Saying Something about Romo and Leadership

This is dumb.

Donovan McNabb, Hall-of Famer?

Mike Greenberg, on ESPN Radios Mike and Mike in the Morning, is trying to argue that Donovan McNabb is a Hall-of-Famer.

His basis for doing this is that:

1) Donovan McNabb will have better numbers than Troy Aikman when he retires.
2) Donovan McNabb will have better numbers than Steve Young when he retires.
3) Both Troy Aikman and Steve Young are Hall-of-Famers.

He also says that Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady are the sure-fire Hall-of-Famers from this era. Does McNabb belong in the same category with these guys?

There is no doubt that players in the current era will have the strongest passing statistics of players in any era ever. So the direct comparison to Young/Aikman is already imperfect.

I'll get to Aikman/McNabb in a minute. Here's Young vs. McNabb in career rate totals.

Completion Percentage
Steve Young 64.3
Donovan McNabb 58.9

Yards per Attempt
Steve Young 8.0
Donovan McNabb 6.8

TD Rate
Steve Young 5.6%
Donovan McNabb 4.5%

Sack Rate
Steve Young 7.94%
Donovan McNabb 6.96%

INT Rate
Steve Young 2.6%
Donovman McNabb 2.1%

Passer Rating
Steve Young 96.8
Donovan McNabb 85.9

I included stats where McNabb was better to show how close it was in comparison to Young, and without coming up with a complicated era regression multiplier to normalize the numbers. On all stats that don't pertain directly to negative plays, McNabb is clearly inferior to Young, and it really isn't even all that close. I don't have any idea how Greenberg is claiming that McNabb has better numbers than Young. Even ignoring the elephant in the room -- the fact that McNabb played in a big passing era on a big passing team -- he's still not even remotely comparable to Steve Young on merit.

But since "compares well to Steve Young" is not necessarily a hall of fame criteria, let's look at Greenberg's other comparison: Troy Aikman.

McNabb actually compares much better to Aikman.

Completion Percentage
Troy Aikman 61.5
Donovan McNabb 58.9

Yards per Attempt
Troy Aikman 7.0
Donovan McNabb 6.8

TD Rate
Troy Aikman 3.5%
Donovan McNabb 4.5%

Sack Rate
Troy Aikman 5.21%*
Donovan McNabb 6.96%

*Well above average for the time, but again, Aikman's protection was particularly outstanding, perhaps the best in history. McNabb's had very good protection by current standards, but nothing like Aikman.

INT Rate
Troy Aikman 3.0%
Donovman McNabb 2.1%

Passer Rating
Troy Aikman 81.6
Donovan McNabb 85.9

Aikman, statistically, is a much better McNabb comparable. Although era-adjusted Aikman would put McNabb to shame, Aikman's best years are concentrated in the six best years in the history of the Cowboys franchise: 1991-1996. In those seasons, he never posted a completion percentage below 63.7. Outside of those seasons, he never got above 59.5. That's unheard of, and probably had everything to do with the talent around him. Aikman's 61.5% career figure is one he not ever came within two points in any single season. Astounding.

But here's the point: A random player with Troy Aikman's numbers is NOT a hall-of-famer. That's the big point here. Troy Aikman is in Canton because and only because he won three Super Bowls, not because he was a particularly great passer. Donovan McNabb is also not a particularly great passer, and happens to have no Super Bowls. If he can win his next two games, he will have a single Super Bowl. And he still won't have anywhere near Aikman's credentials for hall-of-fame selection.

Although, if you want to use the innovator angle on McNabb, he is widely credited with bringing the bounce pass to football. That's got to be worth something, right?

Look, Donovan McNabb is a good player. But if he goes in the Hall-of-Fame for any reason but sympathy, then what do you tell Jeff Garcia?

Or Mark Brunell?

Or Rich Gannon?

Or Chad Pennington?

Or Steve McNair?

Or Trent Green

Or Marc Bulger

Or Matt Hasselbeck?

Or, eventually, (in no specific order) Jay Cutler, Carson Palmer, Phillip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Brady Quinn, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan, or Joe Flacco?

Most, if not all, of those guys will never make the hall of fame. But if Donovan McNabb deserves it, don't all those guys deserve at least the same honor, if not a greater one?

Donovan McNabb and Hall-of-Fame, probably the worst thing said this entire football season.

One more word, pre-Heisman

ESPN's Chris Fowler, making the argument for Florida Quarterback/H-back Tim Tebow's Heisman credentials:

"Well, he's not going to win the stats argument...his stats are down from last year"

Tim Tebow, Passer Effiency 2007: 172.5
Tim Tebow, Passer Effiency 2008: 176.8

Tim Tebow, Interception % 2008: 0.75 (!)
Sam Bradford, Interception % 2008: 1.4
Colt McCoy, Interception % 2008: 1.9

Tim Tebow, Interception % 2007: 1.7

Actually, I'd say the stats argument is a pretty good one for Tebow.

