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Listen to Eagles fans, in the stands or on the Internet, particularly after a frustrating loss, and you'll hear much more visceral tags attached to the quarterback.
"McChunky."
"McPuke."
"McChoke."
"McNasty."
McNabb has heard them all.
"I hear 'em at games. Out to dinner, too," McNabb said recently. "Some people are with friends or family, and they just want to shout something to say they said it. Or they may be walking past you and say, 'You guys [bleep],' and keep walking. They kind of want to hear your reaction. And if you don't react the way they expect you to react, now they feel like kind of the fool, you know, 'Maybe I shouldn't have said that.' The way of handling it is very important. If you get in my face and touch me, now we've got a problem, but if you don't, that doesn't bother me at all."
On Sunday, when the Eagles host the St. Louis Rams in their NFL opener, McNabb will start to write the 10th chapter of a convoluted story that began long ago, with fans booing his draft selection, second overall in 1999 (no, this isn't another story about that, but there's no way to write about McNabb and the fans without mentioning it).
On one theoretical hand, he is the most accomplished quarterback in the 75-year history of the franchise, a five-time Pro Bowler, easily one of the top five QBs in the NFL when healthy. He and Andy Reid have been together longer than any current quarterback and coach in the league.
On the other figurative hand - the one that's bruised and scarred, with misshapen knuckles, and bloody, ragged nails - he has failed to bring fans the Super Bowl championship they covet, despite four trips to the NFC title game and one very memorable chance to put it all to rest, on an evening 3 1/2 years ago in Jacksonville that somehow now seems closer to 3 1/2 decades distant. That evening ended in controversy and recrimination that continued to boil for months, amid a messy dispute between the team and Terrell Owens, who inflicted damage on the QB's image as he tried to make McNabb a hostage of his attempts to better his contract. And McNabb hasn't had a solid, healthy season since, or appeared in a subsequent playoff game.
Eagles fans and McNabb have a roller-coaster relationship, one that won't become static until he no longer plays here. The lack of ultimate success figures into it, but there's much more.
First, as every reporter and columnist in Philadelphia who regularly writes about McNabb well knows, the negative portrayal on talk radio and on some message boards does not represent all fans. The many people who appreciate his career and his understated, dignified persona might not yell loud enough to be heard in a crowd, but they know how to e-mail. They stood in long lines to get his autograph at the Eagles Carnival last month. They peppered message boards with their glowing appraisals of his strong training-camp performance.
At 31, McNabb knows the dynamic very well.
"You have people who really like you. You have people who don't mind talking bad about you," McNabb said. "And then you have people who are kind of off to the side, and just want to see a winning football team," people whose perceptions of the quarterback remain malleable.
"Talk radio is big out here in Philadelphia. But they don't really focus on the people who really admire the things you do, or really just enjoy watching Philadelphia Eagles football," McNabb said. "I don't focus on that. I think it's important when you do any job, play any sport here in Philadelphia, take pride in your work. We know it's not going to be roses every day. You're going to have some tough days. But it's all in how you're able to overcome that adversity and bounce back and do your job to the best of your ability."
Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg has coached in Green Bay, San Francisco and Detroit. He said that he has never been around a player, let alone a quarterback, who had to withstand such intense, prolonged scrutiny.
This is a city that revels in the myth of the scrappy underdog that makes you wonder sometimes if it understands "Rocky" was fiction. You can be an underdog by virtue of size (Allen Iverson) or attitude (Lenny Dykstra). It helps if you show emotion easily, conveying passion in your manner of speaking and/or playing (Dick Vermeil, Larry Bowa, Brian Dawkins, Ron Hextall, Jeremiah Trotter and many more).
McNabb might have qualified as an underdog here very briefly, when he was first taking over the controls of a 5-11 team, in the initial wave of remorse over the Ricky Williams mania that led to the draft-day booing. But after he started winning, it was clear that he had too many physical gifts to be a plucky overachiever. And then there was the wary, reserved way he related to fans, rooted not just in the booing at the draft but in his perception of what he represents, what he must convey.
Most Eagles fans have probably forgotten that McNabb made history by being the highest-drafted African-American quarterback ever, at second overall. (A mark eclipsed 2 years later by Michael Vick, taken first overall by Atlanta.) Rest assured, McNabb, who went to Syracuse instead of Illinois because the Illini thought he was too much of an "athlete" to play quarterback, hasn't forgotten it, and he never will.
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