It's July 16. There has barely been a drop of meaningful NFL news all week. This is the only real explanation for anyone making a big deal out of the video below.
The exchange between Tim Tebow and Tom Brady from the 2011 regular season was captured by NFL Films and lasted all of a few seconds. It includes Brady lightheartedly mentioning Tebow's former teammates at Florida: Aaron Hernandez and Brandon Spikes.
"And I'm trying to watch over Brandon and Aaron," Brady says.
"I appreciate that too, man," Tebow responds. "They are good guys."
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"They're a lot to handle," Brady said.
"Absolutely," Tebow said.
This exchange tells us absolutely nothing, other than there are too many people looking for a story. It does not, as the Orlando Sentinel suggests, show that Tebow and Brady were "worried" about Hernandez.
This is mindless postgame small talk. We don't see Brady's face or know if he is just joking around. If Tebow played in college with Rob Gronkowski, Brady would likely say that he was "watching over" him too and that he's a "lot to handle."
I resisted writing about this story this morning when it first popped up. It didn't feel significant enough to address, and I made the case that it was too stupid to catch on as a story nationally. I was wrong. It never pays to underestimate our collective stupidity. (Or underestimate football's popularity.)
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.
