Wait, who booed Santa!?!?

The 700 Level brought this column to light. I wish they hadn't. Well, here we go:


Scarred beyond recognition, a survivor in a town that feeds on real and imagined weakness, Donovan McNabb has emerged as the perfect Philadelphia sports star.

Honestly, I don’t even know what this means. Not a good start, for me or this dumbass writing it. Scared beyond recognition? Seriously? How? I’m going to end up asking way too many questions here. As for his assertion that McNabb is the perfect Philadelphia sports star, I can’t even wrap my head around that. It’s such a ridiculous claim that arguing against it would only lend it credibility.

He has spilled the blood, sweat and tears of a thousand Big 5 players at the Palestra. He has suffered the indignities of an entire neighborhood of civic-minded families that tried attending games at the Vet.

And here’s some more over-the-top hyperbole. This is an absolute insult to thousands of Big 5 players, most of whom probably never had anywhere near the athletic talent that McNabb had, but played with way more heart.

Philadelphia is famous for booing Santa?

In 1968. And for the love of God, it’s not like they were really booing Santa, it was just some drunk dressed in a Santa costume. How is it still being perpetuated that Philadelphia booed the real (shut up, just go with it) Santa Clause?

Even Santa booed McNabb on draft day.

I could point out, as so many other people have done, that no one was booing McNabb personally, they were booing Ricky Williams not being taken, but so far this has been too asinine to merit the high road, so instead: Fuck you.

A prominent NBA coach once told me Philadelphia, Boston and New York represented their own unforgiving nation, "and every other market is Club Med in comparison."

Yeah, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York are pretty much the most passionate sports cities in the country. In Atlanta, Santa isn’t ever booed. But Atlanta doesn’t sell out playoff games. I’ll take passion over politeness any day.

I told him that grouping Philadelphia with Boston and New York was like throwing Genghis Khan into the same cell with two guys busted for jaywalking.

Genghis Khan once executed a man by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears. He had the Caliph of Baghdad put into a sack and trampled by horses. This doesn’t have much to do with the article, I just felt that a mention of Genghis Khan merited me giving some evidence of how much of a badass he was. As for the assertion that Philadelphia fans are worse than in New York and Boston, well, I’m sure that Victoria Snelgrove would disagree.

Way back when, the Soviets' Big Red Machine of a hockey team wasn't frightened off the ice at Boston Garden or Madison Square Garden in the heat of the Cold War. That was an only-in-Philly phenomenon.

Um, I think that Ed Van Impe may want some of the credit for this. Or, you know, the amount of credit that he deserves: all of it. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the Red Army beat the Rangers and the Bruins; the only team that the Red Army (the Sabres beat the other, lesser team) in the Super Series was the Flyers. Finally, dude, you can’t call them the Big Red Machine when there’s another Big Red Machine that was playing at the same time; Joe Morgan deserves better.

The same goes for McNabb, the Rocky Balboa of $100 million NFL quarterbacks.

This doesn’t actually mean anything. I tried, and couldn’t put any meaning behind this sentence. It’s nonsense, though I invite anyone to try to convince me otherwise.

"They've thrown me out, they ran over me, spit on me," McNabb said recently of his detractors. "But you know what? ... I just continue to prevail."

Yeah, some of the criticism McNabb has received may have been excessive. These histrionics, though, are completely unnecessary. Eli Manning was getting shit in New York, and then it stopped last January. Maybe that’s worth considering. As for comparing the treatment of McNabb to how fans in Boston have acted, well, you can’t really, because most of Boston didn’t know the Patriots existed until they beat the Rams, so here really isn’t an analogous time of struggle.

Prevail? The Phillies just won the first major sports championship in that city since the Sixers claimed the NBA crown in 1983, and yet in the early hours of 2009, McNabb still has a chance to go down as the enduring Philly story of 2008.

No, he doesn’t. World Fucking Champions.

Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Brad Lidge — they weren't around when McNabb was the second player chosen in the '99 draft, when Cleveland celebrated the immortal Tim Couch like a returning war hero before McNabb was jeered by a fan base that wanted Ricky Williams instead.

