JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville Jaguars coach Mike Mularkey insists he wanted quarterback Tim Tebow.
Speaking before a fan event Thursday night, Mularkey indicated that reports saying otherwise were false.
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“Don’t believe everything you hear or read in the media,” Mularkey stated. “It’s challenging not to want a guy like that. We wouldn’t have tried to trade for him if we didn’t feel like we didn’t want to have him here. There were a lot of issues that went into this thing to attempt to get Tim to come right here.
“In the extended run, it did not perform out. But if you do not want a player, you don’t even get involved with it.”
There were reports that Jacksonville’s front office and coaching staff didn’t really want Tebow. Owner Shahid Khan definitely did, telling general manager Gene Smith to discover a trade for the polarizing quarterback.
The Jaguars provided a fourth-round draft choose for Tebow, but the former Florida star ended up going to the New York Jets for two picks.
So if the Jaguars genuinely wanted Tebow, who grew up in Jacksonville, why not give up a third-round choose?
“That’s confidential,” he stated. “The draft is how you develop a football team and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. That’s been the philosophy of this franchise that’s my philosophy. You’ve got to be very cautious what you start off doing with draft picks and we really feel strongly about the draft.”
The Jaguars have drafted 3 starters — defensive tackle Terrance Knighton, cornerback Derek Cox and guard Will Rackley — in the third round the last 3 years below Smith. They also chose defensive tackle D’Anthony Smith, who has however to play a down in the normal season because of injuries.
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Mularkey stated internal speak about acquiring Tebow included him coming in as a backup QB. The coach declined to say regardless of whether the Jaguars intended to use Tebow largely on specific teams.
“Some of that’s confidential to talk about, but we talked about all scenarios as far as the backup quarterback,” Mularkey said. “He has some uncommon capability to do some things and all of that was discussed.”
Mularkey also known as starter Blaine Gabbert and not too long ago signed backup Chad Henne in the course of all the trade talk Wednesday.
“I wanted to make confident they were updated with exactly where issues are and exactly where they aren’t, and that what we told them from the starting had not changed,” Mularkey said. “We wanted to reconfirm it. We hadn’t been in contact with (Gabbert) for a number of weeks because of the way the new CBA is, but I just believed with the way things had been going down it was important he heard from me and my belief in him and that why we brought him here had not altered.”
Copyright 2012
(About:) This post was distributed by Syndicated Sports news wire and aggregation service, For much more NFL news see: Mularkey says Jaguars created play to acquire Tebow in trade.
