Rush Resigns

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by AirForceRocks
Why do you think he has been overrated and overpaid?

Well, here's a "sport journalist" that provides some data backing up the "overrated" postion, as well as corroborting Rush's "social" postition

http://www.msnbc.com/news/975128.asp?0cv=CB20

Rush was right: McNabb isn’t a great quarterback, and the media does overrate him because he is black


By Allen Barra
SLATE.COM

Oct. 2 — In his notorious ESPN comments last Sunday night, Rush Limbaugh said he never thought the Philadelphia Eagles’ Donovan McNabb was “that good of a quarterback.” If Limbaugh were a more astute analyst, he would have been even harsher and said, “Donovan McNabb is barely a mediocre quarterback.” But other than that, Limbaugh pretty much spoke the truth. Limbaugh lost his job for saying in public what many football fans and analysts have been saying privately for the past couple of seasons.


LET’S REVIEW: McNabb, he said, is “overrated ... what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well-black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well.”
“There’s a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”
Let’s take the football stuff first. For the past four seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles have had one of the best defenses in the National Football League and have failed to make it to the Super Bowl primarily because of an ineffective offense — an offense run by Donovan McNabb. McNabb was a great college quarterback, in my estimation one of the best of the ’90s while at Syracuse. (For the record, I helped persuade ESPN Magazine, then called ESPN Total Sports, to put him on the cover of the 1998 college-football preview issue.) He is one of the most talented athletes in the NFL, but that talent has not translated into greatness as a pro quarterback.
McNabb has started for the Eagles since the 2000 season. In that time, the Eagles offense has never ranked higher than 10th in the league in yards gained. In fact, their 10th-place rank in 2002 was easily their best; in their two previous seasons, they were 17th in a 32-team league. They rank 31st so far in 2003.

In contrast, the Eagles defense in those four seasons has never ranked lower than 10th in yards allowed. In 2001, they were seventh; in 2002 they were fourth; this year they’re fifth. It shouldn’t take a football Einstein to see that the Eagles’ strength over the past few seasons has been on defense, and Limbaugh is no football Einstein, which is probably why he spotted it.
The news that the Eagles defense has “carried” them over this period should be neither surprising nor controversial to anyone with access to simple NFL statistics — or for that matter, with access to a television. Yet, McNabb has received an overwhelming share of media attention and thus the credit. Now why is this?
Let’s look at a quarterback with similar numbers who also plays for a team with a great defense. I don’t know anyone who would call Brad Johnson one of the best quarterbacks in pro football — which is how McNabb is often referred to. In fact, I don’t know anyone who would call Brad Johnson, on the evidence of his 10-year NFL career, much more than mediocre. Yet, Johnson’s NFL career passer rating, as of last Sunday, is 7.3 points higher than McNabb’s (84.8 to 77.5), he has completed his passes at a higher rate (61.8 percent to 56.4 percent) and has averaged significantly more yards per pass (6.84 to 5.91). McNabb excels in just one area, running, where he has gained 2,040 yards and scored 14 touchdowns to Johnson’s 467 and seven. But McNabb has also been sacked more frequently than Johnson-more than once, on average, per game, which negates much of the rushing advantage.
In other words, in just about every way, Brad Johnson has been a more effective quarterback than McNabb and over a longer period.

WIN OR LOSE
And even if you say the stats don’t matter and that a quarterback’s job is to win games, Johnson comes out ahead. Johnson has something McNabb doesn’t, a Super Bowl ring, which he went on to win after his Bucs trounced McNabb’s Eagles in last year’s NFC championship game by a score of 27-10. The Bucs and Eagles were regarded by everyone as having the two best defenses in the NFL last year. When they played in the championship game, the difference was that the Bucs defense completely bottled up McNabb while the Eagles defense couldn’t stop Johnson.
In terms of performance, many NFL quarterbacks should be ranked ahead of McNabb. But McNabb has represented something special to all of us since he started his first game in the NFL, and we all know what that is.


