Poor Donovan

What did Donovan McNabb do to deserve this? He's been shitted on since he was booed when he was selected by Philly over Ricky Williams in the NFL Draft. Now who would you rather have? Ricky would be fun if you wanted to smoke spliffs and meditate but if you actually wanted to win football games you take McNabb. In the 1999 draft 5 QB's were selected with the top 12 picks. Tim Couch (1st) Donovan McNabb (2nd) Akili Smith (3rd) Daunte Culpepper (11th) and Cade McNown (12th). That Donovan McNabb selected looks pretty good now, correct?

McNabb is a very good QB. He owns a career QB Rating of 85.8. He has thrown 171 touchdowns compared to 79 interceptions. (All regular season stats) His career touchdown-to-interception ratio is 2.16 which is very good. But there are some interesting story lines within these stats.

We're going to remove a small sample from his career statistics. Let's say about 21 games. All are regular season games starting with the first game of the 2004 NFL season.

21 Games
467-754 (61.9%) 5873 yards, 45 TD's, 15 INT's

That's 279.6 yards, 2.1 TD's and .7 INT's per game

Career (including these 21 games, not including playoffs)
2189-3732 (58.7%) 25404 yards, 171 TD's, 79 INT's in 118 games

That's 215.3 yards, 1.4 TD's and .7 INT's per game

Career (not including these 21 games)
1722-2978 (57.8%) 19531 yards, 126 TD's, 64 INT's in 97 games

That's 201.3 yards, 1.3 TD's and .7 INT's per game

Have you figured out which 21 games these are yet? It should be obvious.

Within that 21 game sample Donovan McNabb was, without a doubt one of the top 5 QB's in the league. He wasn't even totally healthy (sports hernia) for 7 of the 21 games in the sample. Although a sample size of 21 games out of 118 is less 18% of the total those 21 games actually have a very positive effect on McNabb's career numbers.

It should be pretty obvious that those 21 games are the 21 regular season games that Donovan McNabb played with one Terrell Owens. We all no that T.O. is a beast and all that but McNabb was just so much better with him. Even when T.O. got hurt at the end of the 2004 regular season McNabb carried the Eagles to the Super Bowl without missing a beat. Kid had his swagger ya know? That's really what's missing for Donovan right now.

Sure David Tyree made an incredible catch in the Super Bowl. But are the Giants even in the playoffs without Plaxico Burress? Not a chance. They never would've beaten Green Bay without Burress. Who actually caught the game winning TD in the Super Bowl? Burress. We all know Tom Brady is good right? What happened when he was given a genuine #1 WR? He shattered records and led the Patriots to an undefeated season. The Colts have taken 3 WR's in the first round of the draft for Peyton Manning to play with. The Bengals run 3 deep at WR as good as any team in the league and Carson Palmer loves it.

Get the picture? The top QB's are good, no doubt, but they have help. I don't know why Andy Reid is so against a legitimate stud WR but it's killing Donovan. I can't believe that he doesn't go public with demands for some kind of WR. I know that he doesn't want to diss the guys he has now but let's be real about the situation. Reggie Brown could be an excellent #2 WR and Kevin Curtis would be one of the best #3/slot WR's in the league. But they are miscast as #1 & #2 WR's. The Eagles just don't have a weapon that scares anybody outside of Brian Westbrook.

Yeah defense wins championships but don't you think part of Donovan was steaming inside when the Eagles gave Asante Samuel $60 million? I mean what would Randy Moss cost? Probably something slightly above T.O.'s deal so lets say 3 years $36 million with about a $12 million signing bonus and $5 million roster bonus paid out at the beginning of every season. Wouldn't that leave plenty of money to go get a corner and a pass-rusher? The upcoming draft is as deep at the CB position as any in recent memory. How do you think the Pats plan to replace Samuel?

To make a long story short:

Dear Andy,

Please get Donovan a real honest-to-God Pro Bowl WR. You might even get to the Super Bowl and look like a genius.

Until that day, poor Donovan.