He may never have won a Super Bowl. He may never have been the best quarterback in the league. He may not have been a first-team All-Pro. And he may not have had the longevity and year-to-year dominance that separates the very good from the elite in the NFL.
But when you look at the full statistical picture painted by Donovan McNabb throughout his 13-year career, he certainly has a case for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Forgive me for cherry picking stats, but the list of quarterbacks that have accomplished what he's totaled is pretty impressive. Below is a list of every quarterback in NFL history that has recorded 30,000 passing yards, 200 passing touchdowns and 3,000 rushing yards (via Stathead):
There, you'll find three Hall of Famers, two shoo-in future Hall of Famers... and Donovan McNabb. And it's numbers like these that have made several fans — McNabb included — confident that he belongs in Canton.
"I'm not hesitating on that. I am a Hall of Famer," McNabb told TMZ in 2019, saying that his stats were better than Troy Aikman's. "My numbers speak for themselves."
However, it seems like he may have changed his mindset over the past couple of years. In an interview with Quierra Luck on the "Real Sports Heroes" podcast, the former quarterback took a little bit of a different approach to his Hall of Fame future after Luck asked what we need to do to get him enshrined.
"You know what, I don't know. I mean, there's nothing that I can do. I just continue to wait and see — if it happens, it happens," McNabb said. "If it doesn't, it's no sweat on my back because, again, I'm trying to help push and present something to the youth so that they'll have an opportunity to achieve their goal.
"I didn't play the game to make the Hall of Fame. I played the game because I love it. And if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't."
This doesn't mean he still doesn't believe he deserves it, per se. However, it's a little bit more reserved than his 2019 quote with TMZ, and he even mentioned two others he feels deserve an opportunity this time around.
"There's one particular player, individual, who I believe should have an opportunity — or should I say two players... it's Randall Cunningham and Steve McNair," McNabb said. "Now, we talked about Warren Moon being the only African-American quarterback in the Hall of Fame. I can name three of us that should be following him, because at the end of the day, they're not understanding that the game is gonna open because behind us, it's gonna be about three-four more."
You can count Russell Wilson as a lock when that day comes. It's not too early to call Patrick Mahomes a fairly sure thing for the Hall of Fame seeing as he's already getting some G.O.A.T. consideration in just three years as a starter.
But what of McNabb? That remains to be seen.
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