Donovan McNabb and the Hall of Fame

[dave]

Yea the Andy Reid offense is good, but only when there is good pass protection. If that's not there even Reid knows he needs a mobile QB to put up points.

The Reid offense is at its best when he balances his playcalling. Remember when Jeff Garcia took over and Reid started running the ball?
If Reid had run that offense full-time, McNabb would have his Super Bowl (possibly more than one) and this thread would never have been created.

 

[JayDizzle]

Well the Bucs had massive injuries the prior year, the reason they bombed. Plus the bucs had that, "this is our last shot" mentatlity and Philly had owned them. Don't forget that Bucs team dominated in the superbowl.

Tampa had the Raiders' playbook practically.

 

[Shayn•Da•Pain]

In the 5 championship games McNabb played in, the Eagles were the favorites in 4 of them. However, the only loss I hold him directly responsible for is the Cardinals loss.

For as bad as the Bucs loss was (I'm still not over it), McNabb was coming off a broken ankle and was not playing at 100%. People were debating that week whether they should start Feely over him because of how hobbled he looked the week prior vs the Falcons (we won that game 14-7 on a Bobby Taylor INT TD return IIRC). Also, the gameplan was garbage. We seemed to completly abandon the run after the first quarter (Duece Staley had 152yds in the regular season matchup).

He looked fine in to me. Go to 6:50, he scrambled around, made a play with his feet, looked active, and threw for a first down. The very next play he throws a boneheaded interception to Ronde Barber who takes it 96 yards for the touchdown. And McNabb half ass chases him too. The play before he was bouncing around, sprinting, breaking tackles, and scrambling around on that bad ankle. IMO he choked. He had a chance, but choked. Bad ankle or not, he didn't look crippled out there, he had a chance.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AZ0vGDSDA&feature=related[/ame]

The Panthers game was a complete joke. WRs James Thrash and Todd Pinkston could not get off the line of scrimmage. And when they did, they seemed like they wanted no parts of the Panther secondary. Plus, McNabb was knocked out of the game early in the 4th Quarter if memory serves.

Knocked out early, in the 4th quarter? He still threw 3 INT's before that, and only amassed 100 passing yards in 3 quarters. It's not like the Panthers had a superior team, and that defense was 12th in turnovers, and had the 23rd ranked defense.

Him getting injured is classic McNabb, he almost never appeared to be healthy.

The Cardinal game I only saw parts of (fucking wedding). I know McNabb led a furious comeback and took the lead that the defense relinquished. But McNabb had the ball in the end and only picked up one first down on that last drive, with three straight errant throws to end that drive.

Let's just remember, the Cards were the 28th ranked defense that year, 22nd against the pass. It just wasn't a very good defense. I mean how else do you explain Big Ben, who's always been an average at best Super Bowl QB, throwing for 256 passing yards, and Holmes running free in coverage all 4th quarter. It's no wonder McNabb had a ton of garbage stats late in the NFC Championship, that defense just was not able to close teams out.

Point is I think McNabb had some strange things happen in his career. However he doesn't have the statistics that would be able to overshadow his perceived shortcomings in the big games he played in.

Great point. Just adds to the evidence eluding to McNabb not being HOF worthy.

 

[shag773]

He looked fine in to me. Go to 6:50, he scrambled around, made a play with his feet, looked active, and threw for a first down. The very next play he throws a boneheaded interception to Ronde Barber who takes it 96 yards for the touchdown. And McNabb half ass chases him too. The play before he was bouncing around, sprinting, breaking tackles, and scrambling around on that bad ankle. IMO he choked. He had a chance, but choked. Bad ankle or not, he didn't look crippled out there, he had a chance.

It was his second game back after being gone for over a month. He may have had some moments in that game where he seemed to be physically close to 100%, but as someone who watched almost every game he played in I'm telling you he was not close to what he was before he got hurt that year. However, he is a professional and did play in the game, so I understand and respect your point of view.

Knocked out early, in the 4th quarter? He still threw 3 INT's before that, and only amassed 100 passing yards in 3 quarters. It's not like the Panthers had a superior team, and that defense was 12th in turnovers, and had the 23rd ranked defense.

Him getting injured is classic McNabb, he almost never appeared to be healthy.

Like I said, he had nowhere to throw in that game. I would say McNabb should of made more plays with his feet in that game, but honestly our receivers made their 23rd ranked defense look like the 85 Bears. It was the collective "performance" from those receivers that got TO here the following offseason.

Let's just remember, the Cards were the 28th ranked defense that year, 22nd against the pass. It just wasn't a very good defense. I mean how else do you explain Big Ben, who's always been an average at best Super Bowl QB, throwing for 256 passing yards, and Holmes running free in coverage all 4th quarter. It's no wonder McNabb had a ton of garbage stats late in the NFC Championship, that defense just was not able to close teams out.

