McNabb & Favre? Not for My Playoff Team

Over the years, I have watched a lot of football. One thing that I have noticed is that with very rare exception, NFL quarterbacks only have a short stretch of championship football in him. Quarterbacks can play at a high level for a long time, but there seems to be a very short time span during which they actually play at a championship level in the playoffs. During my lifetime, I count only John Elway and Joe Montana among them. As you will see later, Kurt Warner is an outlier on that list.

I initially started compiling this data in the summer of 2010 to show that the Vikings and Redskins were foolish to put their championship hopes in the hands of Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb, respectively. Their peaks were years ago. If you only took the last 12 years of Favre’s career, for instance, he doesn’t even get a glimpse of the Hall of Fame. His first 8 seasons were so great that they carried his reputations for a full two decades.

McNabb’s peak ended in 2005. The Eagles had a great run with him from 2000-2004, but he’s only won two playoff games since then. And what I remember most about that era is that the last meaningful play of every single Eagles season from 2001-2005 was an interception thrown by McNabb. Check it out:

• 2001-2002: McNabb interception on 4th down in NFC Championship Game in St. Louis.
  
• 2002-2003: McNabb interception returned for touchdown by Ronde Barber in NFC Championship Game
  
• 2003-2004: McNabb’s 3rd interception by Ricky Manning, Jr. in the NFC Championship Game
  
• 2004-2005: McNabb’s interception on by Rodney Harrison clinched the Super Bowl for New England
  
• 2005-2006: McNabb’s interception that Roy Williams returned for a touchdown on a Monday night (McNabb was injured on the play and missed the rest of the season)

Outside of Favre and McNabb, other quarterbacks do not maintain sustained periods of championship football. Look at Tom Brady. If he ever wins another Super Bowl as a starting quarterback, even if it happens this coming season, he will set two Super Bowl longevity records. First, he would break the record for the longest period of time between a quarterback’s first and last Super Bowl victories. It has been 10 years since the Patriots upset the Rams; the current record is Joe Montana’s 8-year gap between Super Bowls XVI and XXIV. Second, since it has been 7 years since the Patriots were champions, Brady would break Roger Staubach’s record of 6 seasons between consecutive Super Bowl victories. Only Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Jim Plunkett, and Ben Roethlisberger have gone 3 seasons without winning a Super Bowl and went on to win another.

Furthermore, the record for consecutive Super Bowl appearances is only 8 years. The record for longest time between a quarterback’s first and last Super Bowl appearances is 12. Both of those records belong to Elway. Kurt Warner is in second place on both lists with 7 years and 9 years, respectively (Craig Morton is tied with Warner’s 7).
What this shows is that, for the most part, quarterbacks’ Super Bowl appearances come within a short time span. The stories of the old gunslinger leading his team on one last Super Bowl run are just a myth. It doesn’t happen in the NFL.

Now that that’s out of the way…




Last night, a quarterback discussion broke out on Twitter. Specifically, the names of Favre, McNabb, Brady, and Peyton Manning were thrown around. Thankfully, I had all of their data already compiled. The data I speak of is the playoff performance of all NFL quarterbacks who have started 10 or more playoff games since 1999, which is the year Donovan McNabb entered the league, Peyton Manning first made the playoffs, and Brett Favre really fell off. In total, this list includes the 4 quarterbacks already mentioned as well as Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger. My initial premise was that McNabb and post-Holmgren Favre are the two worst playoff quarterbacks of this generation. I knew Peyton Manning wasn’t good, but I didn’t realize how close he was to Favre and McNabb. Manning’s actually been bad.

What you will see is the performance data broken up into different categories of playoff games since 1999: all games, games with a single-digit point differential, Championship Games/Super Bowls, wins, losses, games tied after 3 quarters, games led by 8 points or less after 3 quarters, games trailed by 8 points or less after 3 quarters, and overtime games. One interesting thing of which to take note is that Roethlisberger’s performances are all fairly consistent, no matter the category. His statistics are always OK, yet the Steelers always score a lot. Anyway…make your judgments for yourself. (Click here for the data)

ALL PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
The biggest surprise for me here was the realization that the Colts have scored as many as 20 points in only 9 of Peyton Manning’s 19 playoff games and that the Colts only averaged 22.37 points in those games. Next was realizing that only Kurt Warner averaged more than 2 touchdown passes per game.

By more than 4 points, Favre and McNabb have the 2 worst quarterback ratings of the group. Warner’s rating is a ridiculous 102.84.


SINGLE DIGIT PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
Before doing my research, I knew that Favre and McNabb’s teams had poor records in playoff games decided by less than 10 points. I knew that the only such game the Eagles won was the 4th & 26 game in which they defeated Favre’s Packers in overtime. Favre’s 1 win was the “and we’re gonna score” game in which Al Harris returned a Matt Hasselbeck interception for a touchdown in overtime. The Colts only scored 20 points in 3 of their 9 single-digit playoff games.

Oddly, even though each only posted a 1-3 record in such games, Favre and McNabb were the only 2 of the 6 to have a higher quarterback rating in single-digit games than in overall playoff games.


CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES & SUPER BOWLS SINCE 1999
It is here where Brady and Warner shine while Favre and McNabb fall far behind the others. By a lot, Favre and McNabb have the worst quarterback ratings of the bunch and Brady and Warner have the best. Only Warner and Brady managed to have more touchdown passes than interceptions in half of these games. No one else did it more than a third of the time. While Warner and Brady averaged 1 interception per game or less, Favre and McNabb were both at or near 2. That helps to explain why those Warner and Brady have a combined 11-4 record (1 game against each other) while the other two are 1-7 (no games played against each other). Manning and Roethlisberger also sport winning records in Championship Games and Super Bowls.

