Donovan McNabb and the Hall of Fame

[Diivox]

McNair is a different thread, but that's a hell of an interesting discussion if we really want to get into it. Shayn, that's the type of post VSN or VSD or whatever the fuck we're called right now needs if we are ever going to come back as a serious sports forum. I just wanted to say real quick that I appreciate that type of logical, thorough reply, and I agree with you completely on McNair.

in fact, please, someone start a McNair HOF argument (in either direction) so I can dive into this after I get home on Sunday. too much shit happening tomorrow for me to get google on this bitch, but I think McNair was one of the most overrated quarterbacks of all time. The press was in love with his toughness to the point that there were counter-articles everywhere that had "anonymous" quotes of other dudes being like "we ALL play through injuries, fuck ESPN." McNair got his co-MVP on press alone, and if anything, he deserved it for the previous season, not the one h got it in. and he's still way more of a lock for the HOF than McNabb is at this point.

When a presidential candidate (Al Gore, during his DNC acceptance speech, said, "unlike the Titans, WE WILL NOT COME A YARD SHORT!) refers to you, you probably get into the HOF. doesnt mean he deserved it. but it does mean that McNabb couldnt hold McNair's jock for Hall candidacy minus the ring...

[mcstl25]

If he retired now, no chance. If he gets a ring, which is highly unlikely, maybe.

[Rayman]

Perfect example of the "Hall of Very Good".

Hell no, should Donovan McNabb be in the Hall of Fame.

[Guest]

Perfect example of the "Hall of Very Good".

Hell no, should Donovan McNabb be in the Hall of Fame.

Agreed......if they had won the Super Bowl back in 2004, this thread would probably be going in a different direction.

[bucky]

I hate all the McNabb hate.
25-26 NFL teams would have killed for a QB with his W-L during his Philadelphia run.
I am not saying he is the best QB of his generation or anything, but the amount of hate this guy gets is unbelieveable.

Saying he isn't HOF worthy isn't hate Dave.

[Guest]

McNair is a different thread, but that's a hell of an interesting discussion if we really want to get into it. Shayn, that's the type of post VSN or VSD or whatever the fuck we're called right now needs if we are ever going to come back as a serious sports forum. I just wanted to say real quick that I appreciate that type of logical, thorough reply, and I agree with you completely on McNair.

in fact, please, someone start a McNair HOF argument (in either direction) so I can dive into this after I get home on Sunday. too much shit happening tomorrow for me to get google on this bitch, but I think McNair was one of the most overrated quarterbacks of all time. The press was in love with his toughness to the point that there were counter-articles everywhere that had "anonymous" quotes of other dudes being like "we ALL play through injuries, fuck ESPN." McNair got his co-MVP on press alone, and if anything, he deserved it for the previous season, not the one h got it in. and he's still way more of a lock for the HOF than McNabb is at this point.

When a presidential candidate (Al Gore, during his DNC acceptance speech, said, "unlike the Titans, WE WILL NOT COME A YARD SHORT!) refers to you, you probably get into the HOF. doesnt mean he deserved it. but it does mean that McNabb couldnt hold McNair's jock for Hall candidacy minus the ring...

82.8 career passer rating, never had a season where he broke into the top 10 in yardage thrown, and that was just a quick look on his Pro-Football Reference page. Also, he retired at age 34, and I bet part of that was his playing through injuries.

The Titans had a good team while he was there. Great running attack and a great defense. No one will deny that McNair is probably one of the toughest to take the field, but no way is he close to being a HOF player.

I will say this about quarterbacks who do not win a Super Bowl. You need to put up crazy numbers, like Dan Marino or Jim Kelly. Even take Kelly and compare him to McNair. Kelly played fewer seasons than McNair, and still beat him in passing yards and TDs. Two stats I know, but McNair did not blow anyone away as a passer.

[dell71]

Racist.
You really can't compare Elway to McNabb, the rules have changed to significantly help the passing game in the NFL. While average Joe QB's are now throwing for 4,000 passing yards, McNabb hasn't. You just can't compare players from different eras with players of today, it's never a fair argument.

I'm fully aware of how the game has changed. This is why I didn't compare their raw stats directly. I compared how Elway performed against his peers to how McNabb compares to his. To do this I basically looked at top 10 finishes in major categories. They are very similar. Elway led the league in something only once, yards. Other than that there's not much difference between how they rank against other qb's of their era from a statistical standpoint. The non-stat difference being early-Elway has "The Drive" and "The Drive II" and of course late-Elway has 2 rings.

Let's compare McNabb with his peers. Brady & Manning are both guaranteed HOF'ers, wouldn't you agree? You'll have to prove McNabb belongs in the same conversation as these two guys.

Super Bowl Wins
Brady: 3
Manning: 1
McNabb: 0
This is a big deal in HOF voting. McNabb will have no help here, and I doubt he'll take the 5-10 Vikings to win one anytime soon.

Proof of Tier 1 and HOF worth through statistical achievement
Brady: Set the record for most TDs in a season, lead the nfl in touchdowns twice, passing yards twice, rating once, comp % once. Three 4,000 yard passing seasons.
Manning: Set the record for most TDs in a season(until brady broke it) Lead the NFL in TDs three times, rating three times, passing yardage twice, compltion percentage once. Three strait 100+ QB rating seasons. Eleven 4,000 yard seasons, including six strait 4,000 yard seasons, and another 5 strait 4,000 yard seasons.
McNabb: nothing...Has never lead the NFL in any major stat category.

