Thursday, December 15, 2005

Donovan McNabb Gets Slammed Again

         

I am not sure if you've been following it....but there is another Donovan McNabb hater.  The name is J Whyatt Mondesire...and he's the head of the Philly chapter of the NAACP.  He, like Rush Limbaugh and Terrell Owens, basically find McNabb overrated.

A couple of things.  Doesn't the head of the Philly chapter of the NAACP have more on his plate than the QB of the Eagles??  And why is McNabb the one that gets the crap dumped on him??  Not Daunte.  Not Vick.  McNabb

Below is the text of Mondesire in the Philly Sun.  Enjoy!

Attytood: NAACP chief accuses McNabb of playing race card: The whole text

Donovan McNabb: Mediocre at best
By J. Whyatt Mondesire

Hey McNabb!

Yo--Donny! I'm calling you man.

Hey, soup guy, over here!

Donovan E. McNabb, you hear me callin' you. Will you please pay attention?
For a whole lot of years now, we've heard you crying aloud about being taken seriously as a black quarterback who can camp out in the pocket and deliver rifle shots across midfield right into the fingertips of the fleetest of wideouts and tight ends. Say, like a Doug Williams, the brilliant Grambling star quarterback of a generation ago who went on to break a Super Bowl record for touchdown passes in 1988.

Well....well...I've seen you Donovan E. McNabb--in your formative years as well as your mid-career development--and one thing is certain. Donovan E. McNabb you're no Doug Williams.

(The Grambling all-star completed 18 of 29 passes for 340 yards and four touchdowns, capping it off with 35 points in the fourth quarter alone. He followed that performance with three conference championships in 2000, '01 and '02.

Your record is another matter entirely. In fact this whole dismal season so far has really been a testament of fallen dreams and lost opportunities most of which belongs at your feet (or should I say hands) and that of your coach, Andy Reid who has allowed you to perpetuate a fraud on the field while hiding behind excuses dripping in make-believe racial stereotypes.

Normally this column talks very little about sports because the games that grown men play pale in comparison to the great issues of racism, politics, social calamities, health crisis's, war and peace, etc.; which gives us plenty of fertile territory to explore and pontificate about.

However, this week I felt compelled to offer some personal thoughts about your horrific on-field performances this season because at their core, there is a lie you have tried to use to hide the fact that in reality you actually are not that good. In essence Donny, you are mediocre at best. And 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 than one who can summon up dead-on passes at a whim, is more insulting off the field than on.

Your athleticism and unpredictability to sometimes run with the ball earlier in your career not only confused defenses, it also thrilled Eagles fans. At last, said many of us, now we have a multifaceted offensive threat whose talents threaten to not just dominate the NFC East Division, but maybe the whole NFL for several years. We were elated. We were in awe.

We celebrated the boss's giving you that huge lifetime salary deal which meant we'd have you around until it was time for you to join the other retired stars in television's broadcast booth.

But then you played the race card and practically all of us fell for your hustle. You scammed us man and there's no way any longer to refrain from "keepin' it real."

We could have remained silent too, if you had found another way to remain effective and a winner. But when your mediocre talent becomes so apparent it's time to call it out.

Through the first four games, you completed 110 of 174 passes (63.2 percent) for a league-leading 1,333 yards and 11 touchdowns.

However, in your last five games, you connected on just 101 of 183 passes (55.2 percent) for 1,174 yards and five touchdowns, while throwing six interceptions, two of which clearly were game losers.

The sports hernia you suffered after the team's Week 3 win over Oakland clearly is a mega factor in the latter numbers.

But who can forget your mind numbing fourth-quarter collapse in last year's Super Bowl against New England.

Andy Reid may not have seen it. Owner Jeff Lurie may have missed it on the videotaped replay. But Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder "saw" it. You choked brother.

The brash and bombastic Terrell Owens may have committed the unpardonable sin of going public with his put down, but was he fundamentally wrong? The pressure, the hype, the clock--they all just converged and your nerve collapsed under their combined weight. Mediocre isn't horrible in and of itself. Most of us don't live up to our dreams. It's when we fake it that most of the rest of us get irritated.

So, for you to continue to deny we fans (as well as yourself) one of the strongest elements of your game by claiming that "everybody expects black quarterbacks to scramble" not only amounts to a breach of faith but also belittles the real struggles of black athletes who've had to overcome real racial stereotypcasting in addition to downright segregation.

College football in the South didn't drop its White Only wall until 1966 four years after James Meredith, while trying to enroll at Ole Miss, which went 10-0 that year, even as its practice field was covered federal troops who had bivouacked there.

Earlier this month Sports Illustrated reporting pioneering black players in the vaunted SEC had to endure serious hardships, such as "Fritz Pollard, the black all-America at Brown during World War I, (who) had learned to spin on his back and thrust his cleats in the air when tackled, to protect himself from late hits; how Iowa State's Jack Trice was trampled to death during a 1923 game against Minnesota; and how in 1951, on the first play from scrimmage, an Oklahoma A&M player broke the jaw of Drake running back Johnny Bright, forcing him to abandon football and causing the school to withdraw in protest from the Missouri Valley Conference."

Hey Donny, see any difference yet in your trumped up racial views and those pioneers?

Taken together, your pretty decent arm, strong desire to win, and your instinctive ability to scramble in the backfield gave you an awesome package. Take away any one of the legs from this tripod, and whole thing falls flat as you are right now as you recuperate from the surgery that was long overdue the day you entered the hospital.

Finally, your failure as a team leader off the field to my mind did as much as anything to exacerbate the debacle that has become synonymous with T.O.'s full name.

Professional football is really more about money that sport. The fans know it. The players signs contracts for it. And, of course the owners know it, since they are first and last ones to count it when the season ends.