The most interesting statistic here is that Warner’s team averaged only 22.5 points in these games, yet still won 4 out of 6.


PLAYOFF LOSSES SINCE 1999
The first thing that struck me when looking at this data is that Roethlisberger’s Steelers have a higher scoring average in their losses than they do in their wins. Despite that, Roethlisberger throws 2.67 interceptions in each loss. Warner, amazingly, still has a respectable 88.47 quarterback rating in his losses.

Manning’s numbers are the most fascinating here, though. In his 10 playoff losses, he’s only thrown 9 touchdown passes. In 5 of those losses, however, he managed to throw more touchdown passes than interceptions. At 14.2 points per game, Manning has the worst scoring offense of those examined. Accordingly, they’ve only scored 20 points once in those losses.


PLAYOFF WINS SINCE 1999
When Brett Favre is good, he’s really good. In his 4 playoff wins, he posted a group best 123.25 quarterback rating. This is the only category in which Warner, who was second best with 109.96, did not have the best rating of the group. In those wins, Favre’s teams averaged 33.5 points per game and the quarterback had 10 TDs against only 1 INT and, naturally, had more touchdowns than interceptions in each game.

Peyton? In his 9 wins, he has 20 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. But I considered that he only threw for more touchdowns than interceptions in 5 of those 9 wins and looked deeper. If you eliminate the 2 games against Mike Shanahan’s defenseless Broncos, Manning has only 11 touchdowns and 8 interceptions in 7 wins. Those numbers are very un-Peyton like. In addition, he is the only quarterback of the 6 to average 1 interception per game.


PLAYOFF GAMES TIED AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
I wanted to take a look at how these guys performed in close, tense playoff games. Looking at games with a final margin of single digits can be misleading—sometimes teams score late and make a game appear closer than it really was. So I took a look at games that were within 1 score at the end of the 3rd quarter. In addition to noting who won and lost these games, I captured how many points the team scored, how many times they went ahead, fell behind, and either came back or had the other team come back against them.

As you’d expect, there weren’t too many games tied after 3 quarters. What is interesting is that McNabb’s Eagles lost their 1 tied game while Brady and Roethlisberger’s teams won all of theirs. Favre had 1 tie game; it went to overtime. It is worth nothing that Favre’s team fell behind in that 4th quarter and had to score a touchdown in order to send that game into overtime.


PLAYOFF GAMES WITH 1-POSSESSION LEAD AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
In looking at games that our quarterbacks’ teams led by 8 or less after 3, I saw that most of these guys were frontrunners. Brady, McNabb, Warner, and Roethlisberger all averaged scoring a touchdown or more in these 4th quarters. While averaging only 5.67 points in his 3 games, Warner fell behind twice and managed to come back to win both games. His record is 3-0.

Only Brady and Manning lost games in regulation. In fact, Brady’s team fell behind 3 times. The Pats won 1 of them. Manning’s case is the most interesting. Out of 8 games, the Colts only won 4. Hmm.


PLAYOFF GAMES WITH 1-POSSESSION DEFECIT AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
In the opposite type games, again we find that only Brady and Manning have won in regulation. Each of the others brought one of these games into overtime. Manning and McNabb have both given their teams the lead only to wind up losing in the end. Each of these guys outside of Warner, who was never in the situation, averaged more than a touchdown per game.


OVERTIME PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
I knew this going in, but I am amazed that every single one of Brett Favre’s playoff games since 1999 that has ended with a single-digit margin has gone into overtime. It says a lot that, while his team is 1-3 in those overtime games, a Favre interception has played a role in every single one of those losses (overtime interceptions against the Eagles and Giants as well as the interception that sent the Saints loss to overtime). It is absolutely hilarious that the only single-digit victory Favre has was via a defensive score. Similarly, McNabb’s only close playoff victory was an overtime victory that was assisted by a Favre interception in overtime.

Peyton Manning cannot at all be blamed for his 0-2 overtime record. One loss was to San Diego; Indianapolis never saw the ball in overtime. In 2000, the Colts lost in overtime in Miami. Manning drove the offense to what should have been the winning score, but Mike Vanderjagt missed a field goal.

Jesus Wasn't Silent When He Turned the Other Cheek

Anyone who knows me knows that I have plenty of issues with Donovan McNabb as a football player. I also have a variety of issues with him as a person. I have never met the man, but I saw enough during his eleven years in Philadelphia to know what I know.

My biggest issues with McNabb are those things that lead other people to call him classy. I find a great many of his “classy” actions to be passive aggressive, dishonest, and disrespectful. Yesterday, after he was benched in favor of Rex Grossman during the final two minutes of Washington’s 37-25 loss in Detroit, McNabb provided a perfect example of what I find so disturbing about him.

He always does his very best to avoid causing controversy. Donovan McNabb does not want to be seen as a troublemaker. As a result, the man never stands up for himself. It happened in Philadelphia, and now it’s happening in Washington.

If my child responded to disrespect in the manner that Donovan McNabb consistently does, I would be ashamed of him/her. Every time one of these situations pops up, I think about the song, You Gotta Be by Des’ree. The opening stanza is:

Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers, they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted
Don't be ashamed to cry

This is what McNabb never does. McNabb always publicly makes light of the situation and refuses to challenge the coaches. I will not go so far as to call McNabb a yes man, but he most definitely is a company man. An effective team leader cannot be a company man. It absolutely cannot work. This is why many of the defensive players never fully backed McNabb during his days as the Eagles’ quarterback. This also cost him the full support of the offensive players during his final two years in Philadelphia. In November 2008, he was benched in the second half of a game in Baltimore. He reacted the same way, and from that point on, the skill position players were Kevin Kolb guys. McNabb never publicly admits to being angry or feeling disrespected until he is already removed from the situation. This is not classy. This is prey behavior. He speaks and behaves like a victim; this is the furthest thing from leadership.

