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"FacebookPinterest\n\n The American Quarterback comes in an assortment of American clich\u00E9s. There's the robot genius (Peyton Manning, Tom Brady), the country boy (Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw), the lout (Ben Roethlisberger, Kerry Collins) and the idiot (JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf). In the high intensity conflict that is 21st century pro football, the nice guy isn't one of the defining terms.\n\n And that may be Donovan McNabb's biggest problem. He lives in Phoenix during the off-season, which requires its own type of magnanimity. I had lunch with him at a sports bar on a 'my skin might actually be on fire' 120-degree day. The more we talked, the more I thought; this guy is so goddamned affable. His pathological even-keelness reminded me of Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. Well, except that Hank's side won the war and McNabb has just exited the Philadelphia Eagles after five division championships, one Super Bowl, and zero titles.\n\n Let's go back to the beginning. Look at it from McNabb's POV. It is 1999. You are 22 and a stud quarterback out of Syracuse. The Eagles are primed to pick you #2. But Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell thinks his team should take Ricky Williams instead. He\u2013the fucking mayor!\u2013organizes a protest call-in that brings down the Eagles communications system. The Eagles draft you anyway. You walk across the New York stage. Your new fans boo and curse you.\n\n Welcome to town!\n\n In Philadelphia, the two-eyed man is king because everyone else is bat-shit crazy. Philly sports legends include a man who war danced over an unconscious Frank Gifford (Chuck Bednarik), a chaw-choking outfielder/accused fraudster (Lenny Dykstra), and a practice-averse point guard who urinated into a trash can at an Atlantic City casino (Allen Iverson). McNabb's major malfunction was his sanity. There were no arrests, just Campbell's Chunky Soup commercials with his mom.\n\n He led the Eagles to three straight NFC championship games beginning in 2001 but the team spit the bit each time with McNabb throwing one touchdown and five interceptions, including a key what-the-hell-was-he-thinking pick for six against Tampa Bay in 2003. Oh how the people howled! But it wasn't all his fault. The Eagles receiving corps sucked, personified by frizzy-haired Freddie Mitchell, a first-rounder with six nicknames and five career TD's.\n\n The team added Terrell Owens in 2004. Now that was a Faustian bargain. The Eagles made the Super Bowl where Owens became a hero by playing on a broken leg while McNabb just inflamed the rabble. The Eagles were down 10 to the Patriots with six minutes to go. McNabb led the Eagles on a methodical touchdown drive. And I mean methodical. The Eagles offense moved with the alacrity of eleven methadone users. Sure, they scored, but they burned almost four minutes off the clock and lost by three. Afterward, there was talk that McNabb was so tired he puked in the huddle. That summer, T.O. went all narcissistic personality disorder; he held out, bitched about McNabb's toughness and said, 'I'm not the one who got tired in the Super Bowl.'\n\n The Eagles cut T.O. during the next season. McNabb started getting hurt with regularity. In 2008, he admitted after an overtime game that he didn't realize NFL games could end in a tie. Oops! The next week, Reid benched him at halftime, informing McNabb through an assistant. He got his job back the next week and played better than before, showing before unseen bravado when he picked up a Giants sideline phone after scrambling for a first down. The Eagles made it to a final NFC championship game and, of course, lost.\n\n By then, Philly and McNabb had devolved into a loveless marriage between a rageaholic and his long-suffering spouse. McNabb has endured endless trade rumors for years. He was finally dealt in April and there was a final indignity: he was traded within the division to the Redskins. You don't trade a guy you have to face twice a year unless you think he's cooked.\n\n Now McNabb tries to win a Super Bowl with a new team and an equally rabid\u2013if more Brie eating\u2013fan base. Oh yeah, one other thing. McNabb left Philly with every major team passing record. He befriended Ed Rendell, the mayor who denounced him. (More on that later). His career numbers are comparable to Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Terry Bradshaw. His first game against the Eagles is on October 3. McNabb claims it's another game on the schedule.\n\n He is either a liar or Jesus.\n\n\n\n Back in 1999, when Ed Rendell orchestrated his campaign against drafting you, was there a moment when you were like, \"Can the mayor do this?\"\n\n I was saying to myself, 'Man, you have so many other things to focus in on, and you're focusing on me being drafted.' I remember being booed at the draft, I remember going back into the green room, and I remember laughing with my parents. I'd never been booed in my life. You see it on TV, and you think, \"Yeah, that won't happen to me.