How the hell is Steve McNair on the bubble?!?

McNair's numbers:

Yards - 30,191. Ahead of such Hall of Famers T. Bradshaw, Y.A. Tittle and J. Namath. Assuming he throws for 3,000 this season, he'll leap frog S. Young and T. Aikman.

TD's - 172. Ahead of Aikman who played 12 seasons. McNair has completed 12 to this point.

Comp. - 2600. Ahead of many notable Hall of Famers

But this isn't baseball. Numbers don't say everything. So how about a co-MVP and the fact that he was 1-yard away from sending the Super Bowl into overtime, not to mention he has been the gutsiest, toughest quarterback of his time.

I'll concede he is no lock at this point. But the case is there. If he somehow, and with the Raven's D behind him it's possible, wins a Super Bowl, then he's in for sure.

I guess my bigger point,though, was how the hell is he not in that top 50?

That list is straight whack!

 

The point should be that that list could have been half as large and still been too long.

 

So half an MVP and a Super Bowl loss should be Hall of Fame crdentials? And perhaps McNair wouldn't have had to try so hard at the end of SB XXXIV if he had led his team to more than 0 points in the first half.

Aikman's incredibly overrated, but he can always point to his three rings.

 

Not bad for a sissy Pantera fan.

 

Straight whack?

 

Lay off him.

Between that and Creamora's hater-itis, it's 1990s slang night here at Club SJ.

 

I'm down.

 

Wiggity, wiggity?

 

Pallister is cool and Steve McNair is a HOFer. NOT!!!

 

Show me the money!

 

I hate that I'm gonna say this, and Doc may kick me out of the fantasy league for it, but while I've already mentioned McNair's toughness, he's not the toughest QB of his generation. There's a guy who hasn't missed a game in 15 seasons. He wins that award. In honor of BYH, I will now go light myself on fire for having posted that.

 

But right now, he's still behind non-HOF quarterbacks like Vinny Testaverde (45,281), Dave Kreig (38,147), Boomer Esiason (37,920), Jim Everett (34,837), Jim Hart (34,665), Steve DeBerg (34,241), Kerry Collins (34,184), the great Jayhawk John Hadl (33,503), Phil Simms (33,462), Ken Anderson (32,282), Sonny Jurgensen (32,224), Mark Brunell (31,826), John Brodie (31,548) and Norm Snead (30,797).

And to think McNair plays in the passing era; some of these quarterbacks were far from it, when defensive players did pretty much what they pleased because the rules allowed them to.

You're right, numbers don't tell the whole story. Problem for McNair is, the guys you're pointing out as McNair having better stats than all have won Super Bowls or NFL championships. McNair hasn't. For most quarterbacks, their legacy is defined by whether they won. Dan Marino, Don Fouts, Jim Kelly didn't win, and that's fine, because we knew based on how they played they would be in Canton someday. You can't say the same for McNair, though.

As for you calling McNair the "gutsiest, toughest quarterback of his time," I don't see it.

Favre has the consecutive starts streak and the moxie -- think 15 for 18, 311 yards and four touchdowns by halftime at Oakland on MNF, the night after his father died -- to earn that title. And his whole career has been like that. Clutch guy most times.

Peyton Manning could say the same with his consecutive game streak and playing half a season with a broken jaw, which had to hurt like hell every time he got sacked, let alone knocked to the ground.

Byron Leftwich -- his Marshall teammates carrying him down the field on the game-winning drive in the Motor City Bowl amazes me every time I see that highlight. He's been a tough quarterback, though like McNair, injury-prone at times.

McNair was a good quarterback. But Canton? No way.