People call McNabb classy and a nice guy, but I don’t see it that way. It is never right to allow others to disrespect you. When you allow other people to disrespect you, you are admitting to the world that you are not worthy of respect. Due to their circumstances, some people feel as if they must grin and bear it. McNabb should not feel that need. He is an NFL quarterback who people generally like. But, no, he never commands respect from anyone perceived to be at or above his level. Sure, he can criticize Terrell Owens, but he can never stand up to Andy Reid or Mike Shanahan until they are no longer his coach. It’s weak. It’s the way of a victim.

People say they respect McNabb for turning the other cheek. The thought I cannot escape is this: Jesus wasn’t silent when He turned the other cheek. You should never act as if it is fine when people disrespect you. You should never allow people to act disrespectfully toward anyone and then act as if they are not doing so. Allowing disrespect to go unacknowledged is living a lie. Every time McNabb allows this to happen to him, he perpetuates the problem.

And this affects more than him. Think about this: if Donovan McNabb can’t stand up for himself, what Black quarterback can? Because of his stature and accomplishments, McNabb is viewed, more or less, as the standard bearer for Black quarterbacks. If he refuses to stand up for himself, then other Black quarterbacks must follow suit. If he were to speak up and not allow others to publicly disrespect him, the media would grow more comfortable with other Black quarterbacks doing it too. Remember when Vince Young had his episode? People remember that it occurred after Young was benched in favor of Kerry Collins. What is never mentioned anymore is that Young was widely criticized in the media for speaking about how upset and disappointed he was for being benched.

Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers and Kevin Kolb are praised for their desire to play when they expressed their anger and impatience at having to sit behind Brett Favre and McNabb, respectively. Vince Young was not afforded that same praise. Some of that is attributable to McNabb’s refusal to stand up for himself.

You act like a victim, you become a victim.

McNabb's Return

It looks like it should be an easy Eagles victory on Sunday when Donovan McNabb returns to Philadelphia for the first time since becoming the Washington quarterback. Looking at McNabb and Andy Reid’s history, though, I think McNabb’s team will leave Philly with a double-digit victory. I’m thinking something along the lines of 27-17. Any other result would tell me one of two things: either McNabb really is done or the Eagles team is as much emotionally invested in beating McNabb as he is in defeating them.

Both McNabb and Reid are entering a game they’ve played many times. For the Washington quarterback, this is the game after people started to wonder if he really is the guy, if he still has it. Typically, this game becomes one of McNabb’s two or three best of the season. He looks great in this game. His passes are accurate in this game. This is the type of game that makes people think McNabb is one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL. He usually immediately follows this game with two or three duds in a row, but this game is almost always his.

McNabb played games like this a lot during his years as an Eagle. If we begin in McNabb’s third season, the year after his first playoff run, we can see how he responds when the hometown fans and media begin to doubt him:

November 29, 2001 The Eagles were coming off a bad loss at home to Washington, which dropped their record to 6-4. The next game was Thursday night game in Kansas City. The Eagles won easily while McNabb threw for 269 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception. His quarterback rating that night was 112.5. over the next three weeks, the Eagles went 2-1 while McNabb completed less than 55% of his passes.

September 16, 2002 The Eagles blew a double-digit lead in a bad loss to the Titans the previous week. McNabb followed that loss with a great performance in Washington while leading the Eagles to a thirty-point win. McNabb followed this win up with a great performance against the Cowboys. Then he had six bad games in a row.

November 17, 2002 The Eagles won four of the six bad games McNabb played. The final game, however, was a blowout loss at home to the Colts. The whispers about McNabb started popping up again. In the following game against the Cardinals, he completed 80% of his passes and threw for four touchdowns. Unfortunately, he broke his foot in that game and missed the rest of the regular season.

September 28, 2003 It’s easy to forget this now, but the Eagles lost the first two games at Lincoln Financial Field. They scored a combined ten points in those games to begin the season 0-2. The Bills were 2-0, including a 38-0 win over the Patriots. Few gave the Eagles a chance in Buffalo, but they won easily. After that game, it would be another month before McNabb threw for more than 200 yards in a game.

December 27, 2003 A week earlier, the Eagles blew a home game against a bad 49ers team that diminished their chances at gaining home field advantage throughout the playoffs. In the regular season finale in Washington, McNabb led a blowout victory by completing 72% of his passes for three touchdowns and no interceptions. The ensuing playoffs were not good, though.

November 27, 2008 This Thanksgiving night game against the Cardinals came on the heels of a 0-2-1 stretch for the Eagles. McNabb had been benched at halftime of the previous game. If this game had been played on Sunday instead of Thursday, McNabb probably would not have had the chance to start. He did start, however, and completed 69% of his passes for 4 touchdowns, no turnovers, and a 121.7 rating. This game is the one outlier, as McNabb only had one bad game the rest of that season.

McNabb had many other games like this. I identify the 2004 game in Dallas after the Eagles were blown out in Pittsburgh, the 2006 game in San Francisco, the Detroit game in 2007, the 2007 game in Washington, the 49er game in 2008, and last year’s game in Chicago.

