In judging Donovan McNabb’s career with the Eagles, it’s time to stop going to extremes | Mike Sielski

If it’s possible for a former NFL star to be underrated and overrated at the same time, Donovan McNabb has managed to pull off the trick. But then, there’s always been that polarity, that impulse to go to extremes, whenever you start discussing McNabb and his 11 years with the Eagles. The discussion resumed again Wednesday, three days ahead of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony. After his Kansas City Chiefs had finished practice, Andy Reid was asked whether McNabb deserved enshrinement.

“Listen, I’m his biggest fan,” Reid told reporters. “I was there. I know he belongs there. When you talk about the great players in the National Football League – five championship games, the Super Bowl, all those things – [he was] a good football player, a great football player. Did some things that weren’t being done at that particular time in a lot of areas. I think the world of him.”

There’s a lot going on in Reid’s answer, and one of the least interesting aspects is the question of whether McNabb ought to be in the Hall of Fame. Reid hits the highlights of the strongest case one could make – that McNabb was a forerunner of the big, strong, mobile passers now common in the league, that his team’s consistent success should elevate his candidacy as it has for other inductees – but the overall body and quality of work just aren’t there.

In an era when Tom Brady was winning three Super Bowls in four years and Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees were rewriting passing records and a quarterback who was comparable to McNabb in substance and style (Steve McNair) earned a significant accolade (NFL MVP) that he did not, it’s difficult to make a compelling argument for McNabb. We’re coming up on 15 years since the best season of his career, 2004, when he threw 31 touchdown passes, posted a 104.7 passer rating, led the Eagles to Super Bowl XXXIX, and showed what he might have done had the team not waited so long to get him Terrell Owens or another elite wide receiver. That he didn’t have more seasons like that one isn’t necessarily his fault, but he probably needed more of them to earn the benefit of the doubt from the Hall’s voters.

Again, though, when it comes to McNabb and Canton, the attendant issues are more fascinating. Over the 20 years since the Eagles drafted McNabb, Reid’s loyalty to him hasn’t waned or wavered. McNabb was his first draft pick, the first quarterback Reid had a chance, as an NFL head coach, to mold into a star. During their time together here, Reid had a stock description of McNabb: “I think he’s the best in the business.” Whether Reid was lauding McNabb after a great performance or defending him after a subpar one, he’d use that line, and it always came off as if he was laying on the praise a bit too thick, as if he knew McNabb wanted or needed to hear how wonderful he was.

In that context, it was no surprise that McNabb told TMZ in May, “I’m not hesitating on that. I am a Hall of Famer,” or that he has been less than enthusiastic about the prospects of Carson Wentz’s leading the Eagles to another Super Bowl victory. He seems desperate to remind everyone of his own achievements instead of letting his career speak for itself.

But that’s just it: Perhaps he doesn’t believe it can speak for itself anymore. The Eagles traded McNabb to the Washington Redskins in the spring of 2010, and the years since have been kinder to Reid’s legacy than they have to McNabb’s. McNabb’s career fizzled away in 2010 and 2011, with the Redskins and Minnesota Vikings, but Reid has only enhanced his reputation as a quarterback whisperer. He revitalized Michael Vick’s career. He turned Alex Smith into a three-time Pro Bowler. He pinpointed Patrick Mahomes as the NFL’s next great quarterback prospect, traded up to draft him, and groomed him into the reigning league MVP.

Yet for all of Reid’s tutoring and coaching and molding, as brilliant as he was and could be, McNabb never quite became the superstar that everyone hoped or expected he would. There was ample evidence to suggest it would happen. There were moments when it appeared a formality: the divisional-round victory in his hometown over the Chicago Bears, his fourth-and-26 completion and overall marvelous game against the Green Bay Packers in January 2004, the Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials with his mother, the confident affability he projected. He was on his way, but for any number of reasons – injuries, Ronde Barber, Brady and the Patriots – he never quite got there.

That relative failure doesn’t and shouldn’t diminish McNabb’s importance, then and now, to the Eagles. For a decade, he was their centerpiece. He provided a priceless measure of stability and excellence, at football’s most important position, to a franchise that needed both. Those accomplishments are worthy of respect. They just aren’t likely to make him an immortal in the eyes of those who judge such matters. No one should undervalue those accomplishments. No one should overstate them. Everyone should just take Donovan McNabb for who he was, starting with Donovan McNabb.