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BUCKY FOX |
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Syndrome |
 Donovan McNabb ...overrated? |
Was Limbaugh right about QB Donovan McNabb?
By BUCKY FOX
of TheColumnists.com
Another Super Bowl has passed without a black quarterback winning it.
You have to go all the way back to January 1988 to find one: Doug Williams, whose hefty 340 yards heaved the Redskins to a 42-10 rout of John Elway’s Broncos.
Then nothing.
Tennessee’s Steve McNair came a yard short in the 2000 Super Bowl. McNair and three other black quarterbacks started in this season’s playoffs, only to fall miles short of Houston.
So, 16 years since Williams’ big breakthrough. It’s an amazing drought, what with black athletes dominating the National Football League.
And it’s a big deal to the league and the media that cover it. They’re dying for a black athlete to win it all at the game’s star position.
Which explains the uproar over Rush Limbaugh’s darts at the start of this season. He exposed that media sensitivity concerning black quarterbacks, and all he caught was a big sack.
Well, guess what. Rush Limbaugh is having the last laugh.
Or at least the latest chortle after his Donovan McNabb analysis proved spot on in the National Football Conference title game. McNabb quarterbacked the Eagles to a loss in that round for the third straight year.
Another season full of McNabb huzzahs from football pundits. Another crunch-time flopperoo.
Man, must the media hate it that Limbaugh’s intelligence surfaced. Way back in September he said on ESPN that sports media overrated McNabb because he’s black. The only writer who agreed was Slate.com’s Allen Barra, who admitted he 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.”
OK. The media rooting for McNabb is really just pulling for another underdog. Nothing wrong with that. It’s no different than reporters going through contortions to make the four straight majors won by Tiger Woods and Serena Williams sound like legitimate grand slams, even though they covered different calendar years.
Newspapers, TV and radio love it when black athletes do well in traditionally non-black sports. Think of the reaction to a black NASCAR champion. Or a black slalom gold medalist. The media would go gaga.
It’s all good.
And yet most sports reporters wouldn’t have any of this. Limbaugh’s media message didn’t fit into America’s diversity script, so they tried like mad to hit the kill button. Or make the Rush view look ridiculous.
They did exactly that right after Limbaugh’s declaration. The media’s strategy: Mock the issue of black quarterbacks as boring.
John Feinstein, normally enlightening, told Howard Kurtz on CNN that the issue of black quarterbacks might’ve been big news 20 years ago, but now it’s old news. The same idea came from ESPN’s Steve Young, who said black quarterbacks permeate the National Football League, so really what could Rush be talking about?
Here’s what he’s talking about: A league of 32 teams has black players winning at every big position--except the biggest one. You better believe it’s still a big issue.
If you don’t think so, check out how the NFL and its media slobber over themselves selling Atlanta’s Michael Vick. About the only reporter who has stayed dry is Sports Illustrated’s Paul Zimmerman, who pondered how long Vick would avoid injury the way he constantly scrambled. As it turned out, not long. Vick missed most of this season because of a broken leg in an exhibition game.
Limbaugh’s best contribution is he makes you think. He sure accomplished that with his sports media salvo.
He also did so while lauding Bill Belichick when doing so sounded crazy. It came on ESPN’s pregame show after the NFL’s opening week. The New England coach had cut Lawyer Milloy, whose Buffalo Bills made the Pats pay with a 31-0 whipping.
Belichick looked like a drag, and ESPN’s Young and Tom Jackson piled on by saying the coach lost control of the team.
Limbaugh said hogwash, that Belichick was simply running a business. And by the way, added Rush, the Patriots would recover and go to the Super Bowl.
So who was the expert? Limbaugh the political commentator? Or Young/Jackson of NFL fame?
No contest. Limbaugh. And soon thereafter he would be run off ESPN for his media/McNabb comment.
As for Young and Jackson, they flaunted their NFL ties by ripping the ousted Rush.
It’s so typical of TV types and even sports writers. They’re not embeds. They’re in bed with the leagues and players they cover. Which is really the nut of Limbaugh’s remark.
Sometimes all you have to do is challenge assumptions.
Such as: Limbaugh says he quit ESPN because of the reaction to his black-QB remark. Did any TV commentator question whether he quit because of the investigation into his pain killers, a story that came to light the day after he and the Disney-owned channel parted ways? No.
Most sports reporters probably won’t admit it, but Limbaugh affected their McNabb coverage this season.
Yes, coverage overall kept McNabb on his pedestal. Yet here and there--from ESPN’s Merril Hoge in particular--came voices doubting his passing prowess. It was an angle you never heard before Limbaugh’s burst.
Overall, TV couldn’t handle the truth. Fox’s TV people particularly reamed Rush during the playoffs: A comedy skit painted him as racist, with a McNabb double pummeling him; and analyst Cris Collinsworth said a football belonged in Limbaugh’s mouth.
Then came the Eagle dive in the NFC final, with McNabb at the helm.
So Limbaugh was right. McNabb is overrated. But he’s still a tough quarterback. And he could win the Super Bowl in 2005. Then that black QB slump would stop at 17 years.
©2004 by Bucky Fox. The photo is courtesy of the NFL.
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