This is his pattern; this is what he does. Doubts rise, he plays magnificently, and then he falls back into his normal routine. I’ve seen it a dozen times or more. Now the fans in the District get a chance to see it, too.

For the Eagle head coach, this is the home game against a lesser team immediately following decisive road victory that greatly increased his team’s confidence. Eagle fans will tell you they always dread this game. They often lose this game. When they do win, it’s always closer than it should be. By my count, when Andy Reid’s Eagles have a home game against a team that finishes the season no better than 8-8 the week after a blowout road victory, they are 4-4. Two of those losses happen to be to Washington teams that ended up 8-8.

Maybe Michael Vick and the Eagles young skill players can overcome these trends. If McNabb has anything left, however, he will show it this weekend.

After All We've Done for You

Apparently, Angelo Cataldi is bringing the Dirty Thirty back together. In case you don’t know who Cataldi and the Dirty Thirty are, he is the morning radio host on WIP, one of Philadelphia’s sports talk stations. In the weeks leading up to the 1999 NFL Draft, Cataldi was upset that Andy Reid was looking to draft a quarterback, specifically Donovan McNabb instead of Ricky Williams. He decide to put together a group, the Dirty Thirty, to take on a bus trip up to Manhattan for the draft. His revisionist history may now state otherwise, but when Cataldi auditioned callers for spots in the Dirty Thirty, he had asked them to boo as they would on draft day when they heard McNabb’s name called.

These days Cataldi says that his intention was to put together a group to cheer the newest Eagle draft pick. According to today’s column by Joseph Santoliquito on the website for CBS’ Philadelphia affiliate, Cataldi said, “We weren’t driving a 100 miles both ways to boo the newest Eagle. Now as I wind down my radio career, I’m going to be remembered as the guy who got 30 big fat puking drunks together to boo McNabb—not as an articulate journalist who contributed something.” This statement is entirely false. What Cataldi wanted was to raise a stink and coerce the Eagles into drafting Ricky Williams. He feels his “Honk for Herschel” campaign, during which he asked drivers to honk loudly while driving by Veterans Stadium to show their desire for the Eagles to sign the former Vikings and Cowboys running back, was the primary catalyst for the Eagles bringing Herschel onto the team. In 1999, he thought he could influence the Eagles’ decision-making by vocalizing his disagreement with the idea of drafting a quarterback. When Andy Reid did not appear to budge, Cataldi decided to take his displeasure national. That was the reason behind the Dirty Thirty.

Eleven years later, he’s doing it again. This time, he’s bringing the Dirty Thirty back to boo McNabb during a march to the stadium on Sunday afternoon. Why?

There is plenty of reason for Eagle fans to be dissatisfied by the McNabb era. There was a lot of promise, but ultimately, there was no championship. While McNabb was a very good quarterback, he did not have the best personality for the city in which he played. But there is no reason to boo him on Sunday. He doesn’t deserve it.

McNabb will be booed on Sunday. Some will do it because he did not win a Super Bowl. I disagree with it, but I understand the notion. Others, led by Cataldi and his Dirty Thirty, will boo because McNabb was rather cold and distant to the fans in the city. This faction is asinine. What reason did McNabb ever have to try and bond with these people? The boos of the first Dirty Thirty were his introduction to the city.

By staging his march on Sunday, Angelo Cataldi perfectly embodies societal privilege. When you break this down and actually analyze what occurred in Philadelphia over the past eleven years, McNabb’s crime, in the eyes of Cataldi and his supporters, is that he never embraced the people who shat on him. “After all we’ve done for him…” and “After we cheered for him for throughout his entire career…” are two of the more common phrases I’ve heard from people who agree with Cataldi. If this doesn’t represent privilege, I don’t know what does. This type of attitude is male privilege, heterosexual privilege, able-bodied privilege, and just about every other type of privilege out there,

Cataldi and the Dirty Thirty destroyed what should have been the happiest moment of Donovan McNabb’s first 22 years of life. In an orchestrated—though they’ll never admit it anymore—move, they absolutely crushed the kid. Then, once he got on the field and started to produce, they cheered and adored him.

But because he never thanked and embraced them for it, they now hate him. Because he told them how much they mean to him, they think he doesn’t deserve them. They’ll cover it up by saying he was distant and cold and passive-aggressive. Many of the things they say are true, but they aren’t fooling me. Cataldi and his backers are to McNabb what Dan Gilbert was to LeBron James. He is bitter that the player for whom he grudgingly came to root does not feel grateful for it. After all they did for you, how dare you nigger, I mean, Donovan.

It takes a high degree of privilege to feel entitled to love after treating someone in a disrespectful and indecent manner. I guess a straight, upper-class, pure White Christian man wouldn’t see anything wrong with that, though.

The Gold Standard: Defending Eagle Fans

Sunday, as the Eagles lost to the Packers to open the season, Twitter was bombarded by people sarcastically asking Eagle fans if they were sorry yet for wishing Donovan McNabb away. I tried arguing with some of them for a while. I knew, however, that it was a useless effort. The national perception will be what it will be. But the truth is that, while Eagle fans in Philadelphia had grown weary and tired of their quarterback, only a minute minority considered him the team’s biggest problem. Many thought it was time for him to go—how many times can you continue to try the same thing before realizing that it’s just not working?—but there were also many who thought that it was Andy Reid, not Donovan McNabb, whose time with the Eagles should have ended. Nationally, McNabb has always been portrayed as the fans’ fall guy. That was never the truth. It was never that simple. Besides, at no point during his tenure in Philadelphia was McNabb ever the top target of the fans’ ire. Not once.

