McNabb threw another 37 passes Monday night without putting one on the hands of a Dallas defender. He's now thrown just 79 picks in 3,802 career attempts (2.08 interception percentage).He began the season second on the all-time least intercepted list, just a shade behind Neil O'Donnell's 68 picks in 3,229 attempts (2.11 percent)To put McNabb's 79 career INTs into perspective, consider that future Hall of Famer Brett Favre threw 79 picks from 2004 to 2007 alone. McNabb has thrown 79 picks in a decade.
Man if this dude had ever had a stable, real receiving group.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Yeah, it's a damned shame that T.O. is so unstable.
Right...because T.O qualifies as a group. Oh yeah,
and Freddie Mitchell--who was out of the league by age 27.
Cool. Him and O'Donnell can hang out and not have Super Bowl rings together.
He couldn't get the job done when he had Owens (on his best behavior) and Stalworth. TO had a monster game after coming back from a broken leg. McNabb was busy puking on his shoes and throwing picks.
You can't lay his failures all on his receivers over the years. Plenty of QBs have done more with less. Brady never had a true marquee receiver until Mr Moss came to town.
The real bad ass on the Eagles is Westbrook. They have won without McNabb. If Westbrook is out they've got nothing.
TNC:
I live in the Philly 'burbs and I can tell you that this guy gets more bad shit than any future Hall of Famer who has ever played the game. But then, Philly sports fans are a bitter and often ignorant group. From draft day, when a herd of these idiots showed up at the Marriott in Ricky Williams jerseys and then booed his selection through 4 NFC championship game appearances and one SB appearance. Besides that, he has never had a good receiving corps (as you point out), he plays hurt, and he is a solid citizen in the community. Philly hardly deserves him.
T.O. is an amazing talent. If he had Jerry Rice's mindset, he could have been the best ever. But he is a narcissistic petulant child so he will not be.
It wasn't just the stable reciever core McNabb needed. I agree with above some like Brady have done more with less but look at the stable leadership of those examples. The Owens fiasco was just one example of terrible Eagle leadership. McNabb is great but Jesus Christ couldn't win in that mess.
As for Rice, work ethic aside he was great until he wasn't getting the ball. Funny how that works?
Those interception numbers are impressive, but it's a shame the writer had to muddy the waters by comparing McNabb to Favre. Favre's a great quarterback but is also famous for trying to do to much and throwing a lot of interceptions. Saying, "McNabb must be great because he throws fewer picks than Favre" is kind of like saying, "Player X must be a great baseball player, because he strikes out less than Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson." Big deal.
More like, if only he could stay on the field. Health and conditioning are skills, and they're the only tools he's missing
Saying, "McNabb must be great because he throws fewer picks than Favre" is kind of like saying, "Player X must be a great baseball player, because he strikes out less than Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson." Big deal.
talk about apples to oranges.
For a baseball player, there are a lot of things you can do that are worse than striking out: double plays, poor fielding, not working the count, etc. To strike out, at least you saw at least 3 pitches. It's not the end all be all of the game
For a QB, interceptions are the worst thing you can do. It takes a combination of other good things (high pass %, TDs, yards per attempt) to make up for a high INT rate
My cousin played ball at St. Joseph's in Philly and was glad that they didn't get the kind of hate the Eagles, Phillies, and Flyers are subjected to.
I forget who said it, but the best quote ever about Philly fans is "They would boo a blind child at an Easter Egg Hunt."
Philly fans don't deserve to win, which is ironic because their teams do deserve it for having to put up with such morons.
Brett Favre is the most overrated athlete of my lifetime. He had 5 or 6 great years, and then was a bad-- not mediocre-- bad quarterback for years. He killed the Packers, year after year after year, with terrible interceptions. Everyone remembers 4th and 26 from that playoff game against the Eagles (a great performance, by the way, from Donovan McNabb). What they forget is that the Packers still had a great chance to win that game, but then Favre threw the worst interception I've ever seen. The Holmgren/Favre-era Packers shouldn't have been a one Super Bowl team, they should have been a two or three Super Bowl team, but they got their opportunities thrown away by bad quarterback play.
