New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow is being offered a contract in the Arena Football League as there is wide-spread speculation his current team is likely to release him in the off-season.
The offer from the AFL's Orlando Predators, comes at a time when no other National Football League teams appear interested in signing Tebow, known for his overt religious expression on and off the field, according to USA Today's Simon Samano, who like many sports writers describe the popular Evangelical player as "not a very good quarterback."
A move to the AFL is an attractive option, especially when considering there might not be any interest at this time elsewhere in the NFL and Tebow is only 25 years old.
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"Tim would certainly want to first exhaust his opportunities in the NFL, but we'd love to have him," Orlando Predators owner Brett Bouchy told the
Orlando Sentinel. "I think he would definitely improve as a quarterback in our league."
"Kurt Warner told me once that when he got back to the NFL after playing in the Arena League, the NFL game was like slow motion. Everything in the Arena League is just so much faster and quicker and predicated on accuracy. Whenever Tim is willing, we have a contract waiting for him to sign," Bouchy continued.
Kurt Warner, a former all-star football quarterback, who began his career in the AFL in 1995, went on to play for several NFL teams, including the St. Louis Rams and later the Arizona Cardinals, both of which he led to Super Bowl victories.
Warner's career was a remarkable success story, having at one point after an unsuccessful NFL draft in 1994 taken a minimum wage job stocking grocery store shelves to 13 years later winning the Super Bowl and becoming one of the highest paid players in the league.
Warner, who like Tebow was also a devout Christian, retired in 2010 after having won two NFL MVP awards, 1999 and 2001, and been named Super Bowl MVP award in Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000.
Founded in 1987, the AFL is the third longest running professional football league in North America, after the Canadian Football League and the NFL – which is the highest level of professional football in the U.S.
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There are several significant differences between the AFL and the NFL, the most significant is that the 17 AFL teams play in an indoor arena on a field that is only 50 yards long, making for a much faster and higher-score game, whereas the 32 NFL teams play in both indoor and outdoor arenas on a field that is 100 yards long.
Tebow has not responded to the AFL offer.
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