God Doesn't Care About Touchdowns

But Tim Tebow is still a 'great story,' says Fran Tarkenton
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 12, 2012 1:24 AM CST
God Doesn't Care About Touchdowns
Fran Tarkenton the best Scrambling QuarterBack of all time.   (VikingsChannel)

All the hoopla over prayerful Denver quarterback Tim Tebow and his "miraculous" pass against the Steelers comes down to a key issue: There's no way God really cares about who wins football games. There are "far more important things going on in the world," former star Vikings and Giants quarterback Fran Tarkenton writes in the Wall Street Journal. Every football team prays—then proceeds to try to annihilate rivals, often with bloody, bone-crunching results. "As a player, I never understood why God would care who won a game between my team and another," Tarkenton notes. "There were religious guys on both teams. If God gets credit for the win, does he also take blame for defeat?"

For the record, Tarkenton admits he never got much bang for his prayers, no matter how fervently he talked to God. And before every single game, regardless of which team he was on, the coach always asked the most devout player to say a prayer. Everyone got very quiet, very religious, for a moment, then "the team would all shout in unison, 'Now let's go kill those SOBs!'" he recalls. Still, Tarkenton sees Tebow as a "great story." Isn't it "refreshing," he asks, "that the chatter is about a great athlete with great character who says and does all the right things and is a relentless leader for his team—and not about more arrests and bad behavior from our presumptive 'heroes'?" (More Tim Tebow stories.)

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