Great Expectations

Comments () | Published August 19, 2010

Brad Johnson. Jeff George. Tony Banks. Shane Matthews. Patrick Ramsey. Danny Wuerffel. Tim Hasselbeck. Mark Brunell. Todd Collins. Jason Campbell.

Donovan Jamal McNabb.

On Easter Sunday 2010, he became the 11th Washington Redskins quarterback during the Dan Snyder era. The trade from the division-rival Philadelphia Eagles could be a resurrection for a quarterback and a team.

Before McNabb made his first appearance at Redskins Park holding up a number-5 jersey and flashing his sweet smile—the same ritual for which he was booed when he was drafted by the Eagles in 1999—all Washington knew about him was this:

As quarterback of the Eagles, he had beaten the Redskins 11 times, losing 8 times; he and his mother had starred in Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials; and so-called football expert Rush Limbaugh had gotten himself fired from his short-lived job as an ESPN analyst for saying that McNabb the quarterback was blacker than he was good.

In the eyes of some Philly fans, McNabb choked in big games. Though he took the Eagles to a Super Bowl, went to five NFC championship games, set records as the team’s all-time leader in career wins, pass completions, passing yards, and passing touchdowns, no matter what he did, it was never good enough. He seemed too happy when the Eagles lost.

The truth is that hardly anybody in Philadelphia knew McNabb and fewer understood him. He is an unangry black man in a business where success is measured too often in violence and volatility.

Now he becomes the focus and fascination of Redskins nation.

“How many starting quarterbacks have we had since 1985?” asks Joe Theismann, the Skins quarterback who led the team to victory in the 1983 Super Bowl. “Twenty-three? Twenty-four?’

Twenty-nine actually played, with 23 of them starting.

“One of the most important elements is being able to hold the job for more than a year,” Theismann says, “to give fans a chance to see how you play, how you handle adversity.”

McNabb comes to the position and to the nation’s capital with some of the same dilemmas that confronted Barack Obama: how to express leadership without anger, forcefulness without shouting, to play within himself. Both men trace their roots to Chicago’s South Side, but McNabb’s are more authentic and complicated, especially starting when his family moved to a suburban town where blacks weren’t welcome. Those early tests helped steel him against racial taunts he has faced during his football career.

For McNabb, the son of a former US Navy senior petty officer, his choices have been informed by his father’s example. “I channel my anger,” he says. “I try not to bust out. That’s not me.”

His family is his base, his real constituency. In a series of interviews with McNabb, his parents, and his older brother, a portrait of the son, brother, husband, father, and star athlete begins to emerge.