Tim Tebow, the NFL's most polarizing player? - NFL News

A deep well of LeBron James jokes were put to bed Thursday night with the crowning of the Miami Heat.

LeBron's stock is at an all-time high, and his status as one of the sporting world's great love/hate figures has only intensified.

Something about LeBron elicits admiration or rage, depending on who you ask. He stands as the NBA's most polarizing player. So what about the NFL? It took Rosenthal and I about 119 seconds to come up our list of the league's most polarizing performers.

Here they are:

10. Eli Manning: People laughed when he called himself "elite," but he shut everyone up on a Sunday night in February.

9. DeSean Jackson: Bombastic and a frequent nuisance. Still, his game remains unpredictable and dangerous. It's hard to peel your eyes away when he has the ball.

8. Ray Lewis: This future Hall of Famer's not the player he once was. Why aren't we allowed to say that?

7. Cam Newton: He called himself an "entertainer" and "icon," his critics called him a phony. Everyone on this list was/is captivating to watch on the field, but there's nobody like Newton.

6t. Plaxico Burress: The man has no team, but in the last week alone, we have a barrel's full of outrageous statements and sound bites.

6t. Randy Moss: A hot-to-the-touch topic from the day he was drafted in 1998. Fourteen years later, nothing has changed.

5. Ndamukong Suh: Ask two men on the street about Suh. The first will say he's everything you could ask for in a defensive lineman; the second will call him dirty, operating outside the rules, uncontrollable. The Lions support him, the league suspends him. If there's a Mrs. Dietrich-Smith out there, she's none too pleased with this angry behemoth.

4. Tony Romo: His career numbers are outstanding, but he remains the scapegoat for a painful Super Bowl drought in Dallas. He is blamed nationwide for gas prices, tropical storms and botched romantic relationships. Most of these aren't his fault.

3. Chad Ochocinco: We stopped talking about him as a premier wideout years ago, but has is dimmed our interest in his every move? Child, please.

2. Michael Vick: When a star quarterback is shipped to prison on dogfighting charges, only to return to play his best football, we've stumbled upon on a sympathetic villain-type that most Hollywood studios would turn down as simply too unbelievable (Note: These same people brought us "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," so all bets are off).

1. Tim Tebow: Do we need to go into depth on this? Not at all. He tops the list with ease. The mere mention of his name -- the hint of his presence -- generates chatter, debate, fury and pride. The NBA has LeBron, but we have Tebow. And when it comes to the most polarizing of them all -- we win.