McNabb-Owens Controversy Continues

McNabb/Owens

I just want to make one quick point on these most recent comments by Donovan McNabb. I'm sympathetic to him in general in this whole controversy. But these last comments weren't really fair to T.O. I understand McNabb's point. If a black player brings up that his team would be better off with a white quarterback, it is a different sort of insult than just saying he is a bad quarterback, particularly given McNabb's history. McNabb was right to bring up the difference between saying "we would be better off with Steve McNair," and saying "we would be better off with Brett Favre." However, that was not what T.O. said. T.O. was *asked* if the Eagles would be better off with Favre, and it was presented as someone else's assessment. He just agreed. He didn't overtly put forth Favre's name, which makes McNabb's comments unfair.

The irony of it is that this is basically the exact same thing that exacerbated the conflict in the first place. McNabb was asked about how the Eagles would do without T.O., and he basically said T.O. is great, but they would be fine and they had made the playoffs before. When T.O. made a big scene of this, he was wrong. As McNabb pointed out, he was asked a question, and of course he's going to say that his team can do it without T.O. The context made it clear it wasn't a cheap shot. And given McNabb was acutely aware of the context of his statements there, he should be more cognizant of the context of T.O.'s remarks. Granted, T.O. hasn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt, but on this particular issue, McNabb is wrong.