McNabb was always the nationally publicized face of the fans’ frustration because he was the quarterback. When the team has a winning record and one is not physically in the area talking to local people, listening to local talk shows, and reading local newspapers and websites, it is very difficult for one to pick up dissatisfaction with a team’s front office. But rest assured, most Eagle fans are fed up with the Andy Reid—Joe Banner—Jeffrey Lurie triumvirate.

Lurie, the team owner, and Banner, the team president, spent much of the time from 2000-2005 speaking of the Eagles as the “gold standard” of NFL franchises. Yes, “gold standard,” was their phrase. This irked the team’s fans to no end. Rightfully, the fans wondered how the Eagles could be the gold standard without having any Lombardi trophies to showcase. Even if none of them were, at the time, recently won, each of the Eagles’ division rivals has won multiple Super Bowls. The Eagles still have zero. At no point have Lurie and Banner acted as if increasing that total is a priority.

It is true that only one team can win the Super Bowl each year, but the goal of a professional sports team is to be that team. Every action of the organization should be to get the team closer to winning that Lombardi trophy. Sometimes that means signing a free agent; sometimes that means gutting the team and starting over. It should never mean watching the team get close every year and doing nothing to change the personnel or philosophy.

I often speak of the concept of not allowing being very good to prevent you from being great. The Eagles, as an organization, do not subscribe to that philosophy. They feel their decade was better than the Ravens, Buccaneers, and Giants. I don’t understand this. The fans don’t understand this. The goal is winning the Super Bowl. Those three teams won the Super Bowl; the Eagles did not. This does not seem to bother the Eagle management.

Naturally, most of the fans don’t like this. They want to win a Super Bowl. They see that winning the championship is more important to them than it is to their team’s management, and it frustrates them to no end. They wonder how the “gold standard” can be satisfied going year after year without accomplishing the ultimate goal.

It is easy for the national media to come into the city and cast the fans’ disgruntlement with Lurie and Banner as typical Philly fan behavior. They can shrug it off as fans not knowing how good they have it. They never identify it for what it actually is, though: Philadelphia fans are sick and tired of Eagle ownership being content and satisfied with merely getting close every year. So that story is never reported. People outside the Philadelphia metropolitan area never learn how disgusted the fans in the city are with Banner and Lurie.

Shortly after Lurie and Banner took over the team, the Cowboys won the NFC East’s ninth Lombardi trophy. During the Lurie era, the Giants added a tenth. Every NFC East team other than the Eagles has won at least three Super Bowls. The cross-state rival Steelers have won six, including two in the past half-dozen years. Meanwhile, the USFL’s Stars are the only professional football team in Philadelphia to win a championship since 1960. That’s right: the Eagles wore throwback uniforms in the 2010 season opener to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the team’s most recent championship.

While Lurie has owned the team, the Buccanneers, Panthers, and Cardinals have all reached the Super Bowl for the only time in franchise history by defeating the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game. The two sorriest franchises in NFL history, the Bucs and Saints, have won the Super Bowl. This most recent decade featured the Red Sox, White Sox, and Phillies winning the World Series. Those three teams have all been around since 1901, yet had combined to win exactly one World Series between 1918 and 2000. The Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961.

Eagle fans are still waiting for their championship. Lurie and Banner, though, are content. The fans in the city have been frustrated with Banner and Lurie long before they grew tired of Donovan McNabb. Even during McNabb’s darkest days with the Eagles, the fans desired Banner and Lurie’s departure more than they did the quarterback’s. After all, Banner and Lurie are the ones who continually allow Andy Reid to stay in town and do what he does.

Andy Reid. Oh, man, are the fans ready for that man to go.

Reid is the man who consistently wastes timeouts because the coaching staff takes too much time signaling plays into the quarterback.


• Reid is the man who replaced Jeremiah Trotter with Levon Kirkland in 2002. Kirkland is the man largely responsible for being too slow to respond to Joe Jurevicius’ infamous 71-yard catch & run in the NFC Championship Game loss against Tampa Bay. Kirkland was replaced by Mark Simoneau in 2003. Every Eagle fan remembers DeShaun Foster running over Simoneau twice on the same 5-yard touchdown run in that season’s NFC Championship Game. It doesn’t seem like much of a coincidence that the Eagles finally made the Super Bowl when Trotter returned in 2004.
  
  
• It was Andy Reid who has become legendary for clock mismanagement. He even started 2010 off by burning his second half timeouts at the wrong time, even though his clock management against Oakland in 2009 will be the standard for all future clock management blunders. After failing to convert a fourth down, the Eagles trailed the Raiders 13-9. Oakland took possession at their own 44-yard line with 2:42 left in the game. The Eagles had two timeouts remaining. Reid called the Eagles’ second timeout after the Raiders’ first play. 2:10 remained. Then, with 2:02 left on the clock, Reid burned the team’s final timeout after the Raiders lost two yards on second down. He should have let those two seconds run off the clock to bring up the two-minute warning. By calling the timeout, Reid gave the Raiders the option of throwing the ball on 3^rd & 10—the Raiders had no fear of stopping the clock with an incomplete pass because the upcoming two-minute warning was going to stop the clock anyway. Had Reid saved the timeout, the Raiders would have run the ball on 3^rd & 10, which would have pretty much guaranteed the Eagles of forcing a punt and getting the ball back. Since the Eagles gave Oakland the option of throwing the ball, the Raiders threw the ball and picked up the first down. Three kneel downs later, the game was over and the Eagles were beaten by JaMarcus Russell.
  
