Donovan McNabb, The Greatest Football Player Ever

Here it is, for the record - Donovan McNabb is the greatest football player of all time.

There, I said it. Apparently, that is all anyone is allowed to write about the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, because to dare to say anything else will bring the wrath of the media upon you.

This week, while the Super Bowl was being traditionally over-hyped, the most over-hyped story of this season, the battle between McNabb and perennial trouble-maker Terrell Owens, surfaced again. McNabb inexplicably broke his silence on his feud with T.O. to address the situation under the white-hot glare of Super Bowl hype.

Better to be thought a fool that open your mouth and remove all doubt. McNabb should have continued to follow this advice, since his comments were just as inflammatory as Owens'.

McNabb suggested, in part, that Owens' comment that the injury-plagued and underachieveing Eagles would be a playoff contender if Brett Favre were the team's quarterback was equivalent to "black on black crime" and were clearly racially motivated. Never mind that it was actually ESPN's Michael Irvin who first suggested the name of Brett Favre and that Owens was simply responding to a reporter's query about Irvin's comments.

McNabb went on to say that if T.O. wanted to suggest someone else should be quarterback of the Eagles, he should have suggested another black quarterback, like Steve McNair of the Titans. McNabb also talked about the struggles of being a black quarterback in the NFL.

All this, of course, comes just two years after McNabb suggested that the concept of race should not an issue in the flap behind Rush Limbaugh's comments that the media was interested in having a black quarterback do well.

Rush may not have been right about black quarterbacks in general, but there seems to be some Omerta-like shroud of protection around McNabb that defies belief. To borrow a phrase from "The Usual Suspects", this guy is protected from on high by the prince of darkness.

McNabb is immune from media criticism like no other NFL player, almost approaching the God-like status placed on Michael Jordan during the 1990s. The media came rushing to his defense in the Limbaugh flap (costing Limbaugh his ESPN gig, even though the ciriticism was of the media and not of McNabb). They came swooping in again with Owens and completely destroyed the head of the Philadelphia NAACP, J. Whyatt Mondesire, who dared criticze McNabb.

The only problem is, as opposed to Limbaugh, the people who have been ciriticizing Donovan McNabb of late have been black. Owens, Mondesire, and most recently the Eagles' own Hugh Douglas have all offered criticism of McNabb.

If a black person criticizing McNabb is black on black crime, then call the police, because I guess I am about to commit a hate crime, seeing as how I am white.

Look, no one is denying that McNabb is a good quarterback. He is one of the toughest guys that has played in the past few years, including playing with broken bones and his sports hernia this season.

The Philaelphia Eagles have been wildly successful with McNabb under center, making it to four straight NFC championship games and one Super Bowl before injuries decimated the Eagles this season.

The standard chorus of praise for McNabb reads like a lyric from a hymnbook - "Donovan McNabb, who led the Eagles to four straight NFC championship games". An impressive feat, but a somewhat dubious one, much like the Atlanta Braves' string of 15 straight division titles but only 3 World Series appearances.

So maybe before we start mentioning McNabb with the likes of Montana and Elway, maybe we had better mention him in the same category with Jake Delhomme, Rich Gannon, Brad Johnson, and Trent Dilfer. What do those guys have in common with McNabb? They each went to one Super Bowl. Oh wait, Johnson and Dilfer actually won the Super Bowl they played in. And Delhomme has led the Panthers to two NFC championship games in three years - not quite the same as McNabb's feat of four straight, but impressive nonetheless. But you'll not hear Delhomme and McNabb uttered in the same breath of "elite" quarterbacks.