It’s unknown whether former Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb is