Is Donovan McNabb the new Brett Favre?
The Minnesota Vikings are no strangers to quarterback drama. They’ve been one of the most notable NFL teams on that front over the past few years, first benching Tavaris Jackson for veteran Gus Frerotte midway through the 2008 season, then luring Brett Favre out of retirement before 2009 and doing so again before 2010.
Now, they’re back in the headlines again; despite drafting Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder 12th overall this offseason, the Vikings just swung a trade for embattled Washington Redskins’ quarterback Donovan McNabb, sending Washington a sixth-round pick in 2012 and a conditional sixth-rounder in 2013.
The Vikings have been quite enamoured with veteran quarterbacks recently, but have only found mixed results in the process. Frerotte was more famous for headbutting walls than putting up stats, as he finished the 2008 season with just a 73.7 quarterback rating, a 59.1 percent completion percentage and 12 touchdowns against 15 interceptions. The Vikings won the NFC North that year with a 10-6 mark, but lost to the Philadelphia Eagles (oddly enough, led by McNabb) in the first round of the playoffs.
Minnesota did much better in their first go-round with Favre, finishing with a 12-4 record and thumping the Dallas Cowboys 34-3 in their first playoff game, but fell to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC championship game after Favre threw a particularly ill-advised late interception.
The second year with Favre was a train wreck from the beginning, with the team going 3-7 in their first 10 games and firing head coach Brad Childress. The team had a better finish to the season under interim coach Leslie Frazier (who took over on a full-time basis in the off-season), going 3-3, but not much of that was thanks to quarterback play, as Favre, Jackson and Joe Webb all struggled.
[php snippet=1]
The quarterback position was obviously an area of concern for Minnesota entering the offseason, but it seemed that Ponder was the solution. Even if he wasn’t ready to start immediately, it appeared likely the Vikings would find a low-priced veteran who could fill in for a few games. McNabb could potentially play that role, but he comes with a much higher profile. This is a guy who had a tremendous amount of success with the Philadelphia Eagles, but was then traded to the Redskins before the 2010 season to make way for Kevin Kolb (and eventually Michael Vick).
In Washington, McNabb never seemed to mesh with head coach Mike Shanahan and was even demoted in favor of Rex Grossman. His quarterback rating dropped from 92.9 in 2009 to just 77.1 in 2010, and his TD/interception ratio went from 22-10 to 14-15. McNabb’s stock plummeted in similar fashion.
You know, that’s eerily similar to Favre, who had a tremendous career with the Packers and started well with the New York Jets in 2008, but struggled down the stretch and threw interception after interception.
McNabb’s only 34, so he may not be done yet, but it’s amazing how far he’s fallen in three years. Since 2009, he’s gone from the starter on a playoff-bound Eagles team (which lost in the first round to Dallas) to being traded for a second-rounder and a conditional third-round pick that offseason. He followed that with a dismal year in Washington, and has now been traded for a sixth-round pick and a conditional sixth-rounder. It looks like he’ll be taking a pay cut in the process, too.
Favre could relate there, as his stock’s utterly plummeted since 2010 and he currently doesn’t have a job. We may not have seen the last of him either, though, as he’s recently made rumblings about returning to the NFL and might – ironically enough – wind up with the Eagles. If that happens, the McNabb-Favre comparisons will become even more fun.
Essentially, it appears there are three ways the McNabb deal could potentially play out for the Vikings, and Monty Hall might provide us with a good illustration. Behind Door Number One, we have Favre’s 2009 season: an aging quarterback who everyone figured was washed up discovers the Fountain of Youth and leads the team on an improbable playoff run. This is possible, but probably not all that likely; the 2011 Vikings don’t have as solid of a supporting cast as the 2009 team did, as many of those players are either aging or long-gone (and they just lost one of their most exciting young receivers, Sidney Rice, in free agency).
The Door Number Two option is more probable: it doesn’t have a recent Vikings’ analogue, but it’s a pattern frequently seen around the NFL. In this scenario, McNabb winds up being there mostly to mentor Ponder, and either never starts or loses the starting spot to Ponder partway through the year. Ponder’s the obvious future of this team, so it would make sense that the team would want to focus on trying to develop him, and this certainly could work: McNabb’s received plenty of praise for his work with younger players over the years.
The real problems lie behind Door Number Three, though, which comprises Favre’s 2010 season. In this situation, expectations get high and the team makes moves to try and win now, but McNabb completely melts down. The team elects to stick with him for a while in hopes of turning things around, but it never quite works out, and McNabb’s eventually replaced. After the season, he walks off quietly into the sunset before triggering a media circus about about whether or not he’ll return.
Any of these outcomes are possible, so it’s too early to predict which way things will go. Doors One or Two are definitely more palatable for Vikings’ fans, but Door Three is a significant possibility considering the way McNabb’s career has been trending lately. Maybe this move will work out for Minnesota and we’ll see another improbable run with McNabb playing the part of 2009 Favre, or maybe we’ll see a smooth transition to the Ponder era.
But then, maybe the move will fail miserably and we’ll see another spectacular flameout, a la 2010 Favre. Regardless of the outcome, there will be plenty of eyes on the Vikings quarterback situation once again.
[php snippet=1]
