McNabb and us
All right, it is now upon us. Donovan McNabb is coming home -- and Philadelphia will always be his home. The historians (and reality) will always demand it, as they should.
McNabb and us
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
All right, it is now upon us. Donovan McNabb is coming home -- and Philadelphia will always be his home. The historians (and reality) will always demand it, as they should. And, well, I'm just going to stream-of-consciousness this thing for a while.
I love it as a newspaper guy -- because who doesn't love this kind of a story? But I hate it, too. It's complicated. In the time McNabb was here, and especially in the outer years, we have all taken sides and established positions -- and we are all cemented into place, even if we don't want to be. With this man, this topic, and especially on this weekend against the Redskins, nuance takes a holiday. But life is nuance and McNabb deserves at least that much.
At the end, like I said, we all chose sides. I thought it was time to turn the page and wrote it that way for at least his final year, and probably longer than that. Really good friends of mine, really smart people, disagree. You start with hints and shades of meaning and then you dig yourself in deeper over the months -- it is how opinions evolve. And the two schools of thought that resulted went like this: that the Eagles are just beating their heads against the wall here and should start anew with Kevin Kolb, or that McNabb is mostly blameless here and that the real problem is that he was badly served over the years by Andy Reid, who called the wrong plays too often and who didn't provide him with the surrounding cast until the best of McNabb's career was behind him and a portion of the fan base was poisoned.
My friends probably wouldn't even agree with the way I have stated their position, even though we have discussed this, for probably 3 years -- at various decibel levels and sobriety levels -- in restaurants, bars, cabs, press boxes, hotel lobbies, telepones, texts, tweets, blogs, columns, sidebars, television and radio appearances. And bars. Oh yeah, mentioned that already.
This Michael Vick business has thrown a complete curve into the old arguments, and that is true enough. I will repeat what I wrote the day Kolb was told to sit down: if the Eagles don't make a long playoff run after this season, Reid just wasted a year and really needs to be held accountable. We're months away from the answer there. In the meantime, there is Sunday, McNabb Day.
We all have these positions, and we're all locked in, and that's true. But it should not rob any of us of the ability to recognize what McNabb accomplished here. It is entirely possible to recognize the good things he did for the Eagles and still believe it was time to move on after 11 seasons. It is the nuance of the thing, and I really wish some of it would bleed through the rhetoric this week.
Because Donovan McNabb stabilized a franchise that was so prone to wild swings and misses (and mostly misses). He was an elite talent for a long time. Two aspects of his game made him special: his legs and his good judgment. He ran his way out of a lot of trouble over the years and his interception rate was so low that he never gave games away. It was a great combination.
But while he won a lot of big games over the years, a lot of playoff game, he was almost never the best player in the ultimate games. (His fault? Andy's fault? You want another beer?) And now his legs aren't there anymore, not to the same level, because of injuries and age. All of that, plus a contract that needed extending -- and which the Redskins have not yet extended -- led to where we are now. But you already knew that.
Just be honest with yourself. Think about the years 1999 to 2009. Eleven seasons. About 200 games. A long time. Can you really pretend that this was not the best long run for this franchise in any of our lifetimes? Because you are dissatisfied with the lack of a championship, a real and obvious dissatisfaction, can you really act as if the rest of it did not happen?
My guess, on the weekend when Donovan McNabb comes home, is that most people can't forget, not if they're honest with themselves.
one good thing about debating vick vs mcnabb is that race doesn't become a media created issue the way it would with a kolb/mcnabb debate...- Rich are you stupid enough to believe the stat thing about his interception rate? He threw the ball at peoples feet to keep his stats firm since he refused to make the difficult throws that the winning QB's make. Yeah he made all the safe ones and threw away any tough/close covered passes to the ground. THAT"S WHY THIS YEAR HE IS 1-20 IN TH RED ZONE!!!!!— SkipinWV
- I just went to nfl.com/stats and the birds never had the #1 defense in the NFL. They had the #2 scoring defense for three years but gave up 29 (2001-02), 27 (2002-03), and 24 (2004-05) points in the last playoff game they played that season. They had the #4 scoring defense in 2008-09 and gave up 32 in the NFC championship game. As for yardage wise,they had two top 5 season in the NFL.
