NAACP Chief Attacks McNabb

Strage article where the head of the NAACP attacks Donovan McNabb for “playing the race card”


In yesterday’s Daily News, our identical cousin William Bunch has a piece about the surprising slam on injured Eagles QB Donovan McNabb from the head of the NAACP in Philadelphia, J. Whyatt “Jerry” Mondesire. Mondesire, publisher of the black-oriented Philadelphia Sun newspaper, launched his anti-McNabb screed in a column this Sunday in his own paper.

He calls McNabb a “mediocre” quarterback and weak leader who “played the race card” by consciously switching styles from a QB who frequently ran – the stereotype of a “black quarterback” – to a traditional pocket passer. Unfortunately, the entire column has not been available online – until now.

Here it is below (with generous permission from its author). The opinions are Mondesire’s – not ours. In fact, we’ll give you our thoughts at the end:

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?

Attytood’s take? There’s two ways to look at it. From a pure football point of view, Mondesire scores some direct hits. Look at McNabb’s stats, and you’ll probably agree that he was more of an offensive weapon when he ran the ball more often. Also, the 4th quarter of last year’s Super Bowl and his actions during the T.O. follies clearly show that McNabb – while a decent man and a good role model for youth – isn’t really a team leader-type, and that has hurt the Eagles.

But “playing the race card”? That’s taking it a little too far – especially when, as we note in our Daily News piece – he’s never explicitly said that race motivated his on-the-field actions. Some of the “blame” for McNabb’s style of play ought to be directed at Reid, who’s a former QB coach, after all. And with a sports hernia, could McNabb have have run that often even if he’d wanted to?

The reality is that McNabb is nothing more – and nothing less – than a poster boy for Philly’s current sports malaise, dating back to the start of the 2000s. Just like the Eagles, the Phillies, the Flyers, and at times the Sixers, he is better than 75 percent of what else is out there, and not worth getting rid of – yet not quite good enough to win a world championship, either.

No wonder some fans are lashing out in frustration.

The link for the first article is:

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002540.html

Here was McNabb’s response:

McNabb fires back at criticism

BY JOHN SMALLWOODPhiladelphia Daily NewsPHILADELPHIA - Donovan McNabb reacted with disappointment to criticism from Philadelphia NAACP head J. Whyatt Mondesire.

In a column last Sunday in the Philadelphia Sun, Mondesire labeled the Eagles star a mediocre quarterback who played the “race card” by saying he no longer runs because he doesn’t want to be stereotyped as a black quarterback.
Among other things, Mondesire said McNabb was trying to conceal his mediocrity behind “some concocted reasoning” that African-American quarterbacks who run are somehow lesser “field generals.”

That fact that McNabb has never said any such thing didn’t seem to matter.
“When someone of the same race talks about you like you’re selling out because you’re not running the football, it goes back to: What are we really talking about here?” said McNabb, who also was chastised by Mondesire for not offering to give up some of his money to disgruntled wide receiver Terrell Owens.

"When you go deep into that, or say I didn’t stick up for someone, or why didn’t I give a little bit of my money to someone else who is making money, you try to find an answer for that.
"There’s no answer that I’ve found. If you talk about my play, that’s one thing. When you talk about my race, now we’ve got problems . . .
"I think people are just trying to find something different. But I always thought the NAACP supported African-Americans and didn’t talk bad about them.
“Now you learn a little bit more about it.”

I am not an Eagles fan, but I am exposed to 25 hour a day Eagle coverage.

When did McNabb “play the race card”?

McNabb has generally conducted himself with class since he was drafted (and booed.)

McNabb is a good QB in a very predictable offence. I would take him any day over almost any other QB in the league.

So Rush Limbuagh says something along these lines (mediocre QB, media loves him because he’s black and tries to be a pocket passer) and gets fired but the leader of the NAABP (sorry, but that organization is only looking out for blacks, not all people of color) can say it and probably won’t get any real backlash. If that doesn’t show the blatant reverse racism, double standard bull shit that pervades our society then I don’t know what does.

BTW, this guys obviously an idiot when it comes to sports. 4 straght NFC title games and a trip to the Super Bowl are a better record than any other QB but Tom Brady. Hell, if he ain’t black enough or “keepin’ it real” enough for Philly then my Cowboys will take him off their hands.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I am not an Eagles fan, but I am exposed to 25 hour a day Eagle coverage.

When did McNabb “play the race card”?

McNabb has generally conducted himself with class since he was drafted (and booed.)

McNabb is a good QB in a very predictable offence. I would take him any day over almost any other QB in the league.
[/quote]
In no particular order:

Brady
Manning
Vick
Favre
Bledsoe
Palmer
Brad Johnson

[quote]slimjim wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I am not an Eagles fan, but I am exposed to 25 hour a day Eagle coverage.

When did McNabb “play the race card”?

McNabb has generally conducted himself with class since he was drafted (and booed.)

McNabb is a good QB in a very predictable offence. I would take him any day over almost any other QB in the league.

In no particular order:

Brady
Manning
Vick
Favre
Bledsoe
Palmer
Brad Johnson
[/quote]

I’ll give you Brady, Manning and Carson Palmer. If I had to start a franchise I would pick any of these three over McNabb.

Favre had a great career but it is almost over.

Bledsoe needs just about perfect protection to be effective. He still has a hell of an arm but he will likely fade in Dallas as he did in Buffalo.

I really like Brad Johnson but I would take McNabb.

Vick is an amazing athlete and they win when he is in the game. He isn’t a very good passer and I suspect he will get banged up and have a shorter career than McNabb. It is a tough pick between these two.

I think McNabb is probably one of the top 5 QBs in the game.

He’s not playing the race card. He just doesn’t like being pigeonholed into something that runs against the stereotypes. Who else thinks that the NAACP needs to quit being jerks?

[quote]bikejames wrote:
So Rush Limbuagh says something along these lines (mediocre QB, media loves him because he’s black and tries to be a pocket passer) and gets fired but the leader of the NAABP (sorry, but that organization is only looking out for blacks, not all people of color) can say it and probably won’t get any real backlash. If that doesn’t show the blatant reverse racism, double standard bull shit that pervades our society then I don’t know what does.[/quote]

Well said.

This guy comes off as being unreasonably harsh for no apparent reason. But I guess that’s just how some people are… Assholes.

McNabb is a winner, not a champion. Similar to Michael Vick, atleast he has enough of an arm to throw the ball around.

Philly has a terribly one dimensional offense (And yes, so would any offense with Westbrook as their main back). No one runs between the tackles.

But this crap about the race card etc? Yeah McNabb has been sucking it up. Yeah his back-ups do a better job than he did (Remember when he was last injured on how his team faired?) It even looks like Joey Harrington could coax wins out of that team. Okay… not really.

McNabb is a stand up guy who plays on a team that doesn’t lose anything when he’s not on the field.