\" But when they did boo, I laughed about it.\n\n So the long time perception that the booing pissed you off is wrong?\n\n Yeah, absolutely. What people try to do is get something out of you by continuously bringing it up. \"He was booed at the draft.\" We all know Philly fans can be a little difficult, but there's a higher percentage of fans who truly love the Eagles and appreciate the things that you present to them.\n\n You must have ran into Rendell 1,500 times.\n\n Yeah.\n\n Do you joke about it?\n\n We're cordial. We've talked about what happened and he apologized and I said, \"I'm not really worried, everyone has their own opinions,\" and I swear, for the last seven, eight years, he's been on television, praising me, and telling the fans, \"Hey, this is the dumbest move you possibly could have done.\" I talked to him about three months ago and he told me, \"You know what, I'm still an Eagles fan, but I'm a Donovan McNabb fan, everything that you brought to this city and what you were able to do every Sunday and Monday, I was truly behind you, and I'm going to continue to be behind you, I feel like it's a slap in the face for them to trade you within the division, but I know you're going to be able to prevail.\"\n\n So were you upset the Eagles traded you within the division?\n\n I was more happy that it was over. Every year for the last three or four years, it was the same drama, me and Brett Favre, going back and forth, \"Is Brett going to play, is he not, are the Eagles going to trade Donovan, is this it for Donovan McNabb?\" Brett does what he wants to do, he's his own man. For me, I just believe in keeping everything to myself and continuing to stay focused on the goal at hand\u2014to win a Super Bowl no matter what team I'm with.\n\n You're a pretty placid guy. Some people take that to mean you don't care.\n\n The people in the Eagles locker room and the people in that building know how much I care, and am truly passionate about it. If they come out here and watch me train, they'll understand. If I'm in 112-degree weather working out, then I truly care, and when I step out on that field, I care. You can't focus on what people may think. Everyone has their own opinions, and if they express it to me, I say 'Thank you for sharing that with me,' because that bothers them more, when you don't get upset.\n\n Your stats match up favorably with Hall of Famers like Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman, but you're rarely spoken of in conversations about great quarterbacks. What will it take to get that respect? Must you win a Super Bowl?\n\n I remember growing up in Chicago and being a big Walter Payton fan, and I never could understand why they would not put Walter Payton in the class with the Jim Browns. It wasn't until he won the Super Bowl when they began to say he was the best running back ever. I think that's so unfortunate for a player, for what they've been able to accomplish, if it's yardage, if it's wins, whatever it may be, because you can't say, \"OK, this guy has won this percentage of games, he's thrown for these touchdowns, and this guy is comparable and maybe had one or two more touchdowns and five percent lower wins, but this guy's not a Hall of Famer because this guy's won a Super Bowl and he hasn't.\" You have guys like Dan Marino, guys like Warren Moon, Dan Fouts, guys like that who are throwing for a lot of yards, maybe not have won Super Bowls, but still, their names always come up when you talk about top quarterbacks. But really, are they Hall of Famers, and why are they Hall of Famers? Warren Moon had to play, what, twenty years to rack up the numbers that he put up? But he was still a solid quarterback. I was happy that he made the Hall of Fame. Then you have some quarterbacks who are not in who really deserve to be in.\n\n What was the secret to your relationship with Andy Reid?\n\n He stuck his neck out to draft me when he had the Mel Kipers of the world and some scouts who said, \"He's not accurate, he's going to take three, four, five years to learn a West Coast offense.\" Our relationship is so strong that I can finish his sentences sometimes. We laugh about it. When I'm out on the field, if he calls a play and I can't hear it, I'd look back and mouth \"What is it?\" and he'd just say, \"Just call something.\" I'd go out there and probably get a first down or we score or whatever, and he'd say, \"Why don't you just call the whole game?\" and I would say, \"I've been waiting on that.\"\n\n I asked Governor Rendell if he had any questions for you, and he said to ask you if T.O. had not gone crazy, how many Super Bowls would you have made it to? \n\n The whole T.O. situation, it was unfortunate, to say the least. When we both decided to make that move and bring him over to Philadelphia, the atmosphere changed in the locker room, the atmosphere changed in the city of Philadelphia. Every time we stepped out on the field, it wasn't, \"Are we gonna win?