Tebow, Jets" Latest Splashy Acquisition, Is Another Misstep Julie Jacobson/Associated Press Tim Tebow eluding Jets safety Eric Smith in November on his way to a touchdown that rallied the Broncos to a 17-13 victory over the Jets. Tebow was 7-4 in his 11 starts for Denver last season. If N.F.L. success were measured by jerseys sold and attention garnered, by winning not the turnover battle but the competition for most magazine covers, the Jets would have more than one Super Bowl championship, from more than 40 years ago. The Jets would be the Giants. Instead, they are the Jets, and the Jets did what the Jets do Wednesday, cannonballing through another off-season, the splash wide enough and high enough to mask a team with serious deficiencies. Here came the same team that traded for Brett Favre and Santonio Holmes, that signed Jason Taylor and LaDainian Tomlinson and Plaxico Burress and every other big name it could land in recent seasons. Here came the Jets to trade for Tim Tebow, international star and mediocre quarterback, the latter of which their roster already has in volume. The Jets were willing to pay half of a little more than $5 million based on a clause in Tebow's contract that requires a team trading for him to pay Denver a portion of his salary for the next three seasons. What becomes eminently clear is the risk in the acquisition, which has little to do with Tebow's passing acumen and everything to do with the organizational culture the Jets have created, the desperation with which they operate. The Jets have yet to learn what the Giants already know: championship teams are built, not bought, not bartered. The Jets lacked two important elements last season: roster depth and locker room cohesion. They built their roster as if playing fantasy football, certain Coach Rex Ryan could glean character from a locker room full of characters. But when this grand chemistry experiment blew up the Jets" laboratory, with players arguing in the huddle and on the field, Ryan acted shocked. He should not have been. A painfully thin two-deep roster only compounded the chemistry problems. The depth issues stemmed, in part, from their lack of draft picks in recent years, selections they traded away like baseball cards, for that splash signing or that one. Denver agreed to send Tebow and a seventh-round pick for the Jets" fourth- and sixth-round selections this year. The Jets recently extended the contract of Mark Sanchez, now in the loop for five years and $20.5 million guaranteed. At first glance, those who squinted hard could make football sense of the Jets" interest in Tebow. He will not be asked to play as prominent a role as he did in Denver. Instead, Tebow would seem fit for Tony Sparano, the new offensive coordinator and the coach whose Miami Dolphins introduced the Wildcat formation to the N.F.L. Tebow did win a national championship at Florida running situational packages as a backup his freshman season. This, of course, is not his freshman season. Tebow started 11 games last season and led the Broncos to a dramatic overtime playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now he would be asked, at first, to back up Sanchez, another inaccurate quarterback, who missed the playoffs last season. Quarterback controversy, start your engine. Perhaps no athlete in recent memory has engendered a following like Tebow, whose faith and success have elicited intense feelings from both supporters and detractors. That would only be amplified in New York, on the most headline-hungry team in the N.F.L. It is almost as if the Jets figured they could fix their circus by adding another polarizing performer, by not just doubling the hype that surrounds the franchise but by growing it exponentially. The Jets need a starter at right tackle and a true No. 2 receiver, and that's just for starters. They did not need another player to sell tickets, another name to put in lights, another star in a locker room full of players who insist they meet that designation. Tebow is by all accounts an upstanding citizen, the best kind of teammate. But the last thing the Jets needed was more division, more tension, and his presence would produce that, despite the best intentions. When Sanchez throws his first incomplete pass, the more vocal Sanchez critics, who are growing, will clamor for Tebow. That quickly. Should Sanchez regress the way he did last season, Tebowmania will mushroom into an entirely new dimension. It could break Twitter and the Jets" Web site simultaneously. Steve Addazio, Tebow's offensive coordinator at Florida and now the coach at Temple, said there was no way Tebow would "ever be a pouting thumb-sucking baby," but Addazio added that "I don't see Tim Tebow being anyone's backup" and "he's not wired that way." In three seasons, Sanchez has not benefited from the Jets" approach, all the coddling and ego massaging and far less actual development. That the Jets inquired at all about Peyton Manning says more than the contract extension they gave to Sanchez. It says they are not sold. The trade for Tebow said exactly the same thing: the Jets are still the Jets, still uncertain about their quarterbacks. Pete Thamel contributed reporting.