Limbaugh is being excoriated for making race an issue in the NFL. This is hypocrisy. I don’t know of a football writer who didn’t regard the dearth of black NFL quarterbacks as one of the most important issues in the late ’80s and early ’90s. (The topic really caught fire after 1988, when Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins became the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.)
So far, no black quarterback has been able to dominate a league in which the majority of the players are black. To pretend that many of us didn’t want McNabb to be the best quarterback in the NFL because he’s black is absurd. To say that we shouldn’t root for a quarterback to win because he’s black is every bit as nonsensical as to say that we shouldn’t have rooted for Jackie Robinson to succeed because he was black. (Please, I don’t need to be reminded that McNabb’s situation is not so difficult or important as Robinson’s-I’m talking about a principle.)

Consequently, it is equally absurd to say that the sports media haven’t overrated Donovan McNabb because he’s black. I’m sorry to have to say it; he is the quarterback for a team I root for. Instead of calling him overrated, I wish I could be admiring his Super Bowl rings. But the truth is that I and a great many other sportswriters have chosen for the past few years to see McNabb as a better player than he has been because we want him to be.
Rush Limbaugh didn’t say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn’t say anything that he shouldn’t have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now. I should have said them myself. I mean, if they didn’t hire Rush Limbaugh to say things like this, what they did they hire him for? To talk about the prevent defense?

 

[Galahad]

An interesting take by one of our local sports writers at the Indianapolis Star:

Bob Kravitz
Sure, have an opinion, but don't be wrong


October 3, 2003


True confessions: I am a liberal. And I would rather listen to an afternoon of Gregorian chanting on the radio than subject myself to Rush Limbaugh.

But I'm in the old right-hander's corner today. And I'm disappointed -- in ESPN for caving in to public pressure, and in Limbaugh for mollifying the network and the masses by stepping down from his position as the "path of least resistance."

Because all he is guilty of is being wrong.

Not racially insensitive. Not racist. But wrong, and only in the sense that an opinion can be based on wrong-headed assumptions.

And let's face it, if being wrong was an offense worthy of immediate banishment, a lot of us would be living these days in a cardboard box under a bridge.

Let's stop yammering and squealing and consider what he really said:

Donovan McNabb, he said, has been overrated by a predominantly white, liberal media corps intent on assuaging their historic white guilt by promoting a black quarterback. (He said nothing about Larry Bird being just another good player.)

Whose ox was gored?

It wasn't McNabb; he's been called overrated before, just as almost every top quarterback has been called overrated at one time or another.

If anybody was called out by Limbaugh, it was the predominantly white media, who were charged with overselling a black quarterback as a way of furthering their liberal agenda -- like we have an agenda that extends past getting to the pub before last call.

So?

It's his opinion.

This is why Limbaugh was hired by ESPN, to further his agenda, ruffle feathers, say the things others don't dare say.

This is like hiring Marilyn Manson to play your daughter's "sweet 16" party, then being shocked when the guy doesn't open with a medley of Beach Boys songs.

What? They brought in Lisa Guerrero to wax philosophic on the subtleties of the swim move?

So Limbaugh injected the issue of race into the equation. Guess what? Race suffuses just about everything that happens in our society. We like to think of sports as this perfect racial meritocracy where race simply doesn't matter. But it does matter, if not on the field, then certainly in matters of public perception.

Consider: Terrell Owens throws another fit on the sideline, he's a selfish lout. Rich Gannon throws another fit on the sideline, he's a fiery leader.

Do I think Limbaugh was wrong?

Yeah, sure.

Do I think Limbaugh was racist?

Absolutely not.

He's entitled to think that McNabb is overrated. I disagree. I think McNabb is a singular talent and was the primary force behind Philadelphia's two consecutive NFC title game appearances. But isn't this why God created sports talk radio?

He's entitled to believe that McNabb has been overrated because the white media suffers from collective guilt. I disagree. I agree with Arizona quarterback Jeff Blake, who said Thursday: "You play well, you get treated well (by the media). You play bad, you'll get treated like crap." As a card-carrying member of the predominantly white media, I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I'm equally annoying to all races.

You think Peyton Manning gets a break because the Northern media is overcompensating for lingering Civil War guilt?

Again, though, this is why we pay people to have opinions. To inspire thought. To promote conversation. To be right, and to be wrong.

"When they put Rush Limbaugh in that situation, they're doing it for sensationalism," Colts coach Tony Dungy said Thursday. "They're doing it to make news. They've gotten a lot of buzz about ESPN. That's what they wanted. Whether you take the comments seriously, whether you think it's intelligent or not, right, wrong, I don't think that's really the thing. They got him to be controversial, and he was for however many weeks he was there."