  
• Reid is the one who gave his young quarterback such wonderful weapons as Charles Johnson, Torrance Small, and the unforgettable Trash & Stinkson (so named by Michael Irvin on ESPN) combo. Pinkston, you’ll remember, not only punked out against Ricky Manning, Jr. during the NFC Championship Game against the Panthers, but also inspired the legendary Joe Theismann quote, “You've heard of alligator arms; this is alligator body. Todd Pinkston has got a touchdown. Watch this: he now sees the safety coming from the left, that ball's in the air, he just, he does not want to get hit.”
  
  
• Reid is the offensive guru who drafted Freddie Mitchell when Reggie Wayne and Chad Johnson were still on the board.
  
  
• Reid is the coach who started Hank Fraley for five consecutive years even though he was never able to handle a nose tackle. Fraley’s inadequacies against nose tackles was a major factor in the Eagles losing record against teams with 3-4 defenses during his time as a starter, including Super Bowl XXXIX. While Deion Branch was the MVP of that Super Bowl and I thought Tedy Bruschi actually deserved the award, Vince Wilfork truly was the best player on the field that day. Fraley’s inability to block Wilfork was the biggest reason that, outside of one 22-yard run, the Eagles ran for 23 yards on 16 carries that day.
  
  
• Reid is the one who put together the roster that began the 2007 season without a player who had ever returned a punt in the NFL. Not so coincidentally, two different Eagles fumbled punt returns that day. One was recovered for a Packer touchdown; the Packers recovered the other, drove 6 yards, and kicked a field goal as time expired—Green Bay won 16-13.
  
  
• Reid is man who tried to help Shawn Andrews’ depression in 2009 by signing and trading for his brother and college roommate, respectively. The brother, Stacy Andrews, was benched after the first game of the season and traded away two weeks ago. The roommate, Jason Peters, was acquired for first and fourth round draft picks. While he made the 2009 Pro Bowl, he led the Eagles in penalties, allowed seven sacks, and Football Outsiders had him rated as the worst starting left tackle in the NFL last season.
  
  
• Reid is the one who, coming off a Super Bowl appearance, allowed the Terrell Owens situation to deteriorate to the point that he felt compelled to get rid of a player who led the NFL in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns through seven games in 2005 (Owens had 154 yards in his final game as an Eagle). The Eagles, of course, lost eight of their final ten games that year to finish in last place.

Even though Super Bowl XXXIX was there for the taking, many Eagle fans still look at the NFC Championship Game in January 2003 as the one that got away. Everything was set up for them to win that game. It was a game they could not lose. During ESPN’s pre-game show, Sal Paolantonio reported that the Eagles knew they couldn’t lose that game. That game was to be the last ever in Veterans Stadium, and the Eagles were playing Tampa Bay that day. The Eagles had defeated the Bucs 21-3 in the 2000 playoffs and 31-9 in the 2001 playoffs. Both of those games, as well as a 20-10 Philly win during the 2002 regular season, were played at the Vet. Furthermore, the Eagles had won in Tampa in the final game of the 2001 regular season to force the ensuing playoff matchup to be played in Philadelphia. In short, that group of Eagles was 5-0 against that group of Buccaneers.

The Eagles also had the weather on their side that day. The game-time temperature was 27 degrees Fahrenheit. It was well-known that the Bucs had trouble in cold weather games. Until the final game of the 2002 regular season when they defeated a 4-11 Bears team Champaign that the franchise had ever won a game played when the game-time temperature was 40 degrees or less. Plus, the Bucs entered the NFC Championship Game having never won a playoff game on the road.

It was a game the Eagles could not lose unless the coaching staff did not keep them focused. After a long opening kickoff return followed by a Duce Staley touchdown on the second play from scrimmage, it seemed the Eagles were on their way to an easy victory and trip to San Diego for the Super Bowl. Then…they came unglued. The Eagles only score three more points on the day. Watching that game live—and I’ve watched it three times in the years since—it was clear that once Tampa Bay did not go away after that first touchdown, the Eagles did not know how to respond. They appeared unprepared to face a team that was going to actually try. They walked into the NFC Championship Game expecting a walkover. When the Buccaneers fought back, the Eagles did not know what to do. That’s on the coach. That happened on Andy Reid’s watch.

Eagle fans know all of this, and they’re tired of it. But all you’ll ever hear nationally is how they wanted Donovan McNabb gone. Come on, man.

That’s not to say the fans weren’t ready for McNabb’s departure. The fans were smart enough to know that trying to make an inaccurate, playmaking quarterback into a West Coast Offense quarterback was a bad fit. They were also knew that, after eleven years of watching him throw passes behind receivers and at their feet, his accuracy was not going to improve. They saw that movie many, many times; they knew the ending was not going to be watching the commissioner hand the Lombardi trophy to Jeffrey Lurie.

It’s true that McNabb was never going to win over all of the fans in the city. But he won most of them over. Most of the fans are adamant that he is the best quarterback in franchise history. As I suggested earlier, had it been put to ballot, McNabb would have stayed with the team and Andy Reid would have been the one packing his bags.

The fans are ready for Andy Reid to go. They are tired of him. They have zero belief in his ability to lead a team to a championship. They know this is not going to end well.

So when you hear the Eagle fans boo this season, don’t assume they are all directed at Kevin Kolb. Most of them are intended for the man on the sidelines and the two men up in the owner’s box. Be sure of that.

