And ... We're Backstravanganza (Part 7)

UPDATE: Gabe's response is up.

- - - - - - - - -

Ok, I think I've now given Gabe enough time to recover that it's time to post this. 

Catch-up for the latecomers:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

- - - - - - - - -

Gabe,

Very good, long, thoughtful post.  You raised many excellent points, all of which I'm going to ignore so I can focus on the true meat of what you wrote:  the psyche of our franchise quarterback, how we got to where we are, and what it means for the future.

I first want to say thank you.  As someone who spends most of his time blogging about the ways in which football fans (both here and there) are wrong in how they view the Birds, I don't typically have the opportunity to defend Philly fans and how they/we root for our teams.  This is a nice change of pace.

Let's start with how you said Donovan's problems were all our fault:

"It’s just obvious that this was never the right place for him.  I don’t think he’ll ever forget the boos on draft day.  Never." 

See, one of the things that drives me so nuts about all the commentary regarding Philly sports fans is that people always act like we're the ONLY FANS EVER to act in a manner that would be out of place at, say, a somewhat fancy tea party. 

I'm sorry I don't have the cite handy, but I remember reading an article in one of the local papers a couple years ago that pointed out if a fan in Philadelphia -- rather than San Diego -- had thrown a syringe onto the field at Barry Bonds, we'd never hear the end of it, like that stupid teenage Santa Claus.  But because it happened in Southern Califoria, it was just, "oh, one crazy fan, how about that."

It's the same thing with Donovan getting booed on draft day.  The last couple years, ESPN has run a 90-second package during the draft that is just Jets fans booing their team's first round picks.  (Many of which were truly awful.)  You could fill up entire newspapers with stories of fanbases furious with the picks their team made, in every sport. 

But because it's Philadelphia, and because we have that reputation, it's somehow different.  And the fact that a guy got booed nine years ago because a bunch of people who had never seen him play happened to think he was the wrong choice is not only some sort of permanent stain on our record, but also an excuse for why he just never really felt comfortable here.

Furthermore -- and this is the part that really burns me -- the fans weren't actually booing McNabb.  This is one of the things outsiders just never get about Philly fans.  Just because a guy happens to be on the field / in the batter's box / on-stage at the moment we're booing, that doesn't always mean we're booing him.  It's always (ok, usually) more complicated than that.

In 1999, for example, no one in Philadelphia cared two bits about McNabb.  He was just a guy our team might pick instead of the guy we (yes, shamefully, I was in the Ricky camp) wanted.  Paul Tagliabue could have announced our selection as "Jesus Christ, Nazareth Vocational College" and people STILL would have booed. 

You obviously understand this completely.  As you mentioned in an email to me this morning:

"Was at CBP for the Phils yesterday.  You gotta love booing Stephen Drew for being related to JD Drew.  Awesome."

It's the same thing with McNabb.  We weren't booing him -- we were booing NotRickyWilliams.  They just happened to be the same person.

And to be fair, given the recent history, it wasn't exactly a stretch for us to believe the Eagles had just hired yet another coach who would screw everything up.  We didn't know then that Reid had his act together.

So that covers the booing, but what about your next point:

"Being the quarterback of the Eagles, much less the NON-WHITE quarterback of the Eagles is easily one of the top-five worst jobs in American sports. "

So playing quarterback in a town with passionate fans, solid ownership, a stable coaching staff and plenty of talent around you is somehow one of the five worst jobs in American sports?

Are you sure you hadn't started the festivities a little early when you wrote that?

It's certainly true that there are easier places to play sports than Philadelphia.  Evidently in St. Louis you can suck for 10 years without hearing even so much as a nervous cough after your fourth strikeout of the day.  Philly isn't ... like that.

But there are plenty of guys who thrive in Philadelphia and the atmosphere here.  Look at Brian Dawkins, Jeremiah Trotter (never should have left, dude) and Brian Westbrook.  All of these guys are/were great players who seemed to feed off the emotion of the town and never ended up getting too bruised from the experience.

They all have something else in common as well. 

Speaking of St. Louis, doesn't the Scott Rolen case pretty much prove the point that if you're a headcase in one place, you'll be a headcase everywhere else too?  I mean, sure, he had some issues here that were outside his control, but then he went to the land of cornfields and low expectations and still couldn't keep his act together. 

No, McNabb's real problem with the Philly fans is that he thinks he's better than us.  That's the one absolutely unforgivable sin in this town.  We can smell that shit a mile away and we don't like it one bit. 

