The Jets have just given a whole new definition to March Madness.
Tim Tebow is on his way to New York after the Jets and Broncos came to an agreement on a trade to send the equally maligned and beloved quarterback to town in exchange for draft picks. The Jets will send their fourth- and sixth-round draft picks to Denver and get a seventh-round pick in return.
Take a deep breath, everyone, because Tebowmania is coming. And make no mistake, it will be more Tebowmania than we've seen to this point.
Mark Sanchez, whose confidence was already in question after a brutal 2011 season, will now have a legitimate cultural phenomenon lurking over his shoulder to turn every bad read, missed pass and mistake into a full-scale shouting match about whether or not he should still be the quarterback.
Why the Jets would do that one week after affirming their belief in Sanchez via a contract extension is just one of the many questions that will come once everyone's recovered from the shock of this deal actually going down.
What was the point of Sanchez's extension if you make a move to undermine him just a few days later? Sanchez might never develop into a star quarterback if left to his own devices, but this certainly isn't going to push him in that direction.
People will also be wondering just what Tebow's role on the offense is going to be since he has to run an offense devoted to his particular skill set and can't simply step in to run a conventional set because of his inability to complete enough passes. The Jets offense was highly dysfunctional last season and it's anyone's guess how they will take this new part and turn it into a cohesive part of a package that can turn in better results this time around.
Presumably there will be a healthy dose of Wildcat sets to take advantage of Tebow's running ability, although the effectiveness of that style has steadily declined since Tony Sparano introduced it in Miami several years ago. Running some kind of hybrid between traditional and Tebow offenses would seem to be the plan, but the presence of Tebow means that there will always be questions and pushes for something else.
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Leaving aside the on-field issues at this point, the other big question we have to ask is whether the Jets really care about much more than the headlines. In the last two weeks, the Jets have gone from chasing Peyton Manning to extending Sanchez's contract to trading for Tebow.
All of those things have landed them in the headlines and turned the attention back to the Jets less than two months after the Giants won the Super Bowl, but there's no clear sense that there's any rhyme or reason to their decision making. Even if you think Tebow is a plus to the offense, you have to admit that there are much more glaring needs to fill on the team if they are going to get back to playoff contention.
It's hard to know how much that even matters to them at this point. People will buy in because people love circuses and that might just be enough to justify this move in the minds of the Jets.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