Garbage stats? You make it sound like he came in for mop up duty while being down by 40 in the last minutes of the 4th quarter. Knocking him for the circimstances under which he brought them back into the lead seems kind of silly to me. If you want to talk about how bad he was during that last drive, then ok, I'm with you.

 

[The Messenger]

They are good because he didn't pass for yardage. A dink-and-dunk guy, who would run instead of forcing a pass. I was looking over McNabb's numbers, and they were pretty interesting. Only 4 times did he play a full season. Never threw for over 4000 yards. In fact, he only threw over 3500 yards three times, which is low considering the era. Never finished in the top 5 in passing yards (finished in the top 10 only twice). And for the guy who claimed that McNabb spent most of his career as a top 5 QB, he finished in the top 5 in QB rating only twice. Aside from his 2004 season, his numbers are rather pedestrian.

Nice stats. Dink was LJ Smith and Dunk was Brian Westbrook right? You're overlooking the fact that McNabb has one of the best deep balls in the league, but was given no one on the outside. James Thrash was decent I guess. Pinkston was horrible. Ever since he got lit up by Sean Taylor that one time he would drop everything if anyone was within a football field of him. The first good receiver he got was T.O. and we saw what they did in their first game. As someone pointed out on the last page, the Eagles were set up to be more of a dink-and-dunk passing team. They had the defense and they had the running game to win most ball games (not saying that they were a run-first team because obviously they were far from it, but they had the ability to run the ball effectively and they could put the ball in Westbrook's hands out of the backfield and move the chains). They relied on McNabb to make a couple of homerun type plays every game be it with his feet or his arm that would get them the separation they needed to win. The Eagles didn't fully utilize him.

Outside of his rookie season, McNabb had only 1 year which could be considered pedestrian. That was 2003. The Eagles still went to the NFC Championship game. That's with an injury-riddled career. Before you point out 2005 when he had a poor (for McNabb) TD-Int ratio (16 TDs to 9 int), keep in mind he was on pace for 28 touchdowns and 4,500 yards that season.

He didn't reach 4,000, but like I said the Eagles weren't really set up for him to do that. Once he got DeSean Jackson on the outside, even in recent years as he's starting to become "washed-up", he got very close (might have made it his last year in Philly had he played those 2 games). It was dink-and-dunk to LJ and Westbrook though because that's how Andy Reid and the Eagles wanted it. You want him to put up gaudy numbers with no one on the outside. Just because Tom Brady can do it and McNabb couldn't (his stats are still very good), doesn't make McNabb a pedestrian QB. Brady's in that running for GOAT. Philly constantly started 3rd and 4th options on the outside during McNabb's tenure.

I don't know why you would throw in that statement that he would rather run than force a pass. McNabb came up with some great plays with his arm during his career even when it looked like nothing was there. He was far from the old Vick as well where he would take off running if his first read wasn't there. McNabb hung tight in the pocket more often than not. Is it a knock on him that if no one was open and the pocket was closing that he had the ability to take off and make things happen with his feet?

But he had great coaching and a great defense. If we are going to praise McNabb for leading his team to NFC championship games, then we should at least acknowledge that the Eagles were a pretty strong team, who would usually win with Koy Detmer and AJ Feeley at QB.

I responded to this in the last part, but just wanted to quote it. Those guys were short yardage, accurate game managers. As was Jeff Garcia. It worked in Philly because that's how they set it up. Their starting QB was the opposite though. So you can call that great coaching because Reid ran a system that could survive without his injury-plagued QB, but you can also call that bad coaching (and bad personnel movements) in that they didn't fully utilize their franchise QB.

Consider this concerning McNabb's accuracy...

Last year Michael Vick's completion percentage went up 9% under Andy Reid. McNabb, away from Reid, put up his worst completion percentage since 2006, and one of the lowest rates of his career.

McNabb definitely benefited from playing under Reid, and he still wasn't a very accurate passer.

I wouldn't consider that. Did you watch Washington play last year? Outside of Moss and Cooley (and some Anthony Armstrong whose impact was mostly made possible by McNabb and Grossman's strong arms) they had nobody on offense. That line was pretty bad too. They might as well have lined up 3 guys on offense against any defense's 11.

It was also a new team for McNabb.

Vick had a remarkable season. He also played for a COMPLETELY different team than the Washington Redskins.




This whole argument hinges on accomplishments imo. Not ability, but accomplishments (I guess ability to come through in the big games). That's why I don't believe either that he should go into Canton. I think he was a very good quarterback though. Far from pedestrian.

 

[Senser81]

Nice stats. Dink was LJ Smith and Dunk was Brian Westbrook right? You're overlooking the fact that McNabb has one of the best deep balls in the league, but was given no one on the outside. James Thrash was decent I guess. Pinkston was horrible. Ever since he got lit up by Sean Taylor that one time he would drop everything if anyone was within a football field of him. The first good receiver he got was T.O. and we saw what they did in their first game. As someone pointed out on the last page, the Eagles were set up to be more of a dink-and-dunk passing team. They had the defense and they had the running game to win most ball games (not saying that they were a run-first team because obviously they were far from it, but they had the ability to run the ball effectively and they could put the ball in Westbrook's hands out of the backfield and move the chains). They relied on McNabb to make a couple of homerun type plays every game be it with his feet or his arm that would get them the separation they needed to win. The Eagles didn't fully utilize him.

