Tim Tebow stealing Alex Smith's backup thunder

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Alex Smith should be the Tim Tebow of 2012. He should be the frustrated backup quarterback everyone is talking about to the point that we are sick to death of the very mention of his name. He’s the one who should be trying to straddle both sides of the “I hate my coach/I love my coach” line. He’s the one who should look one minute like some crazed Trotskyite trying to overthrow the oppressors keeping him down and then the calm, Zenlike I-just-want-to-be-a-good-teammate guy the next.

But no. Once again, Smith has been robbed of a legacy by circumstances only barely under his control.

I mean, who has a better case to make here – Smith or Tebow? You know the answer to that one. Even if you don’t like Smith and never liked from the moment he wasn’t Aaron Rodgers, you know the answer to that.

But no. Smith is just a competent quarterback who was at the height of his statistical powers when he was demoted for the crime of insufficient up-side, not enough game-breakery in his repertoire or . . . well, not having enough letters in his surname, I guess.

Tebow is the mythical centaur who can do everything but, well, gallop, which makes him a pretty useless centaur when you think about it. He’s a backup’s backup who can’t get reps even though he is the owner’s pet because he’s a lousy practice player whose quarterbacking skills are universally dismissed as being substandard for the level at which he is playing, and his supporters are desperately trying to make that an argument in his favor too.

And Tebow is again the main topic of NFL blathersation as he tries to transition slowly from one rotten football team this year to another rotten football team next year while taking almost no snaps.

Tebow has managed (or maybe even stage-managed, if you are of a more conspiratorial bent) to become The Most Interesting Man In The World without a single bottle of beer to his name, and the NFL media gaggle have fallen for the entire shameful tableau.

Either he is a cunning huckster getting over on people who apparently enjoy the feeling of being duped, or he is just a media creation who is too polite to ask said medioids to stop trivializing whatever the hell it is he does have.

But he is no victim here, and now that he has denied stories saying he declined to be used in the latest pointless New York Jets exercise, he is also not a rabble-rouser. He is . . . well, an athletic form of Kardashian, famous solely for being famous because someone decided long ago that he should be famous.

In the meantime, Alex Smith, who actually has cause to be bothered relentlessly by national media types, is essentially being ignored as backup quarterbacks typically are. That’s what happens with football players. Which Tebow stopped being long ago.

This seems, well, stupid. Even by the usual subterranean media standards, this seems stupid.

Tebow has been declared redundant by the coach of a bad football team. Great. That makes him John Skelton. Except that he has played almost not at all, which makes him Tyler Thigpen. It surely doesn’t make him Alex Smith – not by a light year, it doesn’t.

So we can choose to turn Smith’s life into a living hell, yammering incessantly about him to the point where people want their heads run over by station wagons just to make the noise stop. Or we can stop spasmodically jerking every time Tebow’s name is mentioned.

And we’re sure as hell not going to do Option B, because the subject of Tebow has been a monument to tedium for nearly a year now. Thus, there’s only thing to do.

Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith.

Tell us when you can’t stand it any more. Let us know when you’ve had all you can stand. E-mail us with your craving to never hear of him again. And then we’ll do this:

Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith. Alex Smith.

Apparently it’s what the audience wants. We just have to figure out a way to change the name – to someone far more deserving of our gift for annoying repetition than THE UNUSED THIRD STRING QUARTERBACK OF THE RIDICULOUS NEW YORK FREAKING JETS, WHO IF HE'S VERY LUCKY NEXT YEAR MAY BECOME THE FIRST-STRING QUARTERBACK OF THE SLIGHTLY LESS RIDICULOUS JACKSONVILLE FREAKING JAGUARS.

Oh. I'm sorry. I meant to type Tim Tebow. It just came out the other way.

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