Tim Tebow Makes It to Philadelphia Eagles Roster, Coach Chip Kelly Thinks He has Improved

Jun 21, 2015 10:08 AM EDT

Tim Tebow has made it to the 53-man roster of the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL) as one of the team's three quarterbacks, reported Eliot Shorr-Parks, the New Jersey Advance Media for NJ.com.

In his article, Shorr-Parks said that Tebow would be the third quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles to complete its 24-man offensive line-up. The other quarterbacks are Sam Bradford and Mark Sanchez. The Eagles currently have five quarterbacks under contract, including G.J. Kinne, and Matt Barkley.

The report said, "'Tebow time' makes it into the regular season. Why? Matt Barkley might be the better quarterback at this point, but it feels like his run in Philadelphia is over, even if he does have a strong preseason. Barkley has also shown he isn't built to be a backup, emergency quarterback. Tebow doesn't turn the ball over, can make plays with his legs and has starting experience. His inconsistencies as a passer would be concerning if he had to start 16 games. But in spot duty, he offers more than Barkley does."

A separate report by Sports Illustrated quoted Eagles coach Chip Kelly expressing confidence in Tebow and said that the 27-year-old quarterback has improved significantly. The Philadelphia Eagles signed Tebow for a one-year contract in April.

The report quoted Kelly's comments from the Delaware County Daily Times, "I have seen an improvement from Tim since the day we got him in terms of his knowledge of what we're doing, understanding where everybody is. There's a whole process, and for him what we have done is different than what he's done anywhere else. So in terms of learning our terminology and how we do things, I think each week you've seen an incremental bump in him, so we're excited to see where that takes him and it'll be a good competition as we get into August."​

The hugely-popular Tebow sat out the entire 2014 campaign and has not played in a regular-season game since 2012 with the New York Jets. In 2013, Tebow was signed by the New England Patriots but he was also cut during training camp.

But Kelly said the 6-foot-3, 235-pounder Tebow has been displaying great athleticism on 7-on-7 drills. He said Tebow has shown great improvements with throwing the ball during OTA practices, according to Rapid News Network. Although Tebow has some rough passes during OTA, including missing a target during one drill.

Matthews described Tebow's abilities, "It's his competitiveness. I feel really comfortable in this offense right now in the sense of knowing exactly where everyone is supposed to be and being more of a coach on the field this year as opposed to trying to learn the whole system with everyone else like i did previous year". So there is a lot of cooperation that has to go on in the offseason program. I've been real impressed with him. We're not going to just bury our head in the sand and say no, but it better be a pretty good deal in terms of what it is. "I like him a lot".

Earlier we reported that Tebow was confident Kelly would play a major factor for his comeback and give him a roster with the Philadelphia Eagles.

He spoke of Kelly, "I think he's the kind of coach who plays to a player's strengths,. And not just the quarterbacks, but every player. He gets the most out of each player.''