With Tim Tebow Heating Up, Is Mark Sanchez’s Backup QB Role In Jeopardy?

Tim Tebow is having a nice camp with the Philadelphia Eagles, outperforming his perceived competition in number 3 QB Matt Barkley. But with Mark Sanchez struggling, is the former Heisman winner poised to take over the number 2 role instead?

According to ESPN, Tebow is having a strong start to camp.

“Four days into training camp, Tebow seems more comfortable in Chip Kelly’s offense and more confident making the correct reads and throws,” ESPN staff writer Phil Sheridan reports. “Midway through Thursday’s practice, Tebow completed three long passes in a row. The middle one, to wide receiver Quron Pratt, was arguably the best play Tebow has made in his brief time with the Eagles.”

Tim’s performance thus far, coupled with Matt Barkley’s struggles, seems to indicate Tebow’s role could be expanding with the team, as reported by Inquisitr. In fact, all four quarterbacks, including perceived starter Sam Bradford, were told by Chip Kelly that the competition was open and that anyone could win out.

“The common wisdom is that Tebow is competing with Matt Barkley for the No. 3 quarterback job while Sam Bradford and Mark Sanchez compete for the starting role. But reading between the lines Thursday, it was clear the four men involved see the competition as wide open.”

And that may not bode well for Mark Sanchez, who is having his own struggles during camp so far. According to Bleeding Green Nation, consistency has plagued Sanchez early on in camp.

“Mark Sanchez was up and down. He threw a beauty of a seam pass to Jeff Maehl in the end zone for at touchdown. That’s Sanchez’s staple throw. Later, however, he was almost picked off by Ed Reynolds on the same pass.

“Sanchez threw a few passes in practice that sailed high out of bounds as he was targeting his outside wide receivers. As I had just got done saying out loud ‘Man, Sanchez really just isn’t great at throwing outside the numbers’ he then overthrew his next target on a post route. Welp.”

The only thing Eagles fans seem to know for sure is that Sam Bradford, coming off a torn ACL from last season, appears to be the front runner, according to NJ.com.

“Coming off of his best practice of training camp, Bradford picked up right where he left off, and was almost as impressive on Saturday.”

With the number one quarterback job virtually locked up, only one question remains: Will it be Tim Tebow or Mark Sanchez filling out the clipboard behind him come game day?

[Tim Tebow, Mark Sanchez photo credit: By:Rich Schultz / Getty Images]