NFL – Sports Illustrated took a poll asking 180 NFL players to name the most overrated player in the league. The winner in a landslide was New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow with 34 percent. No one else got higher than 10 percent, but Tebow’s teammate Mark Sanchez came in second with 8 percent. The next names on the list: Tony Romo (8 percent), Michael Vick (4 percent), and Ray Lewis (3 percent). Tebow won the honor for the second straight year. We wonder if he can pull off a three-peat in 2013 if the Jets don’t ever let him play. We’re reaching a point where it’s hard for Tebow to stay particularly relevant when he is the poor man’s Brad Smith. On Wednesday, we mentioned a poll of fans that named Troy Polamalu the NFL’s most popular player. Sanchez finished ninth on the least popular list, while Tebow wasn’t mentioned on either poll. Sanchez has to wonder what he did to deserve to be the NFL’s Rodney Dangerfield. He gets absolutely no respect, yet his peers still considering him overrated.

Do people know what the word overrated means? Its means that the general public thinks you’re a lot better than you are. Who out there is rating Mark Sanchez as a top tier QB? I’m the biggest Mark Sanchez defender and apologist in the world and the most I’ll own up to is that he’s a good game manager when the defense is performing and he has weapons around him. Even back in 2009 and 2010 when they were winning the most credit I ever gave him was that he had a knack for winning the big game and pulling off the upset on the road. Never once has anybody on the planet earth talked about Sanchez like he was Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees. Virtually everyone talks about how he isn’t gonna last as a starter. For Christ sake his own team brought in a backup QB that could potentially replace him. So who is overrating him? I think people confuse being “overrated” with getting too much media coverage. The fact that ESPN decided to report on every single snap of Jets training camp doesn’t mean that Mark Sanchez was receiving undue praise. The fact that Rex and the Jets are a lightning rod for media coverage and jokes has nothing do with an unreasonable amount of respect being showered on Mark Sanchez. As a matter of fact, things have spiraled out of control so badly with the Jets and the media, you could argue he’s probably underrated to some extent at this point. Dude has a winning record as a starting QB and despite working with ZERO offensive line and ZERO offensive weapons he has his team right in the mix in the middle of the pack this year. There’s no denying he’s a bottom tier QB but the media trashing him and NFL players anonymously trashing him in polls is so over the top. He always says the right thing, always puts his team first, and despite being a mediocre talent has milked every ounce of winning he possibly can from his team so far. Not sure how that makes you anything other than an over achiever.

Guys like Romo and Vick are the people that should be topping this list. Every year we hear Tony Romo’s name like he’s an elite top tier QB. Talking about “Is this the year Romo gets it done in Big D??” Its been 9 fucking years and the dude has like 1 playoff win. THAT is overrated. Vick being at the helm of a so called Dream Team and getting a hundred million dollar contract while he turns the ball over 5 times a game and under achieves every year – THAT is overrated.

As for Tebow, I don’t even fucking care. He’s probably even more of an example of “overrated” meaning “too much coverage.” But again its more of the same, pretty much everyone agrees Tebow sucks. Aside from religious freaks in the Bible Belt who have probably never watched football, not one person on the planet earth says Tebow is a great player. I think he’s rated just fine – shitty.

PS – Sanchez’s contract is only $20 mil in guaranteed money. Probably still too much but that isn’t even enough to deem him overrated either.