Here we have an op-ed genius who thinks that Rush Limbaugh was right, and that Donovan McNabb actually is overrated.
Basically, the writer – – a guy named Allen Barra – – digs out some stats to demonstrate that McNabb’s production hasn’t been all that great, and that the Eagles’ success in recent years has been mainly due to defense. Now, Barra is correct that the Eagles have hung their hats in the last couple of years on their defensive prowess, which is in turn no surprise to anybody who pays attention to the NFL. “Defense wins championships” is an adage that has been proven so many times, especially in the last few Super Bowls, that it still amazes me that so many teams still even try to overload their offenses with talent.
The problem I have with Barra’s article is that he wants to hang just about all of the blame for the Eagles’ lack of offensive production on McNabb’s neck, which is unfair for a number of reasons.
Barra asks us to compare McNabb with the quarterback who won last year’s Super Bowl, Brad Johnson. Johnson’s lifetime passer rating, we’re told, is higher than McNabb’s , by about seven points. The correct response to this, of course, is “So what?” Johnson is in his tenth year, I believe, and he has had the luxury in his career of throwing to such receivers as Cris Carter, in his first years with the Vikings, and Keyshawn Johnson in Tampa Bay. McNabb, however, has yet to have that kind of receiving talent around him.
When I look at the Eagles’ leaders by year (.pdf file), I see a number of interesting things. First, since 1998, a different receiver has led the Eagles in receiving each year, and twice that player has been a running back. (It doesn’t speak very highly of a team’s wideouts when a running back is catching the most passes on the team.) No Eagle receiver has hauled in more than seventy passes since Irving Fryar had 86 in 1997, and this in an era when receivers catching at least ninety passes is a regular feature of the NFL. (By comparison, last season the Buffalo Bills had two receivers over the 90-mark, Eric Moulds and Peerless Price, with Moulds actually pulling in 100 passes.)
Eagles running backs have been better than their receivers, but there too, they haven’t been as prolific as one would expect from an elite offense. Duce Staley has been the team’s starter, and he has certainly been a good back, but his yardage is lower than one would hope from a team with a great back – – his best years have been around 1200 yards, as compared with, say, last year’s NFL rushing leader, the Dolphins’ Ricky Williams, who piled up over 1800 yards.
I find it hard to believe that a player who has been to two NFC title games and who, in 2000, finished second in the league’s MVP voting, and who that same year accounted for just under seventy-five percent of his team’s total yards can be said to be “underrated”, especially since he’s only in his fourth year as the Eagles’ opening-day starting quarterback.
To return to Brad Johnson, Barra says this: “I don’t know anyone who would call Brad Johnson, on the evidence of his 10-year NFL career, much more than mediocre.” Well, I doubt he’s a Hall-of-Famer, but I’d consider him more than mediocre. I’d rate Johnson pretty well, especially in the elusive category of “toughness”. So I’m not entirely sure what benchmark Barra is using to determine mediocrity. Barra seems also to think that last year’s NFC title game, in which Johnson’s Buccaneers beat McNabb’s Eagles, proves conclusively that Johnson is superior, which seems odd to me. First, the Bucs last year had one of the best defenses ever, and second, McNabb was ineffective largely because he was coming back from a broken ankle early in the season (the decision to play him is one of the more questionable I’ve seen, but I’d probably have done it, too).
Further, to cite Johnson’s Super Bowl ring as an example of why he’s the superior quarterback is simply idiotic. By this metric, Johnson is therefore better than not only McNabb, but he’s also superior to Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts, and (ouch) Jim Kelly. Now, that’s probably not quite what Barra is getting at here, but there is something worth considering here. The fact is, the club of Super Bowl-winning QBs is a small one, and in general it takes QBs a long time to get into that club. To imply that McNabb should have won a Super Bowl by now, in his fifth year in the NFL, is ridiculous, although we might be tempted to forget this after seeing Kurt Warner and Tom Brady do it so soon in their careers, in the last four years. But consider how long all the other winners have had to wait: Brett Favre took six years, John Elway took something like thirteen, Trent Dilfer took seven, and so on. Winning the Super Bowl is a crowning achievement, but it’s not really a defining achievement. As a Bills fan, I wouldn’t exchange Jim Kelly’s entire career for Mark Rypien’s Super Bowl ring.
Donovan McNabb has not been mediocre, not by any logical estimation. He has shown, at least to this point, a lot of potential as one of the league’s top playmakers. He has improved each year. He still needs to really grow into the role of team leader, but what’s funny is that this whole ugly business will probably end up helping him in that regard. Setting aside all of the racial nonsense, just the football evidence suggests that he’s not overrated at all.
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