Exactly.

But when it comes to issues of race, emotions tend to drown out common sense.

Consider the reaction Thursday of Tampa Bay wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, a noted practitioner of free expression.

"It's sad," Johnson said. "He needed to resign. Really, he needed to be fired. Any time people make comments like that, in sports or a work environment or anywhere in life, they should suffer the consequences. It's embarrassing to him and his family, the NFL, ESPN/ABC, and they did the right thing by asking him to resign."

At least Johnson didn't call for a repeal of the First Amendment.

The moral of the story?

Don't say anything. And definitely don't say anything related to race. One misstep, and you're consigned to Al Campanis/Jimmy "The Greek" purgatory.

There's a high price to pay for being wrong.

 

[emmagata]

Originally posted by CRB#33
No Bet, never mind. I apologize for saying that.

I get a little nervous debating with seasoned debators. LOL

Um.... did you just refer to bsnyder as "old"????

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by emmagata
Um.... did you just refer to bsnyder as "old"????

ROTF....I think....



Thanks for the editorial, Galahad. He's right about the fact that it's sad, and very counterproductive, that we can't even have a discussion about racial issues these days. This episode is such a stark example of that!

Tony Dungy = class act
Keshawn Johnson = blowhard

 

[Galahad]

Tony Dungy = class act
Keshawn Johnson = blowhard

So Bet, what's the take on the Colts coming to town? Will Dungy get a good reception?

 

[bsnyder]

I think he will get a good reception, and I can't wait for the game.

Our season tickets are right next to the opposing team tunnel, down at eye level, so I'll get to say hi to him and cheer for him when he comes on and off the field!

Of course, once we get to kickoff, I want the Bucs to slaughter the Colts!

But even those fans who were in favor of dumping Dungy could never find anything bad to say about the man, other than maybe he didn't have enough of the "killer" instinct.

While I admire Jon Gruden tremendously as a brilliant and obsessively dedicated football coach, I have no admiration for him as a husband, father or member of the community.

 

[Galahad]

I can tell you that Dungy is, as you might guess, VERY popular here(in Indy). It doesn't hurt that the Colts are playing very well right now, but beyond that, Dungy just fits the community well. I'm not much of a football fan historically, but the Colts have me a little interested this year. The "story" is interesting.......

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by Galahad
I can tell you that Dungy is, as you might guess, VERY popular here(in Indy). It doesn't hurt that the Colts are playing very well right now, but beyond that, Dungy just fits the community well. I'm not much of a football fan historically, but the Colts have me a little interested this year. The "story" is interesting.......

I'm not suprised to hear that, Galahad. He'd be a credit and fit to ANY community.

So, you going to tune into the game????

 

[cardaway]

Didn't Gruden give Dungy a lot of credit for the Trophy during the celebrations and press conferences afterward? I though that was pretty classy since it was widely understood that Dungy had a hand in how that team was made up. Both deserved credit for that win.

 

[bsnyder]

Originally posted by cardaway
Didn't Gruden give Dungy a lot of credit for the Trophy during the celebrations and press conferences afterward? I though that was pretty classy since it was widely understood that Dungy had a hand in how that team was made up. Both deserved credit for that win.

Yes, Gruden gave Dungy credit, as he should have. And that was pretty classy.

I already said I admire him tremendously as a coach. I just don't admire him in a lot of other areas of his life.

 

[Galahad]

So, you going to tune into the game????

Not sure. Like I said, I'm really not a football fan and we are very early risers in our house (Don't Monday night games start kind of late). But, in support of the community and such

 

[bsnyder]

Yes, the game doesn't start until 9:00. But please watch....I'll be standing in the lower corner of the stadium, right next to that tunnel, waving a sign that says "Hi Galahad, we miss you here in Tampa!"

 

[emmagata]

Originally posted by boomer1961
OK. I'm a 41 year old African American and like Robin said earlier, you have to expect Rush to be Rush. I was offended by his comment. But I'm offended by much of what Rush says. So I don't listen to him on the radio. I had watched him on ESPN, but wasn't watching when he said this. I knew he couldn't just talk about the game.Makes you think he doesn't want to see African Americans do well, but he never actually said that. Like my friend Fred used to say -- opinions are like rear ends -- everybody has one and they all stink.

Question for you.

Do you like to see African Americans succeed based on their ability?