Rich Hofmann: No comparison when rating McNabb, Favre

JUST BECAUSE Brett Favre might have been overrated does not mean that Donovan McNabb has been underrated.

This undercurrent has already begun and it needs to be stopped. One guy has nothing to do with the other guy, other than the Andy Reid connection. If anything, Favre's failures do not somehow burnish McNabb's resume by comparison. Instead, they demonstrate the dangers of hanging on too long.

Historians will remember Sunday as the greatest moment in the annals of Wisconsiana, other than perhaps the invention of the cheese curd: when Favre rolled right and then threw back across his body in the NFC Championship Game, into coverage, into infamy.

When Favre, Hall of Fame gunslinger, again shot himself in the foot - this time as the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings, this time with running room available that would have given the Vikings a realistic shot of beating the New Orleans Saints with a field goal at the gun - he hardened the divisions about his legacy into concrete.

When he threw that interception, a terrible interception, a terrible interception like his last pass with the Green Bay Packers - in overtime of another NFC Championship Game against the New York Giants - he assured that the Favre Haters (and especially the Wisconsin chapter of the organization) would be able to bellow forever that John Madden's adopted son really was pretty overrated all along.

This might be true. Just remember that he has four things McNabb does not have: MVP in 1995, MVP in 1996, MVP in 1997, and the Lombardi Trophy from Super Bowl XXXI.

It is easy enough to argue that McNabb has been a better player during the time they shared in the league, from 1999 to now. It is just that Favre's career has been so long, and his career highlights were before McNabb began. It is also that they always have been much different stylistic players. For instance, by the age of 33, Favre had thrown for nearly 10,000 more yards than McNabb and 98 more touchdowns - but he also threw 88 more interceptions.

Favre got style points for recklessness, for higher highs and lower lows - and especially for never getting hurt - and McNabb got fewer style point for prudence. That just seems like human nature. But don't forget: McNabb, he of the Chunky Soup McNabb's, is regarded much more highly by national commentators than he is in Philadelphia, where every blemish has been biopsied by now.

Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have been better during McNabb's time span, but then the arguments begin about slotting McNabb, Kurt Warner, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger. It has been a fine career. McNabb has never been underrated by the employees of ESPN (save for Rush Limbaugh).

But that doesn't mean you have to wait forever for 2004 to happen again. With that, things remain quiet on the Eagles' front. The club appears satisfied that coach Andy Reid's postseason assessment will be able to stand - that is, that he expects McNabb to be his quarterback next year and that it is Reid's decision.

Looking back on it, a fair reading suggests that it was at least a somewhat lawyerly statement by Reid. Weeks earlier, the coach had been pounding the table that McNabb was a Hall of Fame player; there was none of that after the season. If Reid had come out and mocked the questions about McNabb's 2010 status and thrown the Hall of Fame thing back in the questioners' faces, he would have been far more convincing.

Instead, what you got was fairly precise and concise language. You got a tacit acknowledgment that McNabb's contract, which expires after next season, was going to be a part of the future discussion. You also got a reminder from Reid that McNabb was already taken care of financially going into last season, even as the contract length was not extended.

You did not, though, get anything approaching the defense of McNabb that club president Joe Banner offered near the end of the 2007 season, when another McNabb brushfire was threatening to burn out of control:

"I can't envision a situation in which he is not our quarterback next year . . . I believe there is a very, very sizable silent majority who realize how lucky we have been to have Donovan McNabb. I mean, we are talking about a quarterback who went to four straight championship games. There are only four quarterbacks in the history of the league that have done that. You are talking about a quarterback who has had a higher winning percentage in his first 7 years in the league than Peyton Manning. You are talking about a quarterback that has one of the highest quarterback ratings over the first seven seasons, one of the best TD-to-interceptions ratios of any quarterback in the history of this game in his first seven seasons in the league . . . My expectations, and I can't really even picture a different scenario, is that he'll be the quarterback [next season]."

Now that was an endorsement.

This year, not so much.

So, don't kid yourselves: Trading McNabb is an incredibly live option for this franchise and it should be, because backup Kevin Kolb is ready and because the McNabb contract demands a decision.

The legacy will take care of itself. But for the people who suggest that McNabb is John Elway, and that Elway got his this-one's-for-John moment late in his career, and that they just need to ride it out with McNabb, there is another side of that argument. He was wearing No. 4 on Sunday, rolling to his right . . .

Send e-mail to hofmanr@phillynews.com,

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