Will Donovan McNabb be cast into Canton?
By: Jake Rajala
The once prominent Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb hung up his cleats in the 2013 off-season. McNabb really had an impressive stretch between 2000 & 2004 — as he recorded four seasons of 11+ wins in that span. Furthermore, the former Syracuse signal-caller made the Pro Bowl in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. It’s impossible to forget that McNabb reached the big dance in the 2004-2005 season (although, he lost to Tom Brady in the showdown).
McNabb made another PB with Philly in 2009 and then proceeded to play w/ Washington in 2010 & Minnesota in 2011. Ultimately, McNabb was once recognized as a game-wrecker, an MVP candidate (as he took second place in MVP voting in 2000), and he even reached the Super Bowl stage — which Tony Romo can’t say. With that said, an intriguing question clouds over McNabb: Is he a future Hall of Famer?
Contrary to fans that bleed green, white, and black, and the Invincible film, I don’t believe McNabb is bound to garner a gold jacket. Despite steamrolling his foes with Big Red (aka Andy Reid) in the early 2000s, he struggled to stay healthy after 2004 (and he actually only played in one 16-game season after 2004).
Due to his somewhat cliff jump in the back end of his career, he didn’t finish with the sexiest career statistics: 37,276 passing yards, 234 passing touchdowns (which is behind Andy Dalton). He deserves props for reaching the grand stage, but he still wasn’t able to muster out a Lombardi trophy — which could somewhat override a lack of his overall production. McNabb deserves to be seen as one of the best Eagles QBs in NFL history, but he doesn’t deserve to be cast into Canton.
