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Rush Limbaugh Was Right

Donovan McNabb isn't a great quarterback, and the media do overrate him because he is black.

By Allen Barra

Posted Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 3:33 PM PT

In his notorious ESPN comments last Sunday night, Rush Limbaugh said he never thought the Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb was "that good of a quarterback."

If Limbaugh were a more astute analyst, he would have been even harsher and said, "Donovan McNabb is barely a mediocre quarterback." But other than that, Limbaugh pretty much spoke the truth. Limbaugh lost his job for saying in public what many football fans and analysts have been saying privately for the past couple of seasons.

Let's review: McNabb, he said, is "overrated ... what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do wellblack coaches and black quarterbacks doing well."

 

"There's a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Let's take the football stuff first. For the past four seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles have had one of the best defenses in the National Football League and have failed to make it to the Super Bowl primarily because of an ineffective offensean offense run by Donovan McNabb. McNabb was a great college quarterback, in my estimation one of the best of the '90s while at Syracuse. (For the record, I helped persuade ESPN Magazine, then called ESPN Total Sports, to put him on the cover of the 1998 college-football preview issue.) He is one of the most talented athletes in the NFL, but that talent has not translated into greatness as a pro quarterback.

McNabb has started for the Eagles since the 2000 season. In that time, the Eagles offense has never ranked higher than 10th in the league in yards gained. In fact, their 10th-place rank in 2002 was easily their best; in their two previous seasons, they were 17th in a 32-team league. They rank 31st so far in 2003.

In contrast, the Eagles defense in those four seasons has never ranked lower than 10th in yards allowed. In 2001, they were seventh; in 2002 they were fourth; this year they're fifth. It shouldn't take a football Einstein to see that the Eagles' strength over the past few seasons has been on defense, and Limbaugh is no football Einstein, which is probably why he spotted it.

The news that the Eagles defense has "carried" them over this period should be neither surprising nor controversial to anyone with access to simple NFL statisticsor for that matter, with access to a television. Yet, McNabb has received an overwhelming share of media attention and thus the credit. Now why is this?

Let's look at a quarterback with similar numbers who also plays for a team with a great defense. I don't know anyone who would call Brad Johnson one of the best quarterbacks in pro footballwhich is how McNabb is often referred to. In fact, I don't know anyone who would call Brad Johnson, on the evidence of his 10-year NFL career, much more than mediocre. Yet, Johnson's NFL career passer rating, as of last Sunday, is 7.3 points higher than McNabb's (84.8 to 77.5), he has completed his passes at a higher rate (61.8 percent to 56.4 percent), and has averaged significantly more yards per pass (6.84 to 5.91). McNabb excels in just one area, running, where he has gained 2,040 yards and scored 14 touchdowns to Johnson's 467 and seven. But McNabb has also been sacked more frequently than Johnsonmore than once, on average, per game, which negates much of the rushing advantage.

In other words, in just about every way, Brad Johnson has been a more effective quarterback than McNabb and over a longer period.

And even if you say the stats don't matter and that a quarterback's job is to win games, Johnson comes out ahead. Johnson has something McNabb doesn't, a Super Bowl ring, which he went on to win after his Bucs trounced McNabb's Eagles in last year's NFC championship game by a score of 27-10. The Bucs and Eagles were regarded by everyone as having the two best defenses in the NFL last year. When they played in the championship game, the difference was that the Bucs defense completely bottled up McNabb while the Eagles defense couldn't stop Johnson.

In terms of performance, many NFL quarterbacks should be ranked ahead of McNabb. But McNabb has represented something special to all of us since he started his first game in the NFL, and we all know what that is.

Limbaugh is being excoriated for making race an issue in the NFL. This is hypocrisy. I don't know of a football writer who didn't regard the dearth of black NFL quarterbacks as one of the most important issues in the late '80s and early '90s. (The topic really caught fire after 1988, when Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins became the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.)

