Gregg Doyel

Although he later made it clear he was joking, CBS Sports columnist Gregg Doyel said Sunday, "If [Tim] Tebow had more class he’d just kill dogs or get drunk and run over somebody and maybe end their life."

Appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources, Doyel also said of the Denver Broncos quarterback, "He's got a lot of nerve talking about some higher power in his life" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The 2010 NFL draft showed that it's not enough to be a star football player anymore. Character counts now too.

Tim Tebow, and the Denver Bronco's drafting him as first-round pick, was the big story out of the NFL draft. Despite a phenomenal college career in which he won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, led the Florida Gators to two national championships, and lived out his Christian beliefs, many expressed doubts over Tebow's ability to compete on the professional level.

For publicly stating his Christian beliefs, Tebow has been called a "religious fundamentalist, lightning-rod misfit," told he "has a long way to mature from a business perspective," and his family and friends were compared to "Nazis."  

CBSSports.com columnist Gregg Doyel has had it with all the hero worship, the idolatry, the 'canonization' of the guy:

This one's going to hurt. It's going to hurt you, and it's going to hurt me..... It's directed at those who would beatify the man.... Because he's just a man.

No, he's not referring to President-elect Obama but rather Tim Tebow, the University of Florida quarterback who led the Gators to a national championship on January 8. Yet in his January 13 column, Doyel went from waging a legitimate complaint about excessive hero worship to hashing out liberal talking points regarding the open practice of faith by Christian athletes (emphasis mine, h/t NewsBusters commenter Blonde):