Don't let your hate for McNabb outweigh the facts. It's an insult to compare him to those lists of QBs. All of them combined didn't get to the five Conference championship games, let alone the playoffs 8 years out of 10.— palmyra21 - People forget what a choke artist Randall was and horrible/mediocre the teams in between were. Randall was like McNabb Jr - he choked in regular season games and 1st round playoff appearances. See 1988, 1989, 1990 for examples - and it's not like they had bad defenses then - those D's were legendary. I believe they won their first round game in 1992, but Randall got hurt the next year (again) and was never the same. I can admit I was emotionally unstable after the end of 2001-2004, but I could have some pride in being competitive and winning SOME big games. And now, of course, we love Randall. Time will heal the disappointment of McNabb as well - because it wasn't nearly as bad as Randall and Buddy Ryan.— AustinMike33
McNabb's supposed "good judgement" with regard to INTs is a myth and a red herring. Google Aikman's career TD/INT numbers, or any other multiple SB winner, to get a sense of how meaningless it is. Just off the top of my head I recall Aikman's numbers being something like 160 TDs/140 INTs, nowhere McNabb's vaunted best ever in the history of the NFL ratio. You won't ever grasp the brass ring if you're not willing to over-reach once in a while. You have to pick your spots and take some chances, even if it means a few more INTs on your individual stat sheet.— tornadoh- skip, you don't throw over 33000 yards without throwing into tight coverages.— palmyra21
- Also, hobbs, how much less hopeful would you be about this season's offense if Vick, or Kolb, were looking to find Thrash and Pinkston, or Johnson and Small, or Brown and Mitchell -- rather than Jackson and Maclin? I do agree it was time to move on, that McNabb is on the downside and he had his chance here and didn't come through. But when he was in his prime, McNabb had ONE season with ONE elite wide receiver -- and his stats were sharply improved, and he went to the Super Bowl... Here's another fun stat if you have the time: Look at the receiving numbers of Pinkston, Thrash, Small, Johnson, Brown and Mitchell in, say, their final two season with McNabb and then their two seasons after McNabb. What you'll see is that McNabb was throwing to guys who largely weren't good enough to even *play* on any other NFL team!— PhilaLogic
- Yes, it was clear watching McNabb that his quarterback play was good but inconsistent, and that some fans remember those sublime Sundays when everything seemed to click while I, and others, are haunted by all of those times when things, always inexplicably in their way, seemed to stall and grind to a miserable, negative conclusion. Anyone who watched the Eagles knows that for years the defense kept us in virtually every game -- and even created many scoring opportunities via turnover and field position. McNabb's reputation as a winner has so much to do with that fact, as he wasn't the kind of QB that could win a shootout, or march a team down the field late to steal a game in the final minutes. He seemed to literally shrink from adversity. I think it was the evident disparity between McNabb's best moments and his unforgettable worst that leave so many fans feeling as though he were some kind of fraud. He was only good enough to tease us with the possibility of consistent greatness, but he was not on the level, mentally I believe, to achieve it. And Rich...why is anything short of deep playoff run this year a waste? As a fan who understands that life is short and would thus rather my team go for a win than a loss on any given Sunday, the move to Vick is a success simply because he gives us the best chance. Why can't you arm-chair McClellans see that. Let Kolb sit until his ability dictates with greater force that he play.— auntesther
- palmyra21 and hubs_in_frisco. Todays date 10/1/2010— sikofit
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I'm sure McNabb may hear a few boos, and we all know that 1000 boos in a 60,000 seat stadium are still audible, but somewhere down the road we'll remember him as a great Eagle. Just like Randall, even Reggie wasn't liked by many for leaving and he's immortalized right there at the stadium. Which reminds me of my other issue: We have this great sports complex and no statues of great Eagles. I see some phillies, kate, dr j but no eagles except some dude punting. I'm not looking for a McNabb statue - yet; but Bednarik would be a good start. Make it out of concrete of course— burholme- FAT A@@ Barkley said on sportscenter that he's going to the game Sunday in a skins McNabb jersey & is going to cheer his buddy for 3 minutes. Waddle around & up to the huddle, call timeouts in lst quarter to catch breath, smile when throwing lo, hi, behind passes---apparently Barkley didn't watch too many eagle games to see how BOZO PLAYED— jwatson
- Yes Palmyra you can say more... Na Brown, Reggie brown, Gary scott, L.J. Smith. Luv how u guys talk about #1 defense and thats great but those QB's who had the #1 defense won super bowls because their #1 d made plays throughout the playoffs(like ours did, until ARIZ '08), the point is in all the big games that donovan lost(4 conference championship games, 1 superbowl & 1 1st round game) please tell me how many sacks our #1 D got?, how many forced fumbles?, how many fumble recoveries?, how many interceptions? how many 3 and outs when we were up and needed the #1 d to stop the other team and not allow too much time off the clock. do your research, dawkins who is LOVED absolutely no big plays, same for trotter, troy vincent, corey simon, hugh douglass, lito sheppard, sheldon brown, bobby taylor, trent cole, stewart bradley, derrick burgess, hollis thomas..., or how bout seth joyner, reggie white, byron evans, andre waters, eric allen... you get the picture. Did McNabb play great, only once the game against Arizona and the D failed(8min touchdown drive to give back the lead) but even the NFC CG against Atlanta he played average, but the #1 defense stepped up and made plays thats why we went to the SB. So until the eagles can get the qb and the defense playing to win at the same time in the playoffs we will continue to be superbowl less— rockwild
- If you guys cant understand that just look at last year superbowl winner New Orleans. Brees played lights out, and Their defense, heck even their special teams made plays. The onside kick, and the game winning Interception to shut the door on the Colts. the problem with us eagles fan is we put it all on 1 guy, jaworski, cunningham, and McNabb. You have to make plays in at least 2 phases of the game to win and win donovan in all 5 out of 6(ariz 08) of his playoff losses he didnt make as many plays that we needed and in 5 out of 6 playoff(atlanta04)losses the defense and the special teams made no plays. hence we have no superbowl, if u want to blame, u can blame donnie, u can blame reid, and u can blame jimmie johnson. but to blame 1 guy as if he fumbled away the game winning score doesnt make sense— rockwild
- Hubbs_in_Frisco: Your stats are good, but you failed to mentioned one thing: Those number 1 defenses came up small in all those big losses. Tell a big game where the other team scored less than 17 points and won? In most of those games the Offense scored enough points to win but those #1 ranked Ds gave the game away!!!!— Bigbadrookie
