The Jacksonville Jaguars don’t want Tim Tebow.
The team quickly moved to dispel any rumors about their interest in the recently released New York Jets quarterback, who won the Heisman Trophy playing at the University of Florida.
“The Jacksonville Jaguars’ plans do not include Tim Tebow,” Jim Woodcock, spokesman for team owner Shad Khan, wrote in an email to the Times-Union Monday.
The statement is consistent with the team’s position all along regarding Tebow, amid all the speculation that he would be cut by the Jets.
A year earlier, the Jaguars nearly landed Tebow from Denver, which had recently signed Peyton Manning. The team offered a fourth-round pick and a willingness to pay part of Tebow’s salary advance, but he was sent to the Jets instead, who offered Denver a similar deal.
Afterward, Khan told the paper that Tebow didn’t want to play for the Jaguars.
“He didn’t want to come, obviously. … Any one of the 53 players we have, have to be committed to Jacksonville, making us be the best team we are,” Khan said.
Jacksonville currently has four quarterbacks on the roster: veterans Blaine Gabbert and Chad Henne and undrafted rookies Matt Scott (Arizona) and Jordan Rodgers (Vanderbilt).
The Canadian Football League also seems unlikely as a landing spot. The Montreal Alouettes own Tebow’s exclusive CFL negotiating rights, but general manager Jim Popp told the Montreal Gazette that his team has plenty of signal callers.
“We have quarterbacks under contract,” Jim Popp told the Gazette. “We’re going to camp in a month. We’ve got a starting quarterback. I’m not out there enticing or trying to convince [Tebow] to come to Montreal because he’s [not] going to be a starting quarterback. He would be coming to Montreal to be a backup player … to learn the game and, maybe, in the future, he’ll be able to compete for a starting job.”