J. Whyatt Mondesire is a Moron!In what I can only describe as an idiotic and pointless display of his inability to understand the NFL, history, football in general and race as it pertains to the sports world, J. Whyatt Mondesire (President of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP) wrote a scathing editorial about Donovan McNabb yesterday. Among other things, he accused McNabb of selling out his race (because he doesn't run the ball enough), blamed him for the Owens turmoil (because he didn't donate his salary to the biggest cancer in the NFL) and essentially brushed aside the fact that his performance this year has been GREATLY influenced by the multiple injuries he has suffered.
Let me speak to this last point, first. Donovan McNabb has a HERNIA. A tear in the muscles lining your abdomen, and a big one. If you've never had one, you can't understand how much it hurts. It's unbearable. For this injury (let alone the bruised sternum and severe groin pull) to be shrugged off by the pundits is a mistake. Throwing a football or running at all SHOULD be impossible, but McNabb sucked it up, made no excuses and tried his best to play through it. Mondesire's inability to understand how much this injury affected McNabb's play is a testament to his lack of experience with pro sports, injuries and physical pain in general.
Next, let's address the claim that McNabb is selling out, because he is a black quarterback and isn't running the ball enough. Now, don't get me wrong, regardless of the injury, I wish McNabb would run the ball more. I do. I think there have been multiple times this year where I have thought that teams realized that he simply wasn't going to run, and therefore, have neglected to "spy" him (a term I'm sure Mondesire wouldn't understand. "Spying" is where you dedicate a linebacker or strong safety to the complete, isolated defense of the QB scramble/run on a given play). If McNabb ran the ball a few more time (again, assuming good health) I think it would do the Birds some good.
Having said that, I see no reason why McNabb is "selling out" because he has dedicated himself to the West Coast offense and to becoming a good pocket passer. McNabb isn't selling anyone out. He's doing his job. He'd be selling out his teammates if he ran simply because Mondesire told him it was the 'black' thing to do. In the offense he plays in, he must allow passing situations to develop. If he doesn't, and gets happy feet, and runs often, like Mondesire suggests, he will kill the West Coast offense that Reid has implemented. Don't forget that Mr. Happy Feet, Michael Vick, lost to McNabb in the NFC championship last year and the winner of the Super Bowl has been a pocket passer for a decade. Don't forget that McNabb had the best TD/INT ratio in the league (and for years) last year with 30 TDs and only 8 ints. He also ran for 220 yards and 3 touchdowns. He threw three bad passes in the Super Bowl (which led to a close loss) and no one recognizes that fact as much as I do. But his performance in the Super Bowl is unrelated to his recent lack of running ability.
Again, it's mostly to do with injury, offense, coaching, talent of his WRs and strategy. Donovan ran when he was younger because he struggled with reading defenses (as many young QBs do) and he had terrible receivers that couldn't get open (anyone remember Na Brown?). Last year, he had a good receiving corps, and therefore, needed to run less. He ran Reid's offense to perfection. It's a tough offense, and it requires precision. Last year they had that precision. They had all the necessary parts. This year he hasn't been healthy, he hasn't had TO, he hasn't had some of his O-line, he hasn't had Pinkston and as a result, he has struggled with the passing. If McNabb was having the same season he had last year, would his lack of running be an issue? NO! It's unfortunate that Mondesire is taking this cheap shot at a player who has already suffered enough and, in my mind, has done ONLY good things for the NFL, his teammates, his city and for the perception of professional athletes in general (of ANY race!). McNabb has been classy under fire, even when caught in the middle of some terrible media scrutiny. He has dealt with his own imperfections well and he will continue to improve. He has not lashed out, reacted with harsh words or been overtly negative to even his worst critics. McNabb is a class act, and young athletes of any race, in any sport, should take a page out of his book of decorum. (I'd simply advise them to avoid throwing the ball to Tedy Bruschi...)
Finally, Mondesire calls McNabb out for not donating his money to The Mouth (or, T.O. to the lay person). Are you kidding me? Somehow, it's McNabb's fault for being paid richly after becoming the most important Philly athlete since Dr. J? Gimme a break. T.O. signed a friggen' contract!! It paid him millions of dollars a year! It was a LONG TERM contract, worth about 8 million a year! And somehow, Mondesire is blaming McNabb for not shelling out more for a guy who has now proven, over and over, that all he cares about is himself? Good grief! Mondesire spins it as if it's McNabb's fault that TO held out and created a media circus... as if McNabb somehow opressed TO and
forced him to act like a brat. This is too much. Listen, lots of guys get paid well. That has no bearing on whether their teammates should throw hissy fits. McNabb is completely free of responsibility, and for the amount of crap he's had to deal with, I'd say McNabb has earned every penny of his lifetime contract. It's not as if he put the Eagles in a position where they had no cap room... they have more cap room that 95% of the league!! McNabb is free of blame, in this regard. That issue is between the Eagles and T.O..
Mondesire may be right that McNabb is no Tom Brady (arguably the best pure winner in the NFL's recent history), and he hasn't won a Super Bowl like Doug Williams. But that is not really the issue, right? Is that your complaint, Mondesire? I hope not, because that would be pathetic.
Regardless, it's important to note that McNabb is far better than 'mediocre', as Mondesire describes him. Mark Brunell is mediocre. Kerry Collins is mediocre. Aaron Brooks is mediocre. McNabb is very, very good. One of the best. And when his team has recovered from this terrible turn of events/string of bad luck, he will be back. Throwing, winning, and when necessary, running. I promise.
It's easy to pick on a guy when his team is losing, when he's just been under the knife and when his teammates are injured or suspended. I look forward to Mondesire's thoughts when the Eagles are winning again.
Until then, this is what I think, take it or leave it.
(below you can see the article written 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?