On top of it all, it's been proven McNabb choked often, including in most of his NFC championship games.

I wouldn't say he's in their class. That still doesn't mean he definitely can't make it, though.

I agree he's not a system QB, but this is a knock against him as well, can't you see that? If he didn't pull that ball down and run with it, he might have spent a lot less time injured, and a lot more time puting up real numbers. Vick came in and enjoyed the system McNabb left behind, though he has the same problem with being a scrambling QB running into injuries. In fact just about every QB that's stepped in to replace the injured McNabb, had some success.. Except for Detmer and McMahon, who were obviously both hot garbage in or out of any system. The point is, it's never a good thing when your QB missing games because he's running too often. As McNabb ages, he's getting less and less capable of scrambling well, and more and more likely to face injuries because of it. But he's still not able to lean on an accurate arm, because he just doesn't have that.

But lets look at the system shall we.
In 2002, AJ Feely came in to replace an injured McNabb and went 5-1, while McNabb was 7-3 on the year. McNabb went on to have a 53.0 rating in the NFC Championship, and lose the game 10-27 after throwing a late 4th quarter INT to Ronde Barber who took it back 92 yards for the touchdown.

In '05 the defense just wasn't the same, McMahon sucks balls, and the team just couldn't weather the storm when McNabb got hurt.

In '06 Jeff Garcia, who's the definitive west coast system passer, stepped in for an injured McNabb. The Eagles defense still wasn't right, but Garcia proved that the team could win without McNabb. He went 5-1, when McNabb was 5-5 before he got hurt. Garcia had 10 TDs and only 2 INTs, compared to McNabbs 18 to 6.

In '09 when Kolb got to start 2 games, he had 391 yard and 327 yard games, 4 tds, 3 ints and 60.8% & 70.6% completion. Lights out, and I think Kolb isn't that great TBH.

Fast forward to last year and the Eagles did just fine without McNabb. More proof he wasn't HOF caliber, at least he wasn't by the time they sent him packing.

Sure, a ton of injuries are definitely a knock on McNabb, no question. Whether being a system qb is a knock on him, maybe or maybe not. I've heard too often how qb "x" isn't that good because he's just a system qb. So apparently it can go either way.

Still, I can't automatically count it as a knock against him that someone else played well when he was out. We don't say Brady is any less of a qb because Matt Cassel went 11-5 the year he missed. We're not downgrading what Roethlisberger did last season because Dennis Dixon went 2-0. And knocking McNabb for what the Eagles did last year is absurd since he wasn't even on the roster.

He went to the NFC Championship 4 years in a row when the NFC really wasn't that strong! The best teams at this time were in the AFC. I mean his competition was garbage for the most part, and he had the best defense in the NFC to boot. He didn't have to be that special to get there. But the most damning evidence was his piss poor NFC Championship performances. He had only 1 good game in the NFC Chmp game. Flat-out, he couldn't win the big game.

Again, going back to Elway - he took 2 teams to the SB when the AFC was very weak. Year in, year out for over a decade the best teams were all in the NFC. If you want to knock him for how he did in the NFCC I'm fine with that. I never said McNabb's a slam dunk lock to get in. I just don't think he's a slam the door on him, no way in hell he gets in case, either.

[Aso]

McNabb was the first QB in NFL history to throw more than 30 TD's with less than 10 INT's in one season back in '04. Boom! Put that on his resume.

[Saluki]

Think of it like this. Right now if he retired today, no he wouldn't get in, but he still has time to play.

John Elway didn't stamp is for sure HOF ticket till the last two years of his career, he was a guy that would have gotten in eventually prob, but doubtful he would have been a first ballot HOF without the rings at the end.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Think of it like this. Right now if he retired today, no he wouldn't get in, but he still has time to play.

John Elway didn't stamp is for sure HOF ticket till the last two years of his career, he was a guy that would have gotten in eventually prob, but doubtful he would have been a first ballot HOF without the rings at the end.

But McNabb sucks now. He's finished. He will lose the Vikings job by Thanksgiving.

[dave]

But McNabb sucks now. He's finished. He will lose the Vikings job by Thanksgiving.

I wouldn't count him out yet. He will clearly be a better fit in Minnesota where the system and coach are concerned. But this, indeed, is his make or break year.

[Guest]

I wouldn't count him out yet. He will clearly be a better fit in Minnesota where the system and coach are concerned. But this, indeed, is his make or break year.

The only problem is that the Vikings have a line that is only a step up from the Redskins line last season. AP should help out, but McNabb is going to take some shots this year- hopefully he can stand up to them.

[Primetime]

But McNabb sucks now. He's finished. He will lose the Vikings job by Thanksgiving.

At least he can't get pulled for Rex fucking Grossman this time. How embarrassing.

[Saluki]

But McNabb sucks now. He's finished. He will lose the Vikings job by Thanksgiving.

You dont think ppl were saying that about Elway in the early-mid 90s? He had a a bunch of seasons where he had close to a 1:1 TD to INT ratio, and a couple where he threw more ints than TDs. then in the last 4-5 years of his career he exploded again. It can happen.

[dave]

At least he can't get pulled for Rex fucking Grossman this time. How embarrassing.

Actually, I'm gonna defend Rex Grossman here. He's not that bad a QB. Clearly not a franchise player or anything, but he's carved out a decent career ... and the man was a starting QB on a Super Bowl (participant) team. How many other QBs can say the same?
He has nothing to apologize for.