Rush Limbaugh quits ESPN

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

I think Billick just has this disease where he can't stick with a starting QB for more than one season.

[Dr. Tom 0]

Yes, it's called Giantfuckingegoitis. Billick thinks he's a savant because he designed an offense that threw jump-balls to Randy Moss ten times a game. Yippee. Don't get me wrong; I think he's a good coach, but he's just not the offensive mind he was made out to be.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I never heard the story about Donovan when he was a rookie. In reality though, Donovan probably had nothing to do with it, but it was rather a ploy by the agent. He probably didn't care. Of course, most of you probably would think differently, but whatever, that's not the issue so why bring it up? No reason to. I was just stating how stupid Philly fans were, that wasn't a race issue.

 

I've yet to see anyone tell me how an "above average" quarterback can take a 3-13 to two NFC Championships. Anyone? When in the HISTORY of the NFL has someone done that? He has three bad games and all of a sudden we're supposed to forget about that? He's in his what, fourth season? Two NFC Championships and another Playoff Appearance where they outplayed the team that won the Super Bowl that year yet lost because of bad Special Teams. All from 3-13. IN FOUR SEASONS!

 

Brad Johnson has Mike Alstott, Keyshawn Johnson, Keenan McCardell, AND the most underrated wide receiver in the league, Big Joey Jurevicious. McNabb has...nobody.

 

The small market thing could also be a factor, and also that they had arguably the most dominating defense in history. He's another Trent Dilfer. He doesn't make defenses. His main advantage over Mcnabb if any is that he can read defenses better, but alot of that comes with age.

 

The small market thing could also be a factor, and also that they had arguably the most dominating defense in history. He's another Trent Dilfer. He doesn't make defenses. His main advantage over Mcnabb if any is that he can read defenses better, but alot of that comes with age.

I never heard the story about Donovan when he was a rookie. In reality though, Donovan probably had nothing to do with it, but it was rather a ploy by the agent. He probably didn't care. Of course, most of you probably would think differently, but whatever, that's not the issue so why bring it up? No reason to. I was just stating how stupid Philly fans were, that wasn't a race issue.

 

It was done in Donovan's name and McNabb participated. He's hardly innocent there.

 

've yet to see anyone tell me how an "above average" quarterback can take a 3-13 to two NFC Championships. Anyone? When in the HISTORY of the NFL has someone done that? He has three bad games and all of a sudden we're supposed to forget about that? He's in his what, fourth season? Two NFC Championships and another Playoff Appearance where they outplayed the team that won the Super Bowl that year yet lost because of bad Special Teams. All from 3-13. IN FOUR SEASONS!

 

Where were the Giants before Collins came around? Where were the Ravens before Dilfer? Heck, the Pats weren't too much before Brady took over (Bledsoe, much as I love the Bills, is just not that terrific a QB).

 

Brad Johnson has Mike Alstott, Keyshawn Johnson, Keenan McCardell, AND the most underrated wide receiver in the league, Big Joey Jurevicious. McNabb has...nobody.

 

Mike ALSTOTT?!? HE is a difference maker? McNabb has the better starting RB(Duce, while not great, is better than anybody TB has had in years). And KEYSHAWN? You can't begin discussions of overrated players without mentioning him prominently? He's never done ANYTHING of note.

 

The small market thing could also be a factor, and also that they had arguably the most dominating defense in history. He's another Trent Dilfer. He doesn't make defenses. His main advantage over Mcnabb if any is that he can read defenses better, but alot of that comes with age.

 

See what I mean? Johnson is "Another Dilfer" (Trent, though, has had a pretty good run as a starter and it's insane that he has such a hard time getting a job). Johnson is a QB talented enough to get DRAFTED in spite of NOT STARTING at FSU. He is, flat out, a better QB than McNabb. He doesn't run -- but he makes far fewer asinine errors.

 

Okay, let's take the small market into account.

 

Why does he get more press than Collins, who since he joined the Giants, has put up some impressive numbers?

-=Mike

I was planning on going into a long spiel about Donovan, but since we won't end up agreeing, I'll just say this much; I don't believe that he was marketed due to the colour of his skin. He's a young quarterback, who has charisma and plays a very exciting game. He's marketable. If he were white and still had all those things to back him up, it would be the same thing. Collins, Dilfer, and Johnson are part of the old NFL. The Gun-slinging pocket passers who aren't really great personalities. All those other guys happen to have qualities in addition to being black.

 

Race isn't an issue. When Kurt Warner had his Cinderella season he received more hype than any of the black quarterbacks, including Vick.

 

I've seen Brian Urlacher in way more commercials, and he is the leader of the worst defense in the league, or one of. Jeremy Shockey gets tons of press. Peyton Manning has been in a few commercials as well. I'm positive that there are more black players in the NFL than white, and I'm also sure that there are more white players in commercials. Don't have stats on that one, but it seems to be a safe bet.

 

As far as the athletes on the field go, football is one of the few workplaces where race isn't an issue. So let's not make it one.

[Dr. Tom 0]

When Kurt Warner had his Cinderella season he received more hype than any of the black quarterbacks, including Vick.

Because he made a good story. So did Tom Brady. So did Trent Dilfer.

