Tim Tebow gives you a reason to watch preseason NFL games

“Just be ready when your number is called.”

The biggest moment of the 2013 NFL preseason isn’t when Chip Kelly makes his debut. Or when Mark Sanchez throws his first, inevitable incompletion. Or even when Sean Payton re-joins the Saints sidelines for the first time since his exile.

It will be when Tim Tebow takes the field for the Patriots Friday night in a blue and white No. 5 jersey, and we officially begin Tebowmania 3.0.

He may or may not play, but he probably will see at least some action, because — hey — it’s the preseason.

Per the Boston Globe’s Ben Volin: “According to Tebow, Belichick told him, ‘Just be ready when your number is called.’”

He’ll be ready. You can hate the hysteria, but even cynics don’t doubt that side of Tebow.

And fans will cheer. And haters will cackle. And the media will gawk.

But teammates will be watching. And scrubs whose destiny lie with “the Turk” will make a mental note that They Were On The Field With Tim Tebow.

He’ll run up the middle. He’ll plunge over tackle. He’ll throw a couple of balls in the 4th quarter that will flutter and may or may not find their mark.

The craziest part is that everyone pretty much agrees that NFL preseason football is the worst, which makes 4th-quarter NFL preseason games just about the lamest spectacle in sports — yes, even though it’s “still the NFL,” which is almost always better than nothing. Almost. Then you think about where you are after being three hours into the Dolphins-Jaguars game tonight. Yeesh.

And yet, what is a bigger indicator of the vitality of the continued fascination with Tim Tebow that he can make the 4th quarter of an otherwise utterly, incomprehensibly meaningless NFL preseason game matter, if only to see how things go.

Because you never know. If anything, that is at the heart of Tebowmania: You never know.

Just be ready.