Things we know: Tim Tebow is an infinitely likable bro. Now of course, because of his do-no-wrong personality, he’s ripe for mocking. His over-hyped brand rubbed plenty of college football fans wrong the last two years. But even the blackest of hearts can realize why he’s so beloved, why college football announcers verbally fellated him during his tenure at Florida. The dude has mass appeal. He just does.

And it’s his likability mixed with his clean, wholesome brand and good looks that make him a prime candidate for a pitchman once he ascends to the NFL. In fact, according to Darren Rovell who checked in with the Davie-Brown Index to see how marketable Tebow is, the results came back quite favorable.

According to the DBI, Tebow is:

* More known than Aaron Rodgers (Packers).
* More appealing than Brett Favre (Vikings), Tony Romo (Cowboys) and Tom Brady (Patriots).
* More of a trendsetter than Ben Roethlisberger (Steelers), Eli Manning (Giants) and Drew Brees (Saints)

More of a trendsetter than Eli Manning! I don’t believe it. Anyway: Whether Tebow will succeed on the next level is still up for debate. His throwing style is giving some pause, and if a team can’t work with his unique skills otherwise (say putting him at tight end or giving him only a few downs a quarter), Tebow might have some trouble finding a niche at the next level.

But as far as raking in the cash as far as  endorsements go? The dude should be set. Until he decides to donate it all to charity and live in the stadium of whatever team he plays for. He’s just that giving, folks.

As you’ve likely seen/heard, Tim Tebow suffered a pretty nasty concussion in Florida’s win over Kentucky on Saturday. (Video here.) The Gators have a bye this weekend, before heading to their biggest test of the year so far at No. 4 LSU. Florida is already without wideout Andre Debose for the season, so an extra week of rest should be gift-like for the Gators; Tebow should be back in pads when the team plays in Baton Rouge, right? Urban Meyer sounded optomisitc about his QB’s chances of being ready for the game.

But as Orson/Spencer cautions us over at EDSBS, a concussion is a serious matter, an injury that has a long-term recovery.

When/if he takes the field against LSU, he will not be fully recovered. That is not supposition. That is medical fact, with a return to the field that soon going against the emerging consensus that concussions should be treated as injuries with a long time frame for recovery.

The important distinction is that a concussion is an injury to the brain. It is not a kneecap: it is the brain, an irreplaceable object containing everything you are as a thinking person, an organ of complexity mystifying the smartest people in the room for centuries. It does not respond to training table’s attentions. It does not get game-ready with a cortisone shot. It needs the most expensive treatment possible to heal: time.

He will probably be out there, and it will be a bad example for the kids he hopes to reach with the scripture painted onto his eyeblack each week. When they suffer a concussion in their high school football games, what template will they use for making a decision?

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So, SEC media day(s) revealed — as it so often does — a few choice facts. One: Houston Nutt is full of twangy inspirational sayings. Two: Tim Tebow is wasting the greatest female slaying opportunity of his life which I have no doubt, not a single one, that he will someday regret saving himself for marriage. Three: Steve Spurrier didn’t vote for Tim Tebow in the preseason All-SEC voting. He voted for Ole Miss’s Jevan Snead instead.

Obviously, Snead is not a better quarterback than Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is a deity; Snead is just a good player. So is Spurrier just being a dick here, or what? Actually, according to him, no:

“In actuality, I didn’t do much voting at all. I didn’t fill the sheet out. It was either a dumb or careless mistake, and some coach made a serious mistake by not having Tim Tebow. My director of football operations brought the ballot by, and signed it. I got here and saw that someone didn’t vote for Tebow, and I said ‘We had Tebow, right?’ And he said, ‘Actually coach, we had Jevan Snead. We already had ten gators…’”

“We screwed it up pretty badly, we’re embarrassed about it. We made a mistake, and I made a mistake,” Spurrier said. “I think he’s the best football player in the country. I think he and Danny Wuerffel will go down as the two best quarterbacks to ever play in college football history.

“I messed it up, and I take full blame for it. I didn’t sleep worth a dang last night thinking about it.”

The Journal-Constitution’s Jeff Schultz doesn’t believe it was as simple as an oversight, but hey, let’s give the Ol’ Ball Coach the benefit of the doubt. Or we could stop pretending the preseason All-SEC team matters in any way shape or form, and instead go back to discussing the truly important matters at hand: questioning Tim Tebow’s virginity with nothing more than photos on the Internet. It’d be funny if I didn’t want to blow my brains out!