Actually, the Phillies drafted J-Roll in 1996, but whatever. Anyway, I love how close he gets to the truth here, and then veers away to make his dickheaded point instead. Again, if you’ve been having trouble, the 30ish people there at the draft were booing Andy Reid’s decision, not Donovan.

The Phillies absorbed their fair share of abuse on their way to a parade — even in good times, Philly crowds best match up with the torch-carrying mobs from those old Bela Lugosi films. In fact, Philadelphia fields the only teams in sports that try to score early to take their own fans out of the game.

Well, if he’s going to cite fan behavior from the 60s, he might as well make cultural references from the 30s. As for the abuse heaped onto the Phillies, the key word here is “fair;” I don’t remember anyone being unfairly treated by the fans. I remember Rollins being booed for like two at bats after he said stupid shit on the Best Damn Sports Show, and Howard caught some shit when he was hitting below the Mendoza line, but JD Drew was booed in Boston in 07 pretty much all season until he hit that postseason grand slam. This isn’t unique to Philadelphia.

But nobody's had more line drives smacked at him than McNabb, whose 10 years in Philly are the equivalent of 20 anywhere else.

I think there’s a whole lot of short sighted, instant history going on here. McNabb pretty much coasted here for years, he got a free pass despite all the NFC Championship Game losses and the vast majority of fans and the media took his side in the TO garbage. It was only when his play dropped off, and the injuries started mounting, that he started catching criticism. I don’t see how that his unfair at all? Reid benched McNabb in Baltimore, because he play merited it. If his play merits being benched, it certainly merits criticism from fans and the media.

"We're human beings and you get tired of it," McNabb said. "But you never let them see you sweat."

He then went on to add, “It’s ok to let them see you puke, though.”

On Sunday, McNabb will lead the Eagles into Giants Stadium for a playoff game with the top-seeded defending champs. He's the only quarterback to beat the Giants on their own field this season, and nobody will be terribly surprised if he makes it two for the road.

If the Eagles beat the Giants, it’s going to be because of Westbrook, Stewart Bradley, and the rest of the defense stopping the Giants’ running game. All McNabb has to do is not blow it.

But to understand where McNabb is, you have to understand where he's been. To hell and back? Not quite.

Not so much at all. Stop trying to say he has been.

At times it just seemed that way.

Fist yourself.

As a prospect out of the South Side of Chicago, McNabb was offered two Division I scholarships to play quarterback. Two. Syracuse and Nebraska were willing to let him keep his position, while dozens of other big-time schools wanted McNabb as a receiver, a running back, or a safety.

I blame Ed Rendell for this. What a prick.

McNabb was interested in Illinois. But the Illinois coach, Lou Tepper, informed McNabb's coach at Mount Carmel High that his Illini assistant, Greg Landry, didn't want young Donovan as a quarterback. This would be the same Landry who in 15 NFL seasons threw for 13,000 fewer yards and nearly 100 fewer touchdowns than McNabb would manage in his first 10.

Yeah, that guy was probably an asshole. I bet he grew up in Philly.

"That's a situation Donovan's been facing since grade school," his Mount Carmel predecessor, Mike McGrew, once told me. "The doubts and questions we face as black quarterbacks."

Uh oh.

Doug Williams couldn't destroy all the wretched stereotypes in one Super Bowl. So if McNabb has come across as overly sensitive, he has his reasons. He's been blitzed by all comers.

So Keith Law is having a chat on ESPN.com right now; I think I’m gonna switch over to that before this article makes me headbutt my computer. That was such a good idea; KLAW is easily the best columnist on ESPN.com

A white commentator, Rush Limbaugh, actually called him the creation of a white media base that was "very desirous" of seeing a black quarterback succeed. A black commentator, J. Whyatt Mondesire, the head of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP, actually wrote in his newspaper that McNabb was a "mediocre at best" quarterback who was "trying to disguise that fact behind some concocted reasoning that African-American quarterbacks who can scramble and who can run the ball are somehow lesser field generals..."

Limbaugh lost his job over that. It was shitty, but it’s so far in the past, why bring it up? Also, kinda worth pointing out that Philadelphia came to McNabb’s defense pretty hardcore there. As for Mondesire, well, McNabb may be better than mediocre, but he’s far from great.

In effect, McNabb was called a pocket-passing sellout by an NAACP official in his own market.

