Fans who went to Cortland or the open spring practices were able to witness some of the Tebow phenomenon firsthand, but for many season ticketholders, Saturday was the first chance to see the Tebow contingent for themselves.  They are a group unto themselves, as Kristian Dyer wrote for Yahoo!’s Shutdown Corner.

“Tebow Nation” comes in all ages, genders and variety of fans, both  young and old. Some are drawn to him because of his brand of smash mouth football, others due to his outspoken Christian faith, but no matter the reason why, they love Tebow. More often than not, the Tebow supporting crowd on hand this Saturday night aren’t even Jets fans and their allegiance dates back to his college career in Florida or the last two years in Denver. They could care less about current Jets starter Mark Sanchez or that Tebow is the backup.

Frank Spallone of Brick, NJ came to the game with his wife and their two children. A New York Giants fan, he came to support his niece who was part of the youth dancers who participated at halftime. But despite his allegiance to the Giants, Spallone was wearing a Broncos No. 15 jersey.

That’s right, his Giants were playing and Spallone was wearing the jersey of the other team’s quarterback.

“We always cheer for Tebow, that’s why we bought the jerseys last year. You hear more about NFL players doing the wrong thing, he does the right thing,” Spallone said.

“He’s a fantastic role model, my son plays football and he’s a fantastic role model.”

Brian Bassett, theJetsBlog.com

No matter what your political or religious beliefs, the article is a fascinating look into what drives Tebow’s popularity on a personal level through the words of Tebow’s own fans.  It’s nothing that most of us didn’t already know about Tebow or his fanbase –  but it is still striking how counter-intuitive it is to most standard NFL fans.  It’s a great read end-to-end and puts into words some of what we’ve tried to understand about the Tebow fanbase for months now.