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Drafted last year by the Broncos, he played sparingly his rookie season. Now, his struggles to adapt to the N.F.L. have changed the tenor of the debate around him, made it nastier, more personal, more intense. Supporters have reacted to criticism of Tebow as an indictment on religion, while detractors seem to delight in every wayward pass.
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As vice president at Nielsen Sports, Stephen Master measures an athlete’s endorsement potential based on awareness and appeal. Nationally, the company tested Tebow after the draft in 2010 and again before this season. Coming out of college, Tebow recorded an N-score of 141, “an incredible rating,” Master said, “M.V.P.-like.”

In the second test, Tebow’s N-score fell to a 41, which still ranks high. His positive appeal, though, dropped to 76 percent from 85 percent, while his negative appeal increased to 24 percent from 15 percent. Under negative appeal comments, responders wrote “overrated” and “annoying” and “overexposed” and “religious nut job.”

“There’s always a religious component there,” said Howell Scott, an evangelical blogger and pastor at a Baptist church in New Mexico. “And with Tebow, it’s often an anti-Christian bias. People want him to fall flat on his face.”

Scott refers to this as Tebow Derangement Syndrome, which his blog defined as “the acute onset of mockery and verbal ‘hatred’ in otherwise normal people in reaction to the football prowess and play — nay — the very existence of Tim Tebow.” (via)

2PzNaPpod : hating tim tebow since 2009.