Dan’s Take on Tebow-gate – Part I

Part I of Dan assessment of what is going on here with Tebow-gate, including a take on a source in the Post accusing Cromartie . . .

Brian Costello in the New York Post wrote today, “A current Jets player said the belief around the team is that Cromartie was the player.”

There is no question he’s the chief suspect. He and Manish Mehta, who wrote the article with myriad people ripping Tebow, have developed a cozy relationship over the last couple of years.

It’s in plain sight. You can see it during the media session in the locker room.

In fact, many around the Jets suspect that “Cro” was one of the unnamed Jets who ripped Mark Sanchez, to Mehta, after last season.

LaDainian Tomlinson said on Sirius that he thinks two of the players were Cromartie and Bart Scott.

He’s probably right about Cromartie, but I don’t think Bart is involved in this.

First of all, his relationship with Mehta isn’t that strong, and reading the tea leaves, I just don’t think he would go there.

Mehta claimed that “more than a dozen” players and others contributed to the article.

I’m sorry, but that number is just hard to believe, and agree with this assessment from Costello – “Many Jets players said they believed the quotes were fabricated or came from one person and were portrayed as coming from more.”

In my mind, there is no question the number of unnamed people in this story was embellished.

Maybe a few people in the building (players and team officials), but “over a dozen,” that seems like hyperbole.

To me, the bigger issue here is – who are the “team officials?” This is bigger than the players.

Honestly, if Cromartie is one of the players, as most people suspect, it’s really not going to hurt the team that much. He’s a heck of talent, but not that well respected in the locker room personally, so I really don’t think many people really care about his opinion.

But officials?

By the way, one or two of the “officials” are likely coaches, and the word “official” is being used to throw the dog off the scent.

First of all, if these officials are questioning the Tebow move, they are questioning their boss, Woody Johnson – making him look foolish. Whatever you think of Johnson as an owner, how many of us are going to survive at work if you rip our boss in the media? Most people think that Johnson’s finger prints are all over the Tebow trade.

But even if you believe Mike Tannenbaum’s claim today that the Tebow decision was 100 percent his, then this is still a problem.

All the people on the football side work under Mike. So even if they weren’t ripping their owner over the Tebow trade, they were ripping their supervisor.

During training camp this summer at SUNY Cortland, Mehta played pick-up basketball with Jets coaches, football executives and the like, almost every night.

He developed some good relationships in that gym.

This needs to be looked into.

When Bill Parcells was coaching the Jets, he sensed an executive (who is no longer in the league) was leaking transactions to a beat reporter.

So Parcells came up with a fake transaction, involving a cornerback named Scooter McGruder, and sent it out to start a paper trail.

He had his security team check the outgoing calls from the suspected leaker’s office. One phone numbers that came up was a reporter’s number.

Parcells couldn’t fire him because Steve Gutman gave the guy a huge contract just before Bill arrived.

So he used a different tact – he demoted him, and gave him trivial jobs, beneath his pay-grade, to humiliate him, and get him to quit, which he eventually did.

It’s time for the Jets to have Security Chief Steve Yarnell get to the bottom on the “unnamed officials.”

To me, this is worse than the players.