I was hoping the Iggles would trade McNabb to the Vikings, if only to placate my future father-in-law, who's a diehard Vikes fan. I also feel that New Englanders owe a little something to Minnesota (thanks for Ortiz, Moss, and Garnett!)
Hey, but don't you know, Favre is a "gunslinger." His INT's are fine because he just loves playing the game, and has so much fun out there!!
Seriously, though, McNabb gets so much shit its ridiculous. He took his team to a Super Bowl and four straight NFC championship and people are going to talk about him not being a winnner And three of those were without T.O., or Westbrook. Give me a break.
Just to clarify, Westbrook didn't have a really good seaon until the last year. He had been on the team for a few, though...
Wow, I had McNabb on my fantasy team for several years, and while he often carried the team, I never realized how few picks he threw. I've never understood Philly fans not absolutely loving him. Please send him to the Lions anytime.
Let's face it: Andy Reid's always been a big part of the problem. I think if McNabb had had the chance to play for Dungy, Belichick, or Holmgren he'd have at least one ring by now, maybe two or three. He'd have led the Pats every bit as capably as Brady because, like #12, he plays within himself and has turned out to have real pocket discipline.
If McNabb isn't a first year Hall of Famer, then something is seriously wrong with the voters. Yes, he's that good, and that's in spite of an openly hostile fan base who never believed he could be a passing quarterback. Until the Saints got Drew Brees three years ago, I'd have killed to have had McNabb as my team's QB.
To return to a recurring theme on this blog, much of the criticism of McNabb is explicitly racist (or at least racialized). I am a transplanted Marylander (Redskins fan) currently living in South Philly, about a mile from the stadiums. Last summer (2007)well after the football season was over and well before training camp was set to begin I was awakened from sleep by a man walking down my block screaming "McNabb is a f--ing n---." I couldn't see or hear anyone or anything he was responding to. He just screamed it out, apparently unprompted. This was the day I decided that I needed to save up my money to move out of the neighborhood as quickly as possible. Keep this in mind when you hear Philly natives critcizing McNabb.
talk about apples to oranges.
For a baseball player, there are a lot of things you can do that are worse than striking out: double plays, poor fielding, not working the count, etc. To strike out, at least you saw at least 3 pitches. It's not the end all be all of the game
For a QB, interceptions are the worst thing you can do. It takes a combination of other good things (high pass %, TDs, yards per attempt) to make up for a high INT rate
I agree with all of that. My only point is that it does McNabb no favors to highlight his impressively low interception rate by comparing him to a quarterback who, for all his other virtues, throws a ton of interceptions. It's a great way to take a shot at Favre but it has little to do with McNabb's virtues. It's like saying that he's cooler under pressure than Vince Young, or kinder to animals than Michael Vick.
Now, if the idea is to say, "McNabb's huge advantage in this category makes him a better QB than Favre," I don't necessarily think that's preposterous, but you'd have to actually crunch the numbers and make that argument.
McNabb is a great quarterback, and likely hall of famer, but not by a first ballot measure. The big strikes against him are relatively low completion rates and high sack rates. The latter is especially bad in McNabb's case, because he's kind of a Drew Bledsoe "hold the ball" quarterback. Needless to mention, he's a much better decision maker than Bledsoe was.
McNabb's not a winner. He just isn't. Joel above makes a good point about taking sacks (especially late in the game) which feeds into the misleading low interception rate (i.e., he's trying too hard not to get any interceptions so much that he's throwing incomplete passes and taking sacks).
But McNabb could probably use better receivers. And a coach who know squat about clock management.
"McNabb's not a winner. He just isn't."
Very interesting analysis!!
I'm nervous Donovan & Co. are gonna be mad as hell and super-motivated this Sunday. Couple that with Big Ben's bad wing and an iffy secondary and I'm thinkin' that this is gonna be a bad road game for my Stillers.
Brett Favre is nothing more than the Dave Kingman of the NFL... Lots of homers, lots of strikeouts..
Easily the most overrated QB of all time..
He'd have led the Pats every bit as capably as Brady because, like #12, he plays within himself and has turned out to have real pocket discipline.
Lack of INT != pocket discipline.
McNabb is a lost yardage machine, even if he doesn't throw picks.