Two Minutes, a Timeout, & a Chance

WRITTEN JANUARY 20, 2009

Two Minutes, a Timeout, and a Chance:
The Legacy of Donovan McNabb
"Just put me at the one-foot line, give me all three of my timeouts, and give me my boys."—Terry Bradshaw
The 2009 NFC Championship Game is a microcosm of Donovan McNabb as a Philadelphia Eagle. It would be inaccurate to say this game will be his legacy. We have seen this game many times already. In the end, it is just a reaffirmation of his legacy, who he is as a quarterback.




Before we get to the quarterback, let me say that he was not responsible for losing the game. The Eagles' defense came up very small in Arizona. Forget about Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald playing pitch & catch in the first half. And I acknowledge their shut down job on the Cardinal offense during the third quarter. However, Quentin Demps had no business being on the field on defense, especially during crunch time. The moment—the game—just seemed to overwhelm him. His personal foul for unnecessary roughness on Kurt Warner was dumb, dirty, and downright bush league. That fifteen-yard penalty cost the Eagles three points. Everyone seems to have forgotten that fact. That penalty occurred during the Cardinals' final drive of the first half, at the 1:27 mark. With three seconds left, Neil Rackers kicked a forty-nine yard field goal. Minus those fifteen yards, it would've been an NFL record sixty-four yard field goal attempt at worst and a Hail Mary attempt at best. Those were three gift points; and those three points turned out to be really, really big, didn't they? As Mike Quick said during the radio broadcast, the game was too big for Quentin Demps, and he needed to not be on the field.

Then there was the fourth quarter drive. Donovan McNabb's sixty-two-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson gave the Eagles a 25-24 lead to overcome the 24-6 halftime deficit. After the ensuing kickoff, Arizona began their next possession from their own twenty-eight with 10:39 to play. By the time the Eagles offense next came onto the field, they trailed 32-25 and had only 2:53 left on the clock. That Arizona drive? Fourteen plays. Seventy-two yards. 7:52 taken off the clock. During that nearly eight-minute drive, the Cardinals converted two third downs and one fourth down. All the Eagles needed to go to the Super Bowl was to get one stop. One stop. As the Cardinals drove deeper into Philadelphia's territory, the Eagle's top priority was keeping the red birds out of the end zone. If the Cardinals could have been held to a field goal, the Eagles would have been able to win the game with a field goal of their own. A Cardinal touchdown, on the other hand, would require the Eagles to get the ball into the end zone themselves.

When Kurt Warner threw a screen pass to Tim Hightower on 3^rd & Goal from the eight, Quentin Demps, the rookie who should not have been on the field at the time, had a chance to tackle the running back at the two. But instead of wrapping up and properly tackling Hightower, Demps went for the big hit. Hightower bounced off the hit and fell into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.

I'm not going to absolve the kicker of blame, either. David Akers missed a forty-eight yard field goal. That's understandable—and forgivable. But then, Akers also missed an extra point. That is not acceptable in any game, let alone a playoff game. That missed extra point cost the Eagles two points when you take into account the failed two-point conversion after their next touchdown. The two missed kicks really cost them a total of five points in a game they lost by seven.

So in the end, the defense and the special teams cost the Eagles the game. They are the reason the Eagles lost the game. But they are not the story. The quarterback, Donovan McNabb, is the story.




I am not an Eagles fan—never have been—but I am a Philadelphian, and I do follow all the Philadelphia sports teams. I know what goes on in the hearts and minds of Eagles fans. I know what they want.

When it comes to the quarterback—when it comes to football in general—the stat line is largely irrelevant. Football is not baseball. The stat line does not tell you how good a player is. The stat line does not tell you how well a player played. The stat line does not tell you the story of a game. Look again at that quote from Terry Bradshaw. It is the embodiment of what any football coach or quarterback wants. All you ask for is to have the ball in your hands with a chance to tie or win the game at the end. That's what Donovan McNabb got.

McNabb's numbers in the championship game were fantastic. 28-47, 375 yards, 3 touchdowns, 1 interception, 97.4 quarterback rating. Those are great numbers. Those numbers look like NFC championship clinching numbers. Against the Arizona Cardinals, though, those numbers amounted to "not quite enough".




You cannot judge Donovan McNabb, or any other quarterback, by his numbers. How you judge them, really, is by what they do in the big games when they are presented with a chance to tie or win the game. With the lone exception of a divisional round playoff game in January 2004, Donovan McNabb has not done that in the postseason.

Since the end of the NFC Championship Game, I have heard numerous national sports pundits question the Philadelphia sports fans and their issues with Donovan McNabb. On ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning, I heard former NFL quarterback Kordell Stewart ask, "What more does he have to do?" What he has to do, Kordell, is win.

Donovan McNabb is a very good quarterback. The Eagles fans, however, do not want a very good quarterback. They do not want an excellent quarterback. What they want is a Super Bowl champion.

Yes, I know Donovan McNabb has won many games as the quarterback of the Eagles. I also know that his career postseason record is 9-6. His record in the championship rounds (NFC Championship Game or Super Bowl) is 1-5. Some might say, "The Eagles made it to five NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl during this era. Is that not enough?" In professional sports, it is not enough. The NFL is not the NCAA; every team has an equal opportunity to build a championship squad. The Super Bowl title is a realistic goal for every NFL franchise. A team that is 1-5 in the championship rounds is good—very good—but it is not a team that is accomplishing the goal.




Some years ago I was told that one of the keys to achieving success is to not settle for being very good. Being very good often gets in the way of being great. When explaining this concept to people, I often use the analogy of Tiger Woods changing his swing. He went into a so-called slump for a while afterward, but we all know what happened once he was finally comfortable with the new swing. He did not let already being the best golfer in the world stop him from making himself an even better golfer.