\" It was, \"How much are we gonna win by?\" and everyone had that confidence in the locker room that they were going to make a big play to either score or put us in position to score \u2013 I'm talking about defense, special teams, offense. And it's unfortunate how everything panned out afterwards, and we've talked about it to this day.\n\n The NFL Network did a show on the league's top ten feuds, and you and T.O. were number six. You don't seem like a feud guy.\n\n It's so funny because they always try to bring that up, and the clip that they show, we weren't feuding then. The whole feud happened in the offseason. When he was walking behind me at the Pittsburgh game, he was actually trying to calm me down. At that time I believe we were 7-0, and we went out there playing like a team that was 1-8 or something, and he was trying to calm me down: \"Hey, we're going to get this thing going, don't worry about it, talk to the O-line, just give them some time.\" After he talked to me, he went and talked to the offensive line. Then if you remember, we played that game, and then we played Dallas the next Monday night, and we re-enacted it, I was following him and made fun of the whole deal.\n\n Here's the question every Eagles fan wants to know. It's the Super Bowl, you're down by 10 to the Patriots late in the fourth quarter. Why did that touchdown drive take so damn long?\n\n We were trying to figure out if T.O. was in or if T.O. was out, because of his leg. T.O. wanted to be in. We were trying to rotate different guys in and get the personnel together and things of that nature. The play calling was a little slow, maybe, but it made it look like we were just kind of standing around. We were hustling, it was just blown out of proportion.\n\n Did you puke?\n\n No, at no point did I throw up. I got hit and dumped on my face a couple of times\u2026we lost Todd Pinkston\u2026we all were gassed, and there were a couple of times in the game where I got hit either by [linebacker Teddy] Bruschi or by [defensive end Richard] Seymour, I had grass in my helmet and maybe I lost my wind a little bit, but nothing to the point where I would come out of the game. People can run that game back and forth and find out that I wasn't throwing up, but I guess it's a sexy topic to talk about.\n\n\n\n As we talk, McNabb eats a salad and fingers a cross around his neck. He's a creature of habit; he comes here so often he gets a 15 percent discount. Despite the microwave heat, he wears a long-sleeved white shirt that is completely dry. We talk about the lowlights of his career and he doesn't grow defensive. The disses roll on McNabb, the disses roll off McNabb. It's just another contradiction in the Donovan riddle. When he entered the league, scouts whispered he wasn't smart enough to run an NFL offense. They cited his notoriously low Wonderlic score; a pre-draft semi-IQ test administered to all NFL prospects. In reality, McNabb mastered Reid's offense in a season. His reward for that was Rush Limbaugh going on ESPN and proclaiming McNabb was overrated, saying, \"The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.\" McNabb kept his mouth shut while all around him shat invective. The Donovan-is-dumb talk disappeared for awhile, but then returned after his 2008 overtime gaffe. When I ask about the OT fiasco and Limbaugh, he just smiles.\n\n\n\n Do you regret being honest enough to say you were confused about the overtime rules?\n\n The media wants you to be honest and up front with them, and then when you are, they just throw the dagger at you. \"Oh, what was he thinking?\" There were a lot of responses from other players who said the same thing I did, and then when the referee tells you, \"Hey, you get another five minutes to go after this quarter\u2026\" Nobody talks about that.\n\n You're in the game and the ref\u2026?\n\n We're in the game, and we go off on third and out, they're out there, and I'm like, \"Hey, we need to get this thing going, how much time is left?\" I'm looking at the clock and the ref is like, \"We've got another five minutes after this quarter if no one scores.\" [Editors note: Yep, that's what he said. The NFL had no comment.] I didn't think nothing of it, but I did hear it. It was a mistake on my part. I've got to know the rules.\n\n When Rush Limbaugh was talking about trying to put together an ownership group what did you think?\n\n I didn't get involved in that, either. They tried to pull me in it, and I said, \"Hey, there's one team I wouldn't play for.\"\n\n If you ran into the dude\u2026\n\n I would shake his hand and say, \"How are you doing, it's really nice meeting you.\" I wouldn't be stand-offish to him or anything.\n\n What did you know about Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan before two or three months ago?