Tim Tebow was sabotaged last season, quarterbacks coach suggests

Private quarterbacks coach Steve Clarkson has been making headlines this week by building up Tim Tebow, trashing Mark Sanchez, the New York Jets and the Denver Broncos, and making a case that Tebow could be the savior of the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise.

All this from a guy who worked with Tebow for just three sessions.

Earlier this week, Clarkson -- a Wilson High School graduate who has worked with numerous quarterbacks, including former USC Trojans Matt Leinart and Matt Barkley -- had plenty to say during a conference call with reporters. He suggested that the Broncos traded Tebow to the Jets to tear apart a franchise with instability at coach and “a fragile-minded Mark Sanchez at quarterback.�

“So if you’re Denver, you’ve got to be thinking, ‘We send him to New York, we basically kill an opponent and, at the same time, Tim Tebow doesn’t come back to bite us in the proverbial butt, if you will, because he’s not going to make it out of there,’� Clarkson said.

He said Tebow would have been a perfect fit in Jacksonville, but the Broncos didn’t send him there because they didn’t want him to win games. The Broncos have repeatedly said that Tebow had input on where he was traded.

Then Clarkson turned on the Jets, saying they did not give Tebow an opportunity to succeed.

On Thursday, Clarkson attempted to clarify his remarks on Dan Patrick’s radio show.

“I wasn’t making necessarily a reference that the Broncos did anything wrong on their end, it was just ... looking at it from the outside in, if you’re looking at the Broncos, they had a very volatile situation ...� Clarkson said. “You’re bringing in Peyton Manning -- who there’s no argument that he should be the quarterback -- and that was the right choice. But now what do you do with Tim Tebow? It was a highly sensitive situation there because you did have a split fan base, at some point, that really wanted [Tebow] to be their quarterback and felt that he was dealt unfairly.

“At least common sense would say, man, one thing you don’t want to have happen is that maybe Peyton doesn’t play a season or what have you, or that doesn’t go well, mainly because he’s not healthy and Tim Tebow goes someplace else and blows up. That’s going to be very tough for your franchise to have to deal with that. Common sense would say, look, you send him some place where maybe it’s not the best of situations. He’s out of your hair and he’s somebody else’s problem. New York was a willing participant and it was a perfect scenario.�

Most of Clarkson’s remarks this week are similar to those made on his blog -- which he made sure to tout during his radio appearance -- in a post dated March 22.

In that post, he also revealed an imaginary scenario with himself as NFL commissioner using his supreme authority to make Tebow an immediate free agent under the condition that he signs with the Jaguars.

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