 

And before them, so did Doug Williams, but he was probably a better story considering the racial landscape (and missteps) of American sports at the time. And the next Doug Williams will also be a very good story, which is why the media wants to tell that story.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Two good articles:

 

Rush was right about Donovan McNabb.

That Slate article was great -- I posted it below.

 

And Tom, I see your missing one important component to your article -- your weekly picks.

 

Oh, if anyone watches Inside the NFL on HBO did they talk about this issue? I'd be interested in knowing what Bob Costas thinks about this...

 

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 well—black 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 offense—an 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 statistics—or 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 football—which 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 Johnson—more 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's—I'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?

[the pinjockey 0]

I still don't get why the only reason McNabb is overrated is because he is black. Like the media has never overrated a player before.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

When Kurt Warner had his Cinderella season he received more hype than any of the black quarterbacks, including Vick.

Because he made a good story. So did Tom Brady. So did Trent Dilfer.

 

And before them, so did Doug Williams, but he was probably a better story considering the racial landscape (and missteps) of American sports at the time. And the next Doug Williams will also be a very good story, which is why the media wants to tell that story.

I'm not saying it wasn't a good story, I'm just saying you don't have to be black to get a lot of press behind you, which Warner obviously wasn't.

 

Besides, it's not like the press is all over Mcnabb. He's injured, but when he comes back it'll be all about Vick (as it should be).

[MrRant 0]

No.. NEXT season will be all about Vick because the way the Falcons are playing by the time he gets back there isn't going to be anything he can do to even get them to the playoffs.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

Are you serious.

 

For 3 weeks after his injury not a day didn't go by where I didn't hear something about his injury.

[MrRant 0]

Who is that directed at? YPOV or myself?

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

That was directed towards Paragon.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I didn't hear something everyday, but are you now going to try and argue with me and say that Michael Vick doesn't deserve the attention that he gets?

 

If you're going to say that no one does (doubtful), are you going to at least admit that if one person did deserve that attention that it would be him?

 

He won't get them into the playoffs, but that won't stop the media from talking about him, which is what I meant. When he has a bad game, they'll be quick to pounce on him as well. People forget that when a player is doing great and gets a lot of attention, that when he plays poorly they eat him alive. McNabb and Warner are two examples.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

I don't think he deserves the press he gets.

 

He has yet to put up numbers that impress me. He has a lot of potential but I'm fairly certain he's going to be a cripple by the time he reaches it. He's broken his leg once and you know what? He's going to break it again and again b/c he won't change his style of play. He's also terrible in the endzone when he doesn't have the room to run around and has to use accuracy. Also he takes off and runs for a 5 yd. gain when he could've passed for 15 had he stayed in the pocket just a little longer.

 

And the current Falcons are suffer from a terrible defense and a coordinator that's running the offense completely opposite it's strengths. I mean they were using Dunn with a ton of power running plays. I'm sorry but they have a bunch of idiots calling the plays.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I still don't get why the only reason McNabb is overrated is because he is black. Like the media has never overrated a player before.

I don't think Limbaugh thinks that at all. He didn't go into detail why he thinks McNabb was overrated.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I don't think he deserves the press he gets.

 

He has yet to put up numbers that impress me. He has a lot of potential but I'm fairly certain he's going to be a cripple by the time he reaches it. He's broken his leg once and you know what? He's going to break it again and again b/c he won't change his style of play. He's also terrible in the endzone when he doesn't have the room to run around and has to use accuracy. Also he takes off and runs for a 5 yd. gain when he could've passed for 15 had he stayed in the pocket just a little longer.

 

And the current Falcons are suffer from a terrible defense and a coordinator that's running the offense completely opposite it's strengths. I mean they were using Dunn with a ton of power running plays. I'm sorry but they have a bunch of idiots calling the plays.

You're reaching here. He has yet to put up numbers that impress you, and it's only his second season? The fact that he ripped apart Green Bay IN Lambeau in the playoffs means nothing? The fact that the team was terrible before he got there and now has high hopes for the future means nothing?

 

He didn't break his leg, if he had he'd be out a lot longer. A fracture isn't nearly as severe. Besides, he didn't break it with his "style of play". It was a freak play. Did I miss all those other quarterbacks that had broken their legs while scrambling around? In fact I can't remember anythign specific, except for Joe Theismann (whom we all know loved to run around).

 

He has two years of experience in the league, give him some time to learn the game and stop making mistakes that young guys generally make.

 

How do YOU know he could have just thrown it for fifteen yards? Do you think he might have just thrown it for fifteen yards? Maybe he realized that he has no targets and that they're probably covered? This year they finally got a talent in Peerless Price, whom himself isn't used to the primary coverage, as he was helped alot in Buffalo when they had Moulds. He hasn't been able to throw to him either.

 

So you saw a few plays where Warrick Dunn ran with some power. Not every play is offensive genius. TJ Duckett was probably tired or something. It appears as if you're making a judgement after watching a handful of plays.

 

He has one of the strongest arms in the league, can run like a Wide Receiver and does it all with a team that would be painfully bad (as witnessed by their play this season) if he wasn't there.

 

THAT is why he deserves the press, that, and the fact that he's black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kidding.