\n\n Just from watching his quarterbacks, and I knew Jake Plummer pretty well. I knew a little bit more than what people thought.\n\n What do you mean by that?\n\n Everyone talks about one side of it, but I know the other side of it, I know every other side of it, and I'm going through different channels right now to learn more.\n\n To learn more about\u2026\n\n To learn more about Mike Shanahan, his approach, things of that nature, to learn more about [his son] Kyle Shanahan as an offensive coordinator. I think it's important, if we're going to work together, we need to know a little more about each other, and more than just me talking to them. I need to talk to some other people, and I've been learning a lot on the run. We've been running through OTAs [organized team activities], three minicamps, working out at the facility, and I've been at the facility more in Washington than I have in Philadelphia, so I've been putting that time in and trying to get the understanding together, the chemistry with the guys. I think it will pay off.\n\n You're a veteran, but you don't know all these Redskins that well. And then Albert Haynesworth stages an epic holdout. Did you weigh in?\n\n Yeah, what I tried to tell Albert was just to come in, talk to [defensive coordinator] Jim Haslett yourself, you can't hear Jim Haslett telling you one thing, then you have [general manager] Bruce Allen telling you another thing and Mike Shanahan telling you another. Come and talk to Jim Haslett yourself, find out exactly what he wants you to do, come to minicamp--it's only three days--come to three-day minicamp, see where they're at, and make a decision from there.\n\n And he said\u2026\n\n [laughing] He said he was going to be there for the mandatory one. And then I just looked up on TV and found out he wasn't coming.\n\n When the Eagles played the Falcons in the NFC Championship in 2005, you talked about how proud you were to be part of the first championship game with two African-American quarterbacks. I know you and Michael are friendly. How close are you?\n\n Very close.\n\n As the incumbent Eagles QB you said all the right things when the Eagles signed him, but was there part of you that was like, \"Why are they bringing him in?\" \n\n I wanted him there. I remember meeting with my financial guy, just having a meeting with him and his agent and a couple of people in his group, and my financial guy called me and said, \"Mike wants to talk to you.\" I talked to Mike and I just wanted to find out where his head was at. I said, \"Can you come to Arizona and train with me?\" and he said, \"No, I can't, right now I'm on house arrest,\" and I said, \"Just continue to keep in contact with me, how would you feel about coming to play with me in Philly? You'll have an opportunity to get your feet back under you, we can work together, and it also gives you an opportunity to be back in the West Coast offense, something that you ran in Atlanta, and you'd be able to just do your thing, and I've always thought about playing with you,\" and he said, \"Let me see.\" I texted Andy that day and said, \"What do you think about bringing Michael in?\" He was like, \"You're killing me.\" Then we went to training camp, [Eagles backup QB] Kevin Kolb had gotten hurt, and Andy called me about it. \"What do you think about bringing Mike in?\" I said, \"I asked you about it last month, I have no problem with it.\" So they discussed it, and Mike called me and said, \"Man, are you sure?\" I said, \"Man, it's no sweat off my back, I would love for you to come here and then we could work together. You can clear your name up, get out of the shadows, and focus on what you need to do.\"\n\n Would you ever talk about where he'd been? Did he ever say, \"I can't believe I did that\u2026\"\n\n There was that reaction, but I didn't want to bring up the past. I wanted to just focus on the future. I asked him about a couple of issues, but I didn't harp on what happened.\n\n You chafed at being described as a running quarterback when you first got to the NFL. You seemed to consciously work not to run after your second year. Looking back, are there times where you should have run, but didn't because you were intent on breaking that stereotype?\n\n That is something that people go to. For me, it was, like I said, the process of learning the offense and the process of seeing the field, where you don't have to always use your legs. You look downfield, your first and second receivers are covered, you go to your third option, he's covered, you know that you have time, the offensive line's doing a good job, you look at your back, he's open \u2013 throw it to your back. The running back catches the ball, gets 15 yards. When you're younger, you don't think you have enough time, and you take off.\n\n As a member of the fellowship of quarterbacks, did you feel for Favre when he threw that last interception against the Saints?