So the logical next step is to attribute blame for what this one guy says to the entire city. Let’s see if dick monkey follows through…

No, Philadelphia has never led the league in constructive criticism.

And he does!

McNabb was cast in the role of choker for reaching his fourth consecutive NFC title game before finally winning one. He threw for 357 yards and three touchdowns in a Super Bowl loss to the Brady/Belichick Patriots and yet is best remembered for the interceptions, the sacks and the alleged dehydration/exhaustion/nausea that did or didn't get the best of him down the stretch.

Yep, that is what he’s best known for from that game. The picks (3 of them, I think) killed the team. There’s a reason that interceptions make a QB rating plummet: they’re really, really bad. McNabb blew it, he choked in that game. He ran the worst hurry up offence I’ve ever seen, and it’s completely indefensible.

Terrell Owens was McNabb's worst nightmare even before stating that Brett Favre was the superior quarterback. Jeff Garcia nearly replaced McNabb, and Kevin Kolb was drafted to unseat him.

Yeah, but TO made McNabb look like a superstar for a season. Jeff Garcia came in when McNabb was injured, something that’s been a pretty common occurrence over the last five years, and did his job. He made the Pro-Bowl last year; he’s a good quarterback. And yes, Kolb was drafted to replace McNabb. With the rate that McNabb was missing games when that pick was made, it would have been irresponsible for the Eagles not to look into some sort of succession plan. None of this seems all that awful to me.

This year, McNabb was McNailed nationally for revealing he didn't know regular-season games could end in a tie. He was benched by Andy Reid, then reinstated only because the anointed Kolb was dreadful in relief.

McNabb should have known that the game would end in a tie! The ref says it before every overtime! And he deserved to be benched. I would bet anything that O’Connor didn’t watch the Ravens game. And, seriously, McNailed?

The Eagles weren't going to give McNabb the extension he wanted on the $115 million contract he signed in 2002. They were going to drive him to the airport and have him play quarterback for somebody else.

He’s still under contract for like two more years. A nine-figure contract. I’m not going to cry for him. And honestly, if we can get someone to give us a first round pick for him, to have three first round picks this draft, I would do that in a heart beat. I’m all set for the Tim Tebow era to begin in Philadelphia.

Only something funny happened on the way to divorce court. McNabb beat the Cardinals, Giants and Browns, ripped the Cowboys in a win-or-else game and threw for 300 yards in a wild-card playoff victory over the Vikings.

Yeah, well, what about the losses to the Redskins, and the tie against the Bengals. He hasn’t been great this year at all. Westbrook’s 70ish yard screen pass sure helped him rack up those 300 yards passing last Sunday. Seriously, the Eagles offense didn’t look all that impressive against the Vikings. I wouldn’t point to that when talking about how awesome McNabb is.

He's won five of six games in all and thrown for 10 touchdowns against two interceptions in the process.

The one game in those six that they lost was a 10-3 game in Washington. Seriously, the Eagles didn’t score a touchdown against the Redskins. They held their playoff fate in their own hands, and couldn’t get into the endzone against a team that had quit on Jim Zorn about two months earlier.

"I've been kind of revived, I guess," McNabb said.

No, you’re playing with one of the best running backs in the league and a great defense. McNabb hasn’t been all that spectacular. He hasn’t taken over a game by himself once this year, like he did against Arizona when he was playing on a broken ankle. Seriously, is O’Connor writing a sports column or a hagiography?

This year's Eagles are suddenly last year's Giants — a white-hot wild card scaring all the top seeds straight. McNabb is suddenly the same quarterback who completed that fourth-and-26 playoff pass to Freddie Mitchell to beat Favre's Packers in his greatest NFL moment.

I wouldn’t go so far as to compare the Eagles to the Giants. I mean, not to be pessimistic, but what good teams have the Eagles beaten? The Giants, once, and Atlanta. Is that it?

Can he lead the Eagles to their first championship since 1960? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m leaning towards not, but I hope he does it.

Either way, McNabb has proven himself every bit as tough as the town that's tested him for 10 years. He at least deserves an engraved watch for that.

What the hell? Where did the engraved watch come from? That’s at least a suitably random thought to end on for a terrible article.