Well, the bad news just keeps piling up for Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow again this week -- Tebow’s jersey sales have tumbled from No. 1 all the way down to 10th, according to The Denver Post.
Fox31 reports that last year Tebow’s #15 was the top selling jersey, No. 1 before he ever took his first NFL snap. However, according to NFL sales numbers from April 1 to July 31, Tebow’s jersey dropped to eighth most popular from the league’s website. And in more recent sales from the NFL site from April through just this past Monday, Aug. 29., Tebow’s jerseys were the 10th most popular in the NFL.
This news, after a couple of the worst weeks of the young quarterback’s career. Here’s a brief timeline of the bombs lobbed Tebow’s way since the beginning of August: First, not only does Tebow not land the starting QB job, he’s also rumored to actually be a third-stringer.
Then, the trade rumors started to surface. Next up, Boomer Esiason, says Tebow “can’t play, can’t throw,” and just basically throws Tebow completely under the bus, USA Today reported.
All of this culminating with the infamous "fourth-stringer comment" by an anonymous, but “highly knowledgeable member of the [Broncos] organization” who said to Yahoo! Sports that, “If everything was totally equal, and this were a competition based only on performance at this camp, Tebow would probably be the fourth-string guy. I'm telling you, Adam Weber is flat-out better right now.”
It turns out the bad news may be infectious because now the Denver Broncos team has received a big heaping scoop of bad today, as well. We’re not even out of the preseason and Sports Illustrated’s Peter King has already made his annual predictions -- and unfortunately, King doesn’t see a bright future for Denver this season. King predicts the Broncos to finish in last place in the AFC West again this season, improving their 2010 4-12 season to 5-11 in 2011.
Predictions, of course, are not fact -- however, King has a pretty impeccable reputation for picking winning teams -- he was spot on predicting the Packers and Steelers would meet in Super Bowl 46.