\n\n I felt for him because it was set up that Minnesota was going to win this game, this is the year, they've got all the pieces in place. I was thinking I would love for him to go out with a bang, like Jerome Bettis did. And then the other side was thinking, \"If he makes it to the Super Bowl, they are going to talk nothing but Brett Favre all day.\"\n\n Do you relive moments like that in your own career? You gave up an interception that Ronde Barber returned for a touchdown in your second NFC championship game that pretty much sealed the team's fate.\n\n I do remember. I told Ronde I could probably do a speech for him for the Hall of Fame. In those situations, you still think you can get it in there because of our arm strength. I'm a little bit more cautious than Brett, but in that situation, especially in the NFC Championship, I felt like I could get it in that spot, that we could catch up and get upfield and score, and then we might have been down by three or something at the time. Ronde just cut it.\n\n In 2008, you were benched for the first time. Late in the season you were reinstated as the starter and the Eagles went on a tear. You seemed to play with more of swagger, namely when the Giants ran you out of bounds after a scramble and you picked up one of their sideline phones. What were you thinking?\n\n Really, it was just kind of a spur of the moment. I got pushed out of bounds and I looked over and saw a couple of guys I knew on the bench, and I picked up the phone and was like, \"Hey, how are you doing, everything all good?\" You should have seen their face.\n\n Did you get fined for that?\n\n I did, and I pleaded for that one. That's just not me, either. I laugh and joke with the guys out on the field, but I don't really get into that trash-talking like that, and I apologized to the coaches.\n\n Was that because of the tumultuous season you had? \n\n It was up and down, but it was just something that happened. The way that I approached the rest of that season after I got benched was, I told my wife, if we're going be traded somewhere, I'm about to make it harder than ever before. Every game was one of my best games.\n\n How did you and Reid repair the damage after your benching?\n\n I had a meeting set up with Andy and [owner] Jeffrey Lurie after the season. We sat down and talked, and I got everything off my chest from '99 on. It went all the way back to the T.O. situation, it went back to us not winning big games, me being criticized for whatever, leadership, whatever it may be, and how no one in the organization ever stepped up and said anything. They'll say something to you in the building, but not publicly. My feeling was, 'I'm out here getting cut up, where are you? I'm always defending and helping you guys, but where's that support?' I thought it was beneficial, because you can sit there and tell somebody you truly love them, you're a big fan, your family loves you, but what about when we're over here in the hot seat, where are you now?\n\n Would you say that was one of the downsides of you being so low-maintenance?\n\n Yeah, because you tend to get comfortable, and it's like, \"Oh, he'll be fine, he'll just blow it off,\" but we all have feelings, we all have families.\n\n Did Michael ever watch you and say how do you deal with this?\n\n Yeah, Mike would say, \"I don't know how you handle that.\" Kevin [Kolb] said the same thing. I said, \"Look, let me explain something to you, what you have to do, I'm laying something out there for you to learn from, because here in Philadelphia, nothing's ever good enough unless you win a Super Bowl,\" and he's like, \"Yeah\u2026\" and I said, \"The most important thing you have to do is handle it well,\" because Kevin can get fiery, and I said, \"Don't do it, because once you get fiery, then all of the sudden you look like you're on the defense, and now they'll really start coming at you.\"\n\n Do you know who Jim Cramer is, the CNBC analyst? \n\n Yes, I know who he is.\n\n Huge Eagles fan.\n\n I heard that.\n\n He wanted me to ask you a question: Do you know how many people in Philadelphia appreciate the years you put in and would love to buy you a cheesesteak?\n\n Everybody harps on the handful of people calling the radio station and wanting to vent, who personally don't like me, but for me, I've run into so many people in the Philadelphia area, the New Jersey area, North Jersey area, New York area, there are Philly fans out here, Philly fans in Florida, who truly love the things that I was able to present to the team, not just as a player, but as a person, and how I carried myself off the field. People look at more than just football, it's about life, and what life lessons can you learn from football?\n\n He had one other question: \"What do I do with my number 5 jerseys?\"\n\n They'll probably be on sale now. It's an honor still to see people wearing your jersey, it really is. I'll never forget that."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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