Tebow Draft Rationalization Watch: The Rams Are Nothing If Not Efficient

As the NFL Draft approaches, many team fanbases stat nerds will attempt complex logical gymnastics to talk themselves into using a first-round pick on Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. Today: Numbers don't lie, dummy.

Future Tebow Employer: St. Louis Rams, or any holder of the No. 1 overall pick Justifiers: Cold Hard Football Facts.com Summary of the Defense: Five of the last 12 No. 1 overall picks were SEC quarterbacks and Tim Tebow has a higher efficiency rating than all of them. Even Tim Couch and JaMarcus Russell!

Evidence:

NFL talent evaluators are out of their f*cking minds.

Tebow, as you know, is the biggest question mark in the 2010 draft among the pigskin punditistas. He's the highest rated passer in the history of SEC football. He was easily a better passer than Peyton Manning or Matt Stafford or Tim Couch or any of the guys whose ability to pass was never really questioned by NFL talent analysts. [...]

Oh, and he won a Heisman Trophy and two national titles. Other than that, he didn't do much.

The anti-Tebow crowd will argue, weakly, that he was surrounded by greater talent than those other passers.

The anti-Tebow crowd, of course, has its head up its ass.

Let's look at Peyton Manning. Last we remember, he played with not one, not two but three receivers taken in the top two rounds of the draft: Joey Kent, Marcus Nash and Peerless Price. His team was so loaded with talent that it won the national title the year after he left. [...]

But Tebow didn't just put up big stats ... he put up supremely efficient stats.

[...]

Tebow was, by any measure, a better player, a better quarterback and, yes, a better passer than any of these No. 1 picks.

We understand that college success does not translate to NFL success. The long history of Heisman winners turned NFL busts underscores that argument.

However, in the gamble that is the NFL draft, we'll roll the dice on the proven and unmatched passing talent of Tebow rather than on the sorry track record of pro football talent evaluators.