There’s nothing (NOTHING, I say) that’s supposed to be funny about a “1st and 10 segment” featuring Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. Watching that pop up on your television screen is just about as terrifying as watching the Hudson River pop up on your airplane window. (It can’t be too soon; no one died.) But somehow, Stephen A. — who continues to endear himself to the blogosphere — makes this incredibly loud segment incredibly enjoyable as he mocks Bayless for saying that Tim Tebow will be the next Brett Favre.

Obviously, this is just not accurate. At all. They’re not alike in their style of play, one’s left handed and Tebow doesn’t throw nearly as many interceptions. Kidding. Kind of.

Also see: The Sporting Blog.

Tim Tebow gets a lot of praise. Most of it is deserved. Take last night, for instance — Tebow looked pretty freaking fantastic in the second half of the BCS Championship game, and Florida won. He’s going to get a lot of credit. But when the guy starts taunting the other team, can we at least not try to spin it in a positive light? Thom? You hear that, buddy?

On the bright side, the FOX announcers (whose FailFest has already been documented all over the Webz) at least didn’t say something ridiculous like, “Tebow. Now that guy really knows how to be a classy jerkstore.” Or something more appropriate and less funny (if that’s possible).

But make no mistake folks: this won’t be the last time you hear mild criticisms of Tim Tebow. No, sir. He’s going to be the most annoying buzzword of 2009 if/when he turns pro. Why? He’s a great college quarterback, but there’s no real answer on whether or not that will translate to the pros. Additionally, he’s like Jesus, but with cleats instead of sandals, at least if you listen to anyone on television. And those two facts will have analysts frothing over him until his name does or does not get called for the draft.

And by “best,” I mean “most homoerotic”:

Start with the grass stains. He left the field wearing the most splendid of grass stains, long swaths of green stretching over his shoulders, across his chest, down his back, the badge of a linebacker.

Now check out the number. He is No. 15, but his jersey was tugged and twisted so much, sometimes it looked as if he were No. 11, sometimes 17, the wrinkles of a lineman.

Finish with the face. Thick cheeks decorated in eye black, framed by a crew cut, above a tight expression that sweated with intensity, a face of a fighter.

This is Tim Tebow. For a couple of wonderfully antique hours Thursday, this is the perfect player who made us forget college football’s imperfect system.

For the record, the “perfect player” threw two picks in the first half. BECAUSE HE’S NOT A PERFECT PLAYER. Anyway, I don’t want to spoil the poetic gayness. Plaschke, take a bow — but not before the money shot:

But, oh, he did, and suddenly all the BCS controversy momentarily disappeared underneath his churning legs, his exhorting arms, and his game-ending, completely uncharacteristic, in-Oklahoma’s-face Gator chomp.

Again, not to spoil the party, but exhorting is not an adjective that can describe arms, because arms don’t have the capacity to “urge by strong, stirring argument.” But adjective agreement doesn’t matter here. What matters is that Bill Plaschke, in a long career of writing utterly ridiculous, overwrought and ultimately awesome sports columns, may have finally busted his wad. This is the coup de grace of man-love. The holy grail. The single … gayest column I’ve ever read in my entire life. And I don’t mean “gay” the way people derogatorily use it to mean “stupid.” I actually mean: homosexual.

Tim Tebow is one of the best college football players of all time. There’s not a ton of debate in that. There is, however, a lot of debate on whether he is going to project as a pro quarterback. I linked this yesterday in Lost Time, but Matt Hinton had a pretty good rebuttal to Mel Kiper’s assertion that Tim Tebow isn’t going to be a quarterback in the NFL.

I’m still sort of split on this: The type of player and skill set he has leads me to believe he will flip to tight end, and just be a quarterback on some sets with a team, like he did when Chris Leak was the starter for Florida in 2006. Or he could go out and be Paul Bunyan in the NFL and dominate at the quarterback position. I’m not a very decisive person.

But anyways, Tebow was recently on Mel Kiper’s radio show, and he went at the Man With Perfect Hair:

“You tell me this,” Tebow said to Kiper during the radio exchange. “What do you think I need to do to be an NFL quarterback? You tell me that.”

Unfortunately, Kiper didn’t give Tebow a direct answer to his direct question.

“You’re just too good with the ball in your hands not to think, Could he be Frank Wycheck? Could he be Chris Cooley? That’s why,” Kiper said. “You’re too good, doing what you do, Tim, running with the football.”

[...]To which Tebow replied, “The quarterback has the ball in his hands every play.”

Oh snap, son. I wish it was like, four years from now, so we could see who was really right. Anyone have a time machine I can borrow?

Via Brinson at FanHouse, who yeah, blogs here too. It’s like a blogger circle of love, or something.