McNabb stands tall in pocket, speaks his mind

Black quarterbacks have come a long way in the NFL.

So they say . . .

yo lika shout out to brotha mike on the dc peeps today 4 the story. one, bruh.

As presented by Michael Wilbon

Columnist

Updated: 12:19 p.m. ET Sept 21, 2007

Michael Wilbon Columnist

Thankfully, Donovan McNabb had the guts to stand tall in the pocket with critics trying to knock his head off. Thankfully, McNabb, at 30, has some sense of the NFL beyond his own participation. Most celebrity athletes talk only when paid to talk, and usually about something benign if not downright useless.

McNabb, however, had something very real to say in a conversation with James Brown of HBO. He said black quarterbacks are under more scrutiny and criticized more harshly than white quarterbacks. Why this has become a hot button topic I have no idea. It's not like McNabb called anybody a racist or a bigot. He said that black quarterbacks face more criticism than white quarterbacks, than Peyton Manning or Carson Palmer, just to name two. And he's right, just as black politicians or entertainers or writers are scrutinized more closely, whether it's professionally or driving home in the middle of the night from work.

Anybody who doubts McNabb needs only to walk around one of the upper-concourse areas of Lincoln Financial Field late in a game when, as several white friends have told me, the frequent use of the word "nigger" preceding McNabb's name during a losing performance is so casual it sickens them. Rex Grossman, just to name one white quarterback who has to deal with daily criticism, doesn't have to be on the wrong end of that kind of hateful venom, even though he'll never be half the quarterback McNabb has been.

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All quarterbacks are criticized; it's the nature of the business. Joe Montana, John Elway, Brett Favre . . . they've all faced it, especially in this age of nonstop talk and analysis. Quarterback is the most important position, the most high-profile position in American sports, and nothing else comes close. The praise and criticism are both extreme to the point of absurdity.


McNabb has a $100 million contract and those Chunky Soup commercials for one reason: he's a quarterback. Most NFL players are completely unrecognizable out of their jerseys, but McNabb is so well known his mother has her own commercial success.






Undeniably, this is progress. It was unimaginable 20 years ago when Doug Williams led the Redskins to a Super Bowl victory. Williams might as well have been a Martian that Super Bowl week, as reporters crowded around him to ask how he felt about making history. Remember, Warren Moon is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but no NFL team would draft him out of the University of Washington in 1978, even though he led his team to the Rose Bowl. It wasn't enough. Scouts tried to talk him into changing positions so that some team would draft him, but he wouldn't and went to Canada. He had to leave this country to play quarterback professionally.Black quarterbacks have come a long, long way. Just seeing James Harris and Williams play in the 1970s brought black folks to tears. I'm elated that I can't even name all the black players who play quarterback these days. The Jacksonville Jaguars ended last season with three. Vince Young, two years ago, was drafted ahead of Matt Leinart, and JaMarcus Russell, this spring, was drafted ahead of Brady Quinn. Leinart and Quinn are prototypical, perhaps even stereotypical, white, in-the-pocket, Golden Boy quarterbacks.