — or its lack — of Tim Tebow.?The backup quarterback suffers a rib injury that was bad enough for him to not play in their last game, but not so bad that he was made inactive on the game-day roster.
Thursday’s game was the first time Tebow, traded to the Jets in March, has not played in some capacity for his new team.
“I’m not expecting anything to change as far as his availability, but we’ll see how the week goes if there is any significant change,” head coach Rex Ryan said. “I know he was active for the game; I know he’s doing treatment and things like that. I anticipate him being ready to go but we’ll see.”
Third-string quarterback Greg McElroy, who was not active for the Patriots game, said he didn’t get any extra snaps last week and was limited to his normal role on the scout team. He termed the decision to make him inactive “a game-time decision last week.”
“Tim was feeling good enough to go,” McElroy said Monday. “He is the backup quarterback.”
And even though he had “taken all the snaps during the week” as Ryan said, he indicated Tebow would be severely limited if he had played.
“What that role would have been exactly if something would have happened, would we have handed the ball off a little bit? That’s probably what would have happened,” Ryan said. “Again, I wouldn’t put a guy out there if somebody with a lot more knowledge than me would tell me that, ‘No, he’s not ready to go.’ Then obviously it wouldn’t have been a decision at all. Like I told you before, I considered putting Greg up and having him down, but [Tebow] was like, ‘No coach I’m fine, I can go.’ He wanted to. He came there early to the stadium and was ready to play in his eyes and the doctors’ and trainers’. That’s why I made the decision to have him there as a backup quarterback only.”
Follow Jets beat writer Kristian Dyer on Twitter @KristianRDyer.