Just think how the whole media circus could have been avoided had you had the courage to offer only a tiny fraction of your bonus this year to Owens and running back, Brian Westbrook.
The gesture alone would have prompted these guys to run through walls for you. The rest of the team would have praised you. And what the heck were Lurie and team president Joe Banner going to do publicly if they objected or thought you had reach out-of-bounds. Fire you?

Yeah right. Let's really do "keep it real."

Leaders who make sacrifices are the stuff of legends. Who remembers a hoarder except for maybe Midas?

Hey Donny...soup guy! Pull your head out of your million-dollar Campbell's soup bowl for a moment ask which current quarterback in fact made a gesture like that for members of his squad.

Does the name Tom Brady ring a bell? Isn't he the guy who took home last year's Super Bowl ring while you standing in the soup line?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think all this is is the final trump card by T.O.

I wondered how far down the letter I would get before T.O.'s name appeared.

This all a bunch of political crap. And I surmise that T.O. paid the NAACP leader of Philly...to get McNabb outta Philly....

It makes sense doesn't it? T.O. got fired from the Eagles..and so turn about is fair play.

It's childish...just like T.O. has always been.

Lew

Anonymous said...

this guy is supposetly from the NAACP trashing McNabb like this worse tham Limbaugh (and he's wrong), WOW

Anonymous said...

this guy is supposetly from the NAACP trashing McNabb like this worse tham Limbaugh (and he's wrong), WOW

Anonymous said...

let this wanna-be have the injuries like mcnabb and see how he performs ,ok you had your 5 minutes of fame mc nabb is all right

Anonymous said...

"The brash and bombastic Terrell Owens may have committed the unpardonable sin of going public with his put down, but was he fundamentally wrong?"
Mr. Mondesire: how does your comments differ? You are the pot calling the kettle black!! You are utterly disgusting and you wear the NAACP hat no matter which podium you stand on, I am calling for an immediate resignation. If you are a friend I am truly afraid of the enemy!

Anonymous said...

You want to see the NAACP get it wrong when it really counts, read my blawg entries from 18 June, 13 December and today, 16 December.

I was their legal redress chair in Nashua, NH until they got scared of The Man and threw me under the bus.

http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-naacp-failed-to-do.html

Don't forget to grab some popcorn and watch the movies over at the website, www.christopherkingesq.com.

I have not spoken with my cousin (Wilbon) about this yet; but I'm sure it will be an interesting discussion.

Peace.

Anonymous said...

This NAACP president is obviously a headcase. He should have bigger fish to fry then that of the local NFL team. I see no point to his comments. He's an embarrassment. i hope that the national NAACP president removes this neanderthal from office before he says something else stupid.....and take that stupid cowboy hat off, you're not in Texas. You're in Pennsylvania.

Anonymous said...

I would be far angrier about this if I could understand what the hell his point was.

He starts off with Mcnaab not scrambling as a quarterback and his using the race card to explain why he doesn't and why that's wrong... Ok.  I might not agree but sure lets hear why he thinks that.

And then he goes off on a tangent and discusses the super bowl loss.  That gets connected how exactly?  Is he making the conclusion that if he had scrambled more in the super bowl the Eagles might ad a better chance to win?  OK.  That takes a bit of a stretch but it's connected enough.  Any other way that whole paragraph makes sense that I'm missing?

He goes back to the scrambling/race issue.  Fair enough.

Then he builds an argument no one implied by comparing Mcnaab's race issues to that of black players who's career's were met with horrible discriminations as if to imply that Mcnaab was comparing himself to these players.  McNaab has never said he suffers discrimination.  All he's stated is that as a black quarterback, if he scrambles he'll be labeled an out of pocket passer who isn't a pure quarterback.  Let me ask the question the author asked to us:  Is he fundamentally wrong in thinking so?  

Then he goes off on the leadership bender.  Which has no bearing on the race card issue that he's initially pissed about.

Then he goes off on the money issue which has even less bearing on the race card issue that he's initially pissed about.  

He concludes with the Tom Brady comparison, which has no bearing on the initial point.

Mr. Mondesire needs to make a point and stick with it.  His tangent hopping is well beyond even the most ADHD riddled writers.  This started as a potentially valid complaint and ended up as an all out attack on McNaab's charachter and for that Mr. Mondesire has lost all credibility.  At least to me.

YCS

Anonymous said...

Now it makes a bit more sense.  Mr. Mondesire plans on running for Mayor of Philly in 2007.

This looks like a calculated move to simply get his name in the Philly media.  Charachter defamation to get attention?  Sounds like a politician to me.  Do it late enough to get the name recognizable, but not so late so people will remember exactly what you said.  What we have here does not appear to be someone looking out for the best interests of the people he represents with the NAACP, rather it's born out of a selfish motive for political gain.  

Look at the timing of it.  He goes after an injured QB who hasn't played in what 4 weeks and hasn't been healthy since what?  Week 1?  It makes no sense to hae this article written now.  With the exception of 2002 Mcnabb's rushing yards have been going consistently downward for the last 5 years.  This isn't some recent development.  

Was Mcnabb Mediocre last year when his rushing total was a career low?  He took Philly to the Super Bowl and had a QB rating of over 100.  How very mediocre.  

I wish I could simply write this guy off as an idiot.  Unfortunately this seems way too calculated and purposeful for that to be the case.  This was a cold blooded blind side attack.  I dislike this guy more with every word I type about him.

According to CNNSSI.COM writer Stephen Cannella, the CEO of the NAACP Bruce Gordon called Mondesire's comments out of line and apologized to Mcnabb.  It's clear that his comments are bieng isolated.  I can only hope that this bites him in the ass in 2007.

YCS