In 12 years in the NFL, McNabb has led his team to the Super Bowl, five NFC Championship games, and has been named to the Pro Bowl five times.
With that much experience, McNabb would appear to be the perfect quarterback to lead a team to a touchdown in the final two minutes of a game.
However, with less than two minutes remaining in the Washington Redskins game against the Detroit Lions, Redskins’ coach Mike Shanahan benched McNabb for the severely underachieving Rex Grossman.
In the last three seasons, Grossman has only started eight games because he has proven to be an ineffective quarterback and leader.
With the Redskins down by one touchdown, Grossman took his first snap and was sacked by Kyle Vanden Bosch and fumbled. Lions rookie Ndamukong Suh sealed his team’s victory by picking up the fumble and running for a touchdown.
This was the second time in McNabb’s career that he was benched for a less talented white quarterback. It’s hard to imagine coach Shanahan benching Favre, Manning or Brady for Rex Grossman under any circumstance.
The way Shanahan disrespected McNabb was a small-minded display of unprofessionalism. Although it could be a bit presumptuous to call Shanahan a racist, it’s certain that a white quarterback with McNabb’s credentials would never be treated as poorly during the deciding moment of a game. –amir shaw
