28. Donovan McNabb
You know what’s strange? In this day and age — when NBA stars like Dirk Nowitzki are peaking in their mid-30s, when 34-year-old Tom Brady is playing as well as ever, when training and dieting has staved off the aging process for great athletes by a couple of years — how in God’s name was Donovan McNabb (born on November 25, 1976) washed up two years ago? It’s not like he suffered a major injury. It’s not like his personal life fell apart. Shouldn’t he still be thriving? Mike Lombardi’s recent report about McNabb’s poor work ethic was pretty telling — even though he gave Philly 10 quality years, made six Pro Bowls, finished 98-62 as a starter and goes down as one of the most talented QBs of that decade, it feels like the ancillary stuff (that he didn’t stay in shape, that he wasn’t prepared, that he wasn’t enough of a leader, that nobody will ever totally know what happened in the fourth quarter of that Patriots-Eagles Super Bowl, that three teams quit on him) will become a bigger part of his legacy than anything else. He’s one of those rare athletes who was handed the complete car wash package and never totally appreciated it. You know what Sonny from A Bronx Tale would say.
Bill Simmons ranks the NFL QBs from the transcendent to the putrid
(Btw, Christian Ponder is ranked #30 on the list…)