You basically wrote a big excuse. I overlooked that McNabb had one of the best deep balls in the league, he just never completed them. I overlooked that McNabb would make homerun plays, the Eagles just didn't utilize him. So I am overlooking things that never happened in the first place. Got it.

Outside of his rookie season, McNabb had only 1 year which could be considered pedestrian. That was 2003. The Eagles still went to the NFC Championship game. That's with an injury-riddled career. Before you point out 2005 when he had a poor (for McNabb) TD-Int ratio (16 TDs to 9 int), keep in mind he was on pace for 28 touchdowns and 4,500 yards that season.

His single-season numbers are good, not great. His yardage totals were always low. His QB rating was above-average, but never great. His numbers were good, but they were pedestrian compared to other great QBs of his era.

He didn't reach 4,000, but like I said the Eagles weren't really set up for him to do that. Once he got DeSean Jackson on the outside, even in recent years as he's starting to become "washed-up", he got very close (might have made it his last year in Philly had he played those 2 games). It was dink-and-dunk to LJ and Westbrook though because that's how Andy Reid and the Eagles wanted it. You want him to put up gaudy numbers with no one on the outside. Just because Tom Brady can do it and McNabb couldn't (his stats are still very good), doesn't make McNabb a pedestrian QB. Brady's in that running for GOAT. Philly constantly started 3rd and 4th options on the outside during McNabb's tenure.

He didn't reach 4000. He rarely reached 3500. Those are facts.

I don't know why you would throw in that statement that he would rather run than force a pass.

It wasn't a knock on him. It partly explained his low INT totals. Hard to throw an INT on a play when you run.

I responded to this in the last part, but just wanted to quote it. Those guys were short yardage, accurate game managers. As was Jeff Garcia. It worked in Philly because that's how they set it up. Their starting QB was the opposite though. So you can call that great coaching because Reid ran a system that could survive without his injury-plagued QB, but you can also call that bad coaching (and bad personnel movements) in that they didn't fully utilize their franchise QB.

My point had nothing to do with the alleged under-utilization of McNabb. It had to do with the overall strength of the Eagles at that time. They were a good team. FWIW, McNabb led the Eagles only twice in "approximate value". They had guys like Brian Dawkins, Hugh Douglas, Brian Westbrook, etc. who were very good players in their own right. They could win games with Koy Detmer if they had to.

 

[The Messenger]

You basically wrote a big excuse. I overlooked that McNabb had one of the best deep balls in the league, he just never completed them. I overlooked that McNabb would make homerun plays, the Eagles just didn't utilize him. So I am overlooking things that never happened in the first place. Got it.



His single-season numbers are good, not great. His yardage totals were always low. His QB rating was above-average, but never great. His numbers were good, but they were pedestrian compared to other great QBs of his era.



He didn't reach 4000. He rarely reached 3500. Those are facts.



It wasn't a knock on him. It partly explained his low INT totals. Hard to throw an INT on a play when you run.



My point had nothing to do with the alleged under-utilization of McNabb. It had to do with the overall strength of the Eagles at that time. They were a good team. FWIW, McNabb led the Eagles only twice in "approximate value". They had guys like Brian Dawkins, Hugh Douglas, Brian Westbrook, etc. who were very good players in their own right. They could win games with Koy Detmer if they had to.

Something like that.

I think the points I made were very valid. You just see them as excuses. Therefore there's really no point in debating it anymore. I'll just say that I believe your line of thinking is very black-and-white. I'm more of a grey person.

 

[Senser81]

Something like that.

I think the points I made were very valid. You just see them as excuses. Therefore there's really no point in debating it anymore. I'll just say that I believe your line of thinking is very black-and-white. I'm more of a grey person.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your points. They are all true. I just don't see how relevant they are to discussing a player's HOF potential. If McNabb makes it to Canton, will his plaque read "Threw the best deep ball in NFL history that no one caught"?

 

[The Messenger]

I'm not disagreeing with any of your points. They are all true. I just don't see how relevant they are to discussing a player's HOF potential. If McNabb makes it to Canton, will his plaque read "Threw the best deep ball in NFL history that no one caught"?

I responded to your post that responded to mine. My original post was not making a case for him being in Canton (I said he shouldn't be in the HOF). I was just pointing out that other posters here were giving him very little credit.

I was also responding to you using the word "pedestrian". Statistically, maybe. However, you're still saying that statistically speaking he was nothing special, I don't fully agree with that. On the field though, I think he was far from pedestrian.