What makes Americans want to kneel today? Nothing, apparently. We have come to associate kneeling with unsavory practices, like weeding or execution; instinctively we shun anything that makes us feel diminished and puny. Posture is important for our spines, the yogis say, and we should all walk as though we have books on our heads. Which is fine for musculoskeletal health, but not so great for the intangible good we call character.

“There’s something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it,” Augustine wrote in “The City of God,” ripping the Patriots much more nicely than Baltimore Ravens’ Terrell Suggs did earlier this year when he called them “arrogant” expletive-deleteds.

For Tebow fans, the problem now is that overexposure has diminished the value of his signature stance. To demonstrate humility and gratitude now, it’s better that he just walk off the field, because any dip of the knee will be seen as showboating. Virtue can’t exist when it’s self-conscious.