As suspected, Tim Tebow officially declined the NFL’s invitation to be part of the NFL Draft Day in New York City next week. We reported months ago that is was highly unlikely that Tim would attend the event give that there’s nothing he can really gain from it. Tim Tebow is such a big superstar that the cameras would be on him the entire time and Tim doesn’t really need that right now. And imagine, once we got past pick 10 the cameras would be on him all the way until he got picked. If Tim doesn’t get picked till around 40 or 45 then that’s two days of the “experts” talking about it – just like Brady Quinn and Aaron Rodgers a few years ago. Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen also declined the invitation.

For the first time ever the NFL Draft will be in prime time and spread out over 3 days. The first round will be on April 22 at 7:30 pm eastern, followed by the second and third rounds on April 23 at 6:30 pm eastern and will conclude with rounds four through seven on Saturday at 10:00 am. By dragging the draft out over 3 days and inviting a lot more players to attend, the NFL is trying to turn the Draft into big star studded event. They’ll get a lot more TV revenue and hope more people will watch. It also gives teams more time to make trades and evaluate players.

I am still expecting Tim Tebow to be drafted somewhere in the middle to end of the first round – around picks 22-25. Look out for Pittsburgh – they’ve been sending messages to their players that character matters and you won’t find a better character guy than Tim Tebow.