You Just Knew They’d Drag Tim Tebow Into This Aaron Hernandez Story

Image Credit: Jeffrey Beall via Flickr

Some things are inevitable. The sun will rise in the east. The leaves will turn in the autumn. The tide will ebb and flow. The media will find a way to insert Tim Tebow into the ongoing fiasco that is Aaron Hernandez in order to craft the single greatest traffic-grabbing headline of all time. These are the iron-clad laws of nature.

Yes, indeed, as the media continued to sift through the more minor criminal incidents in Aaron Hernandez’s past, at last an opportunity arose to weave Tim Tebow, the Messiah of all internet clickbait, into the tale. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that as a freshman at the University of Florida, Hernandez visited The Swamp, a bar near campus, where he ordered two alcoholic drinks, refused to pay for them, and eventually punched a bouncer in the side of the head. Fine. Viewed through the lens of Hernandez’s murder charge, this innocuous story of a jerky college athlete seems vaguely portentous of a future as a violent criminal.

But then, seeing the golden opportunity, the Orlando Sentinel pounced with the key piece of information. And guys, you will not guess who saw the whole incident unfold.

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Yes! It was Tim Tebow! Good guess. (What, besides the headline to this article, could have tipped you off?) But lest you smell a scandal, Tebow comes off pretty Tebow-ish in this whole tale, which is to say, he kind of cleaned up his friend’s mess. The Sentinel writes:

When the officer could not find Hernandez immediately following the incident, he interviewed Tebow and Shaun Young.

“Tebow stated that he witnessed the dispute,” the officer wrote. “… Tebow stated that he went over to try to help resolve the conflict.”

Tebow went on to say he urged Hernandez to leave peacefully and tried to make arrangements to pay the bill.

Does this make the story measurably more interesting, except in that it involves a dude known for praying a lot and attracting attention far in excess of what his on-field performance would typically confer? Presumably it does, because Google News has archived over 800 articles about this very incident.

And so it is done. The sun sets in the west. The leaves fall to the ground. Nature takes its course. And Tim Tebow’s name successfully makes its way into a headline with Aaron Hernandez, peaking the interest of all who would read it. (Hey, you read this far didn’t you?) It is the circle of life. And it rules us all.