It's the same problem Andy Reid has.  Every NFL coach is convinced he's always the smartest guy in the room.  That's the only way to survive in that profession.  But most other successful coaches give us other things to go on to round out the picture.  Buddy Ryan hated the Cowboys as much -- or more -- that we did.  (And it was a real hatred, not a fake, we-happen-to-be-in-the-same-division happenstance.)  Dick Vermeil cared so much that boy we just cared right along back with him. 

Andy Reid gives us zippy. 

He sits up there, basically tells us he on top of things so we don't need to worry, and never gives us even a glimpse at the rest of who he is unless something happens to his kids and it's time to get a feel-good article out there about what the family is going through. 

Not to go all after school special here, but if Reid would actually come out of his shell once in awhile, he might find he no longer needed it as much.

As for Donovan, the fact that he's actually right about what he thinks doesn't help.  Nor does it matter.  

Comments

[Vaughn]

OK...I really get behind what you say a lot of the time, but Gabe's comment about being the black QB of the Eagles is spot on and you ought to be able to recognize that.

I am a Philly native who loves this town and its teams and players, but even I can see that we have a legacy of vitriolic racism in sports that time has perhaps eroded, but has not come close to eliminating.

It's not everybody here and it's fewer folks each decade but it's still here.

Let us remember which team and which team's fans were notorious for their abuse of Jackie Robinson. Let us remember which baseball team was the last to integrate in the NL. Let us remember how much appreciation we gave Dick Allen.

Hell, Philly can take some credit for the dawn of free agency in baseball; if we had not been so awful to Allen, Curt Flood might not have refused to be traded to Philly setting off the whole labor struggle...

I was not here during Dick Allen's years, but my sense of it is that Philadelphia might have been able to deal with the best player on the Phillies being black if he had been more like OJ (the Hertz era, not the double-murderer) a smiling glad-hander who acts like it's a great privilege that us kind white people let him play...and not a rather proud and defiant race man who felt he owed us nothing more than good baseball.

Now granted, we've come a long way. AI was as thuggish-looking as they come and we embraced him (well not my grandparents), so I see that progress has been made in thirty years.

Nonetheless, QB of the football team is a whole 'nother story. There is no position like it in sports. In every community that loves football, the local populace is overly emotionally invested with the QB like I am with my cat. It just is.

In a city with a solid undercurrent of racism in sports, a city that obviously cares twice as much about its football team as it does about any of the other franchises (you ain't bloggin bout the Phils, is ya?) you just have to take as a given that a black QB is gonna suffer.

I may have missed the Dick Allen fiasco but I was here for all of the Randall years and I thought it was pretty ugly. No matter how well he played behind the worst OL in football, there were plenty of Monday callers on WIP pining for Jimmy Mac and saying shit like "Well Randall's a great athlete and all...but he's got no head for the game..."

We all know what that's code for. And yeah, Randall was kind of a space cadet but he could have directed a 93 yard touchdown drive while developing a hydrogen fuel cell and refuting Kant, and the same callers would have said the same shit.

Granted they were (and are) the 3pm callers, the jobless fuckwits, but they are a part of us and always will be.

Ironically, McNabb is much more OJ than Dick Allen, and I am also inclined to grant that a lot of his troubs with Philly are of his own making--it's not an easy situation to be sure, but he usually handles it poorly and makes it worse.

I don't think his problems here are BECAUSE he is the black QB of the Eagles, but I agree that being the black QB of the Eagles is a close to thankless job that would require both unparalleled performance on the field and preternatural grace off of it to pull off. Despite his being the easy choice for best pick of his draft, #5 has scored about an 80 in Column A and a 50 in Column B.

I too, get tired of how we get played as a city for being lousy fans when we are among the best, most knowledgeable and passionnate fans anywhere.

And I agree that Dunavin is aloof, way to sensitive for an NFL QB (in ANY city) and he doesn't get us and maybe never tried to. I always got the sense he made up his mind on draft day in the Ted Williams mode: "Fuck these assholes, I'll play for them but I won't ever love them."

And I always felt and still feel that we won't see his best qurterbacking until he gets out of this cauldron and gets to go to some soft, boring town that will be on his johnson from the moment he arrives.

And I expect it to hurt quite a bit to watch.

Nonetheless, in spite of all that IS #5's responsiblity, I have to agree with Gabe that being this town's black QB is just a tough script for any actor to play. Dunavin is just kinda miscast on top of that.

[Eric]

I agree with you on your Reid points. I do enjoy seeing him on the sidelines become animated with players, looking very angry at times. I'd like to see more of it. He seems to feel very passionately about playing against the Pats. He did get a little upset after this year saying something like, "3 points again".