All those who suggest Eagle fans should be satisfied with this era of making five conference championship games and one Super Bowl are telling those fans to settle for being just very good. Why should they?

Sports are not just about the present. They are about making memories. I have heard people say that Eagle fans will miss Reid and McNabb when they are gone, that Eagle fans will look back on this era as a special time. I say the fans will look back and remember Aeneas Williams' interception, Joe Jervicius and Ronde Barber running down the sideline forever, DeShaun Foster running over Mark Simoneau twice on the same play, the world's slowest "hurry-up" offense, and a whole slew of infamous images from the University of Phoenix Stadium. This has been an era of missed opportunities.

I know there are people out there who prefer it this way than to be a team who only wins it all once and then fades into oblivion. As a Denver Broncos fan, and I would much rather have my team have its history with only one playoff victory during the past ten years than to have been an Eagles fan with their five conference championship game appearances. Why? Because the memories of the victories in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII are priceless. Settling for less is a losing mentality. Similarly, I think Bears, Buccaneers, Rams, and Ravens fans would all refuse to trade their Super Bowl winning memories of yesteryear for a repeatedly "competitive" team. Sure, the Eagles fans have had it much better than Bengals, Browns, Chiefs, and Lions fans. But, really, whose goal is merely to be the tallest midget in the circus?

Furthermore, you must take into account the Eagles' division. The NFC East is not the AFC East, AFC North, or any other division. By any measure, the Eagles are the least successful NFC East team of the past thirty years (they are, actually, the least successful NFC East team of NFL history, but I'm trying to keep the scope of this argument within one generation). The next least successful team has won three Super Bowls during the past thirty years. Which team is that? It doesn't matter; each of the other teams in the division have won three Super Bowls during that time period. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's other NFL franchise is about to play for their sixth Lombardi trophy. So while the Eagles' four chief rivals have won a total of sixteen Super Bowls to their zero, Eagle fans are supposed to be thrilled? (And let's not forget that even the Baltimore Ravens have won a Super Bowl this decade.)

This is where the Eagles fans are. They don't care about the quarterback's stats. They don't care that only Kurt Warner has thrown for more yards in a Super Bowl than Donovan McNabb. They don't care that Tom Brady and Brett Favre are the only active quarterbacks with more postseason victories than McNabb. They don't care that he has the lowest interception percentage in league history. They do care that the quarterback of their team will drive the team down the field to win the game. Repeatedly, especially in the playoffs and most definitely in the championship rounds, Donovan McNabb has failed to do this.

The loss to the Cardinals dropped the McNabb-led Eagles to 1-3 in playoff games decided by less than ten points. All three of those losses have occurred in the championship rounds. That does not even include the 2003 NFC Championship Game against Tampa Bay. In that game, the Eagles trailed 20-10 when McNabb threw an interception to Ronde Barber. That play began with 3:27 left on the clock and the Eagles at the Buccaneers' ten-yard line. It does not include the 2004 season's conference championship game loss to the Panthers. That was a 14-3 game, a home postseason game lost without scoring a single touchdown (only the 1978 Rams, 1979 Buccaneers, 1988 Bears, and 2000 Raiders have failed to score a touchdown in a conference championship game played at home). The one win was the 4^th & 26 game against Green Bay. Donovan McNabb came through big time in that game, and he led the Eagles to an overtime victory. He has not done it since.

Let's look at those three losses. The first was the McNabb-Reid Eagles' first appearance in an NFC Championship game. January 27, 2002, in St. Louis. The Eagles trailed by five with two minutes left and had the ball around midfield. On fourth down, McNabb threw an interception to the Rams' Aeneas Williams.

The next was Super Bowl XXXIX against New England. Again, McNabb's numbers were great. 357 yards and three touchdowns. But he threw three interceptions, two of them crushing. The first, to Rodney Harrison, took place at the New England four-yard line when the Eagles had a chance to register the first score of the game. The second, to Tedy Bruschi, occurred at the midpoint of the fourth quarter. Because of a number of missed opportunities in the first half, the Eagles trailed 24-14. That interception was the very first play after a thirty-six yard gain by Terrell Owens that put the Eagles at the Patriots' thirty-six. It ended the Eagles chances to win the game without a miracle. And when the Eagles did get the ball again, they ran the slowest hurry-up offense in football history.

At least this year's game did not end with an interception. But it did end. On a 4^th & 10 incomplete pass that followed a 3rd & 10 pass that sailed behind a wide open Hank Baskett and a 2^nd & 10 pass that missed a wide open DeSean Jackson. The McNabb-Reid Eagles are now 1-4 in NFC Championship Games (1-3 as the favorite, 0-4 against teams they had played in the regular season, and 0-3 against teams they had defeated in the regular season). Each of the last three losses resulted in the only Super Bowl appearance for the winning team in that team's entire history.

It is easy, especially when looking from a national perspective, to look at each of these games as single entities. At the individual level, none of them are McNabb's "fault." When you look at the whole, you see the pattern; you see that Donovan McNabb does not win the game. As long as he is the quarterback of a contending team and unless the Eagles are going to blow out every team ala the 1985 Chicago Bears or 1989 San Francisco 49ers, he will need to be able to lead that championship-winning drive. History has shown us that he does not do that. Accepting this, being happy with this, only lowers the ceiling for the team. Why should Eagle fans tolerate that?




In the end, Donovan McNabb did not have a bad game in Arizona. He did not lose the game. He is not the reason the Eagles lost the game. But given two minutes, a timeout, and a chance, he did not win it. He does not win it. That is his legacy.