Editors Note: If I had a vote for Heisman, I would take McCoy. His completion percentage is downright insane, and he did it with the least amount of offensive firepower of the three. This post is just to show that Tebow's got a good argument for his candidacy through stats, probably better than last year. It's just that, it's college football, so why would anyone look past TD totals when they refer to "stats".

Hat tip, Dr. Saturday

Tim Tebow. Heisman Winner. H-Back?

Mel Kiper Jr. on Sports Center today (12/11, bottom half of 2 o'clock EST hour) just suggested taking Tebow in the first two rounds, and then converting him to an H-Back. I don't often agree with Todd McShay, but I have to think that he was on to something when he explained that you probably don't draft an H-Back in the first round, especially when "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IF HE CAN CATCH".

Kiper countered that no one knew Antawn Randle El could catch "until the Super Bowl". Redskins fans disagree: they still don't think he can catch.

Right now...

Right this very minute, ESPN2's First Take is interviewing a William Penn impersonator...about a curse...based on the fact that there are now buildings in Philadelphia that reach higher than his likeness perched atop City Hall. He was asked how this will affect their chances of winning the World Series and what he thought of the city putting jerseys on the statue in the past.

Let that fester for a moment.

William Penn. Impersonator. Being interviewed. On ESPN. About a "curse".

It really makes those mohawks and "9=8" shirts seem sensible and classy doesn't it.

There's a reason Merril Hoge isn't the Commish

So I had Sportscenter on today, and Merrill Hoge was talking about the Broncos-Chargers game this weekend. So the question was, whether or not he liked the gutsy call by Shanahan to go for two at the end of overtime.

Naturally, I expected him to say that he liked it. For one thing, every ESPN commentator that has said anything about it has been singing Shanahan's praises relentlessly, and for another it worked...so of course they take his side.

Hoge decides to take that plan a few steps further, or perhaps several light-years further. Merril Hoge steps up on the soap box and suggests that field goals and extra points be banned entirely during the last 5 minutes of a football game. Go for it on fourth down, even if it's 4th and goal from the 33. Go for two. As he said, "we're not going to do anything to overtime, so let's just keep games from going in to overtime".

Other things that would keep games from going into overtime: if a game ends in a tie, have the coaches whip it out and see who is bigger; if a home team can't win in regulation, the away team should be declared the winner; have Ed Hochuli arm wrestle the coaches, and the coach with less bone and ligament damage be declared the winner. All of those would make more sense than making a team go for it on 4th and goal from the 33 with 10 seconds left, trailing by 3 points. Not to mention: five minutes? How did Hoge come up with that? So if a game is tied 28-28 at the end of the first quarter and there is no further scoring in regulation, then overtime is ok but we can't have a game become tied in the last five minutes?

Oh, and just for the sake of argument, how is taking the strategy out of the coaches hands more exciting than sudden death overtime? Granted there are A LOT of problems with sudden death overtime, but remember this is the instituion that brought us the back-to-back walk-off interception returns for touchdowns by Mike Brown. Honestly, stupid shit like this is why people hated the XFL.

Have you no shame, ESPN?

So I was flipping through channels yesterday and I paused a moment on ESPN. This is what I saw. (Young readers, or those with an acute sensitivity to frivolousness should avert their eyes.)

They were showing the results of a poll on who has the cooler helmet, USC or South Florida. The show was College Football Live. I thought at first that maybe this was just a segue from the commercial break, but boy was I wrong. The show is conducting a "tournament" to decide who has the best looking helmets in college football. The international leader in televised sports analysis was devoting time to critique the logos and color schemes. I quickly checked to make sure that I wasn't watching HGTV or some What Not To Wear special on TLC. Indeed my suspicion was right, ESPN the "worldwide sports leader" had made this into a feature. In a moment that epitomizes not only ESPN's pro-frivolity bias and their pro-USC bias, Reece Davis proceeded to browbeat the voters for choosing South Florida's helmet over USC's.

So after devoting a good deal of minutes to this, they segue to some analysis. They take viewer questions about if South Florida will win the Big East, and if Notre Dame will lose their opener at home to SDSU. The answers given were a quick yes and a quick no. And then they pick the biggest future upset. After a minute or so of that, Reece Davis spends the rest of the show browbeating the voters for undervaluing USC's helmet.

Alright, I know that it's the offseason and such and they can only devote so many minutes of each show to pretending to know the things about which they're talking. Come on though, this is like their moronic "Who's Now?" circle jerk, except less related to sports. I never thought that I would type those words. Less related to sports than "Who's Now?", that's really saying something.