At SMU (Southern Meredith University) and then nine years with the Dallas Cowboys.
I thought McNabb’s followup comment was even more ludicrous…
“I hate to see what happens in the Super Bowl or I hate to see what happens in the playoffs. You have to settle with a tie.”
Of course, what difference does it make? McNabb was trying to win, after all, just failing miserably at it. How would it have changed the outcome of the game if he HAD been aware of the rule?
I didn’t watch the game, but if a QB thought that there was another OT period, he might be taking it easy and running the ball with 30 seconds to go instead of running the hurry up.
And, as a coach, I would wonder what other rules he is unaware of…
It’s okay, up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know that a high school game in this district would go into overtime if the score was tied at the end of regulation play.
Do you get paid millions of dollars to lead a high school team in your district? If not, then you can be forgiven for being a casual fan.
If you are the coach, or the starting QB, then it would be reasonable to question your judgement or your ability to lead the team.
I expect the QB to know the rules for his position, and the coaches to know the rules for the team.
So are you saying it’s acceptable for McNabb to not know that an NFL game can end in a tie?
To be fair to McNabb, I didn’t think it was possible to tie the Bengals, no matter the rules.
As if I, an Eagles fan, should talk. I want those four hours of my life back.
I like how Mike Ditka (I think it was him) put it: The guy didn’t know when the game ends.
Another person, in defending Andy Reid for not making sure McNabb knew something so basic as when the game ends: “What’s he supposed to say? ‘Hey Donovan, there are four downs.’”
Yes. Was I unclear?
I just figured that you would have a little more sense than to think that.
Doctor: Nurse, what is that thermometer thing with the air ball attached to it that is hanging in the exam room?
Nurse: Why that’s a blood pressure measure. You don’t know that?
Doctor: You can’t expect me to know everything!
Actually the nurse would hopefully say:
Why that is a Sphygmomanometer.
Sorry, I used to work at a hospital and have too many nurses & a Doctor in the family. 
(I did need to look up the spelling though.)
Really? I’d explain why you’re wrong (and why you make yourself sound like a blowhard) but Jason Whitlock is a far better writer than I…
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8822010/Media's-mistake-way-bigger-than-McNabb's
When did knowing when the game ends become an “insignificant detail”?
The NFL uses two different rules for when the game ends. McNabb only knew of the one they use in the playoffs, which is different than the one they use during the regular season. Since he’s been in the league, there’s been only one tie, so if he wasn’t paying attention in 2002 to two teams outside his division (although one was in his team’s state), the subject doesn’t come up very much. I say “big deal” :rolleyes:.
But then again, he followed up with this:
So I don’t know what he thought.
The Falcons were involved in that tie. Those same Falcons knocked the Eagles out of the playoffs that year. To be completely ignorant of the regular season record of a team you’re preparing to play in the playoffs is inexcusable.
To get back to that Whitlock article linked by somebody else:
These points are poor. The actual story isn’t that McNabb didn’t know some insignificant minutia. (Knowing when the game ends is neither insignificant nor minutia.) The story is that a quarterback – the one guy on the field that is supposed to know everything there is to know about his team, his opponent, and the intricacies of the game itself – didn’t know a basic fundamental of the game that the majority of fans knew.
In other words, we’re supposed to think that a guy like McNabb forgot more about football last night than we could ever learn about the game. But his ignorance has proven that assumption to be shaky at best. If I knew this rule and he didn’t, what else do I know about the game that he doesn’t?
Your QB is supposed to have knowledge of the most esoteric aspects of the game at the tip of his fingers just in case it’s needed. A couple weeks ago Eli Manning immediately went to his coach on an Illegal Forward Pass penalty because he knew his back leg was still behind the line, and the rule says the entire body must be across the line to be illegal. This directly translated into 4 points, since that failed 3rd down conversion was changed to a 1st & goal, which then led to a TD. Would McNabb have known that, and been able to tell his coach with confidence that he was within the rules? Judging by what we’ve seen of his general NFL knowledge, I would have to say no, he wouldn’t.
Unless this one rule is the only rule he didn’t know – and he’s repeatedly maintained that nobody knows all the rules, so that’s not a fair assumption – his ability to handle unexpected game situations has to be called into question.
I’ll guarantee you that a guy like Peyton Manning knew the overtime rules, and every other rule that has ever been in effect during his entire career. That’s what you want out of a QB.
The absolute worst thing in all this is that the friggin’ ref told him the friggin’ rules right before the OT coin flip. They always go over the OT rules at the beginning of every single OT game. So he had to be willfully ignorant to not know the rules he was just explicitly told less than half an hour earlier.
The Artest comparison is laughable. He’s flailing so wildly to come up with some kind of defense for a guy he really likes that he’s comparing a spur-of-the-moment emotional reaction to the cold hard knowledge of the rules of the game. Possibly the least apt comparison ever made.
I didn’t know. Hangs head and quietly walks away.