So far, no black quarterback has been able to dominate a league in which the majority of the players are black. To pretend that many of us didn't want McNabb to be the best quarterback in the NFL because he's black is absurd. To say that we shouldn't root for a quarterback to win because he's black is every bit as nonsensical as to say that we shouldn't have rooted for Jackie Robinson to succeed because he was black. (Please, I don't need to be reminded that McNabb's situation is not so difficult or important as Robinson'sI'm talking about a principle.)

Consequently, it is equally absurd to say that the sports media haven't overrated Donovan McNabb because he's black. I'm sorry to have to say it; he is the quarterback for a team I root for. Instead of calling him overrated, I wish I could be admiring his Super Bowl rings. But the truth is that I and a great many other sportswriters have chosen for the past few years to see McNabb as a better player than he has been because we want him to be.

Rush Limbaugh didn't say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn't say anything that he shouldn't have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now. I should have said them myself. I mean, if they didn't hire Rush Limbaugh to say things like this, what they did they hire him for? To talk about the prevent defense?

Allen Barra is the author of Clearing the Bases: The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century.

Photograph of Rush Limbaugh from Reuters. Photograph on Slate's Table of Contents © Mark Peterson/Corbis.

 

 

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse Al Sharpton for the Democratic presidential bid for 2004.  After all, he is one funny guy...here is some of his words of wisdom!

---...There's been a lot of talk about my fasting in jail and I'm obviously smaller, and my fasting guru just walked in...to make sure that I survive this press conference.  Sometimes it is better to do a morning with inmates inside than with the Washington press corps on the outside.
 ---The fact that Clinton is in Harlem doesn't mean that he ought to be profiled as a Sharpton supporter.  You know I don't believe in profiling. (hehe)
---Any candidate that runs in 2004 will have baggage.  Some afford bellmen to carry their baggage.  I will carry my own ..."
---So again, let people underestimate me at their own peril...
---Are we going back to an America where only white male landowners need engage in the electoral process?
---I noticed when I got out of jail, I shaved and had lost weight; he (Al Gore)grew a beard and he gained weight.  So maybe we're passing in the night.
      (pic from http://politicalhumor.com)
"I fully support the policy of disarming Saddam Hussein."  Hillary Clinton....The Washington Times, March 4, 2003.... And her spokesman said in yesterday's New York Post that Mrs. Clinton "fully supports the steps the president has taken to disarm Iraq." I'm amazed!!! But then again, I'm not really...Hillary voted for the bill that passed LAST YEAR authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq....why is the media spinning this "war" as something that has no support?
 
Don't forget: WASHINGTON (CNN 10/11/2002, 12:35PM) -- In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions. Hours earlier, the House approved an identical resolution, 296-133.
I've really got to say...if Little Dick Gephart really thinks this, I'm so glad I'm not a democrat.....

Rep. Dick Gephardt - "This is a Republican leadership, at least in the House, that has a congenital defect. They cannot let anything come out of here that isn't down to the last word what they exactly want. I have never seen anything like this. They are absolutists, they are ideological, they are my way or the highway, every day on every issue. It's mindless." (Rep. Gephardt at a press conference, 9/12/02) I must have missed something...I guess having ideals is a bad thing now?

ANYWAY...Thanks for visiting my website! I need to hear from you as to your political ideas and beliefs. If you submit something to me that is well thought out or makes a good point, I will post your article on my site. I am looking particularly for strong issue arguments from democrats and republicans, but will accept any views you submit. Thanks again!!!
This next race for president will be a funny one. Here is a start of some of the mudslinging on the left side of the aisle...and I predict Little Dick Gephart is going to get slapped around pretty bad by the "rev" Sharpton...hehehe:

"I'm qualified, probably more qualified than any other person who is expected to be on the Democratic ticket for 2004, because I actually have a following and I speak for the people." Al Sharpton

"I'm not the political flavor of the month. I'm not the flashiest candidate around. But the fight for working families is in my bones." Richard Gephardt

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