Bruce Lee: Please, be my teacher.

Ip Man: There is tiger style, monkey, crane, mantis, snake...

Bruce Lee: The Furious Five, Grand Master?  WOOoo!

Ip Man:  ...and Wing CHOMP, the Science of Food-Fighting.

Bruce Lee: You mean Wing Chun, the Science of In-Fighting.

Ip Man: No, Wing CHOMP!

Bruce Lee: Wing CHOMP?

Ip Man: Yes, if you master this style, I will become the greatest teacher ever.

Bruce Lee: Wing CHOMP won’t help me become a martial artist and movie star!

Ip Man: But you can win Wing Bowl.  

Bruce Lee: I…I don’t know.

Ip Man: Then I won't teach!  What will it be?

 

One liposuction, two strokes, three heart attacks, and four angioplasties later...

 

Ip Man: You have brought shame upon my school.  Look at you!

Bruce Lee: Boards don't hit back...but food!  Burp!

 

 

Thanks to history, we don't have to speculate on what would have been.  Ip Man did teach Bruce Lee Wing Chun, and he would go on to become an international icon as a martial arts and movie star.  In the history of humankind, there may have been no one more suited to his work.  However, please forgive the sharp turn here as I remember the career of not another martial artist but of Donovan McNabb who will formally retire on September 19, 2013 when the Philadelphia Eagles host the Kansas City Chiefs because "5"—as some have come to call him—like the Bruce Lee in the alternate universe above, is an example of a person who was given the wrong style in which to master.

 

I am a die-hard Eagles fan.  I was a fan before Dick Vermeil arrived to coach an awful team in the mid-1970s.  I am a Vulcan, and I take the jabs of the Dr. McCoys of the world with pride even though we have won absolutely nothing in the Super Bowl era.  I enjoyed Andy Reid's reign.  The Eagles were contenders every year just about.  He is a good coach; however, his greatest flaws—and he only had a few of them—are that he did not accurately judge the strengths and weaknesses of Donovan McNabb, did not mold the offense around those strengths and weaknesses, and did not supply McNabb with enough talent to execute that offense at a consistently high level.  Reid will say differently, but I think the evidence against him is overwhelming.  So, as the debate now begins about whether McNabb should have his number retired, I offer you the following.

 

Although McNabb had two seasons at Syracuse where he posted completion percentages of greater than 60%, he also had two seasons in which he completed less than 55% of his passes.  To refute anyone's claim of improvement, the two poorer seasons were sandwiched by the better freshman and senior seasons.  My point is that even as a highly decorated passer at the end of his college career (an unprecedented three-time Big East Offensive Player of the Year), McNabb was not considered by anyone to be a very accurate passer.  He was lauded for his leadership, toughness, athleticism, decision-making, and intelligence, but not accuracy.  McNabb was clearly the type of quarterback that would have benefited from a run-heavy game plan that pulled the safeties up to the line of scrimmage.  Once the safeties were committed to stopping the run, McNabb could throw the ball much easier.  There have been many quarterbacks in the NFL who won Super Bowls with this formula. Bob Griese, Jim McMahon, Mark Rypien, Troy Aikman, Tom Brady, and Eli Manning are just a few.  Some of those quarterbacks were more accurate than others, but the margin of error for quarterbacks is a lot larger when safeties are more concerned about the offensive backfield than the defensive backfield.  The "West Coast" offense McNabb was required to implement makes demands on a quarterback that he was not able to consistently live up to (career 59% completion rate).  Given these facts, why didn't Andy Reid design another offense for McNabb to execute?

 

A while ago I gave some thought to an idea that I would eventually come to term as The Law of Performance.  This law states that for any particular endeavor for which people are hired, the vast majority of those people can perform well given the right circumstances.  Substantially fewer in number are those who will perform well under almost any circumstance and those who will perform poorly under almost any circumstance.  As this relates to football, there have only been a few quarterbacks (John Elway, Aaron Rodgers, Warren Moon come to mind) who would have performed well in any offense whether it was a West Coast offense, a three yards in a cloud of dust offense, or an Air Coryell offense.  Because of their skill set, this elite type of quarterback can even carry a team when the talent around them is only average to above average.  McNabb was not elite.  In my opinion, at his best, he was a very good quarterback; however, under different circumstances, who knows how great he could have been.  While McNabb did not play well for stretches in the 2004 Super Bowl against New England, the teams he led made it to a total of five NFC championship games.  Of those five championship games, the Eagles were favored in four of them.  Of those four, they only won one.  Had McNabb been provided with, at the very least, very good receivers and a game plan in which running plays were called more frequently, not only would the Eagles have won more of those NFC Championship games, they would have won at least one Super Bowl.

 

Andy Reid was also the person most responsible for the drafting of players during his tenure.  While he had some hits: McNabb, Westbrook, Simon, Cole, etc., the misses were worse.  And, after many of the stars who were on the team before Reid arrived became "long in the cleats," the drafting errors became more profound.  The team then tried to sign "big name" free agents to make up for poor personnel decisions, but this didn't work either.  As all professional sports teams know, you have to build through the draft and supplement here and there with free agents because free agents are indeed like a box of chocolates.  You're better off going to the tree to get your apples instead of looking in the barrel (I’m paraphrasing) as Sean Connery in The Untouchables put it.

 

Now, I am not trying to be a McNabb apologist.  I am aware of the limitations that he had as a quarterback (Quite frankly though, I don't really understand why people didn't like him as a person).  Still, despite the problems listed above, he is the Philadelphia Eagle's all-time leader in pass attempts (I'll forgive you if you don't cheer), pass completions, passing yards, and passing touchdowns.  So, if the debate is whether he deserves to have his number retired by the Eagles, I say, "High Five!"  Retire his number and put it waaaay up there in the Ring of Honor that circles the stadium.  Anything less would be an insult to his contribution to the team and city.  He never won the big one, but he was a winner nonetheless.  As a matter of fact, he was the Eagles all-time winning quarterback.  Put that in your Wing Bowl and chomp it.