I appreciate McNabb as much as anyone else around here, but no. There are several QBs with the pure ability Brady has, but nobody playing today is the clutch QB Brady is.
Ta-Nehisi:
Blame Andy Reid(aka Big Red) for the lack of receivers for McNabb. For a guy coming from BYU, he doesn't seem to think they matter(James "Trash" Thrash and Todd "Stinky" Pinkston, anyone?). Living in the Philly area, I could go through the whole list of sucky receivers McNabb has thrown to. Where I will question McNabb is why doesn't he stand up to Reid and tell him to get Donovan some good WR's. Jackson looks like a very good one but it has taken ten years(not counting T.O.).
I've always identified with McNabb. It's embarassing that so many Cowboy fans think he's average when he's kicked our butts and played so well against us. But Monday night's game was not about him. It was about Romo. He overcome his mistake to win the game. McNabb didn't. It was his fumble that lead to his team's demise. Without that fumble, the Eagles win. No doubt about it.
Look, I love McNabb, and I also love the Steelers, which makes me think that if there's a statistical category that Neil O'Donnell leads, then it's probably a bogus statistical category. My head understands the importance of not throwing interceptions, but my heart can't fathom that Neil O'Donnell is nearly peerless in an important statistical category.
Or, maybe I should think about it this way...how many of those 68 interceptions came in the fourth quarter with the difference in the game less than a touchdown? I would guess 67.
Am I being too harsh on the guy?
Have I said too much to finish by saying that McNabb's phenomenal and that people who hate him are idiots?
I am a lifelong Redskins fan (sidenote: Ta-Nehisi, for such an intelligent and well adjusted man how the hell did you become a cowboys fan?). Anyhow, there are two quarterbacks that I think are vastly underrated and who have scared me shitless over the years: Troy Aikman and Donovan McNabb.
Favre is a guy who can take over your 5-11 team and make it 9-7. And he can take over your 11-5 team and make it 9-7. Give me McNabb over Favre in a heartbeat, says this Cowboys fan.
Man if this dude had ever had a stable, real receiving group.
It wouldn't matter, the guy chokes in the clutch. Also, I think his stats are a little padded because he throws to Westbrook in the backfield so often. Hard to intercept those passes.
On top of TNC's point - that TO is one person and was only in Philly for a year - the Eagles made the Super Bowl the year that McNabb got to throw to TO, and if Owens has been healthy for the game, the Eagles would have won.
The one year McNabb had a legit #1 option, he made the Super Bowl, and only lost because Owens got hurt.
The one year McNabb had a legit #1 option, he made the Super Bowl, and only lost because Owens got hurt.
Owens had something like 9 catches for 120 yards in that Super Bowl. The Eagles lost the Super Bowl because McNabb choked. Owens was chased off the Eagles because he said as much.
I'm from Philly and racism certainly plays a role, particularly with the South Philly types. But Donovan is not a is not a Hall of Fame quarterback. He's very good, but he is terrible in the clutch, holds the ball too long and makes poor passes in critical situations. If one reads the Philadelphia sports media it would be discovered that this is the basic perspective on McNabb. Racism is a reality. But every criticism of a Black athlete is not racism.
Look, I love McNabb, and I also love the Steelers, which makes me think that if there's a statistical category that Neil O'Donnell leads, then it's probably a bogus statistical category. My head understands the importance of not throwing interceptions, but my heart can't fathom that Neil O'Donnell is nearly peerless in an important statistical category.
Or, maybe I should think about it this way...how many of those 68 interceptions came in the fourth quarter with the difference in the game less than a touchdown? I would guess 67.
Am I being too harsh on the guy?
Have I said too much to finish by saying that McNabb's phenomenal and that people who hate him are idiots?
Yes, McNabb has never had great receivers aside from the year with T.O., but I think this might be his best crop yet.
DeSean Jackson looks like a mini-Steve Smith at first glance, premature TD celebrations aside. Jason Avant is an excellent possession receiver, Greg Lewis is good in the slow and if he ever gets healthy, Curtis is an ideal number two.
yes they lack the type of big, physical, fast number one receiver that teams love to have, but so do a lot of squads. I think McNabb has more than enough weapons this year once you throw in Westbrook; the onus is on him to produce.