So, did you enjoy the (short) vacation from endless Tim Tebow jabber on ESPN? 

In the end, that’s all it turned out to be: a vacation. Tebow reached an agreement with the New England Patriots Monday, basically the ESPN dream reaching it’s apex in full force – Tebow, the network’s favorite discussion point, will now essentially play in the Bristol, Connecticut-based network’s backyard. Will he unseat Tom Brady? Not on your life! But in terms of coverage, it likely won’t matter for a while. It’s Tebow time once again.

Two things to note … first, I’m not blind to the irony of a guy making fun of the excessive Tebow media coverage through a column, written about Tebow, released through the media.

Secondly, I’m happy for the guy. And relieved, for his sake.

Because that it took Tebow this long to find another job in the NFL is an affirmation to a belief I’ve held since late in the last NFL season: that ESPN was endangering his NFL career.

That, too, is ironic. On the surface, ESPN has done nothing but enhance Tebow’s star. And it is true, the 24/7 Tebow debate cycle turned the man into nothing short of a celebrity. When he and his Denver Broncos went on that winning streak in 2011, the public seemingly couldn’t get enough of him, a theory tested day after day on shows like First Take and Around the Horn. When Tebow was traded to the Jets last season, he never started a single game, yet you would have been hard-pressed to find a stretch of ESPN programming when he wasn’t brought up. Heck, they “threw him a birthday party”, quoted because Tebow was there neither in person nor via satellite.

But I saw Herman Edwards with a party hat and a kazoo, so unless it was another one of my warped dreams, it happened.

But the effect of all of this attention turned what was an interesting project player into the kind of distraction most coaches and front offices would rather avoid. New York Jets camp became a circus last season, and all it did was tighten the noose around starting quarterback Mark Sanchez’s neck, week after week. All Rex Ryan seemingly did all year long was defend his decision to not start Tebow.

When Sanchez was injured for the final two games last season, it seemed Tebow would finally have the opportunity to settle the “Sanchez or Tebow” debate. But Tebow, who had been the team’s backup quarterback all year until that point, never got the chance to.  Ryan tabbed third stringer Greg McElroy to start instead, something that reportedly enraged Tebow behind closed doors.

Did Ryan think McElroy gave his team a better chance to win? Maybe, maybe not. He hadn’t shown much in his limited time on the field. He hadn’t showed enough for Ryan to even install him ahead of Tebow as the backup, until the point he actually needed the backup to play.

To me, his motivation was clear: The Jets were eliminated. For Tebow to come in and play well would have only served to make the coach look bad and, were he to survive that oncoming firestorm, likely marry him to a quarterback he wasn’t enamored with for the upcoming season.

John Elway would have been in the same boat, had Peyton Manning not been in the cards.

And this is what Tebow the celebrity has become. Before reaching his current level of fame, a team could have signed Tebow just to see what they could do with him. If it works out, great. If it doesn’t, you part ways. But now? Tebow brings the spotlight and pressure from the fans and media.

The juice was no longer worth the squeeze. I felt he might have been frozen out of his profession, perhaps through no fault of his own and simply because Skip Bayless refused to leave him alone.

The Patriots, though, seem like one of the few, if not only, spots where management would be comfortable with rolling the dice. Tom Brady’s job is in no danger. Bill Belichick is perhaps more skilled than anyone at starving the media of fodder, not only through his own generic press conferences but through his ability to get his players do the same.

This is a successful team that likely will be with or without Tebow’s presence – New England’s been winning big for over a decade.

It’s not quite fair that Tebow’s options were capped by his perhaps unwanted starpower. But he’ll be on a team that wins plenty of games, in a place where he can learn from the best, under a coach whose withering glare may even scare off an reporter or two before its all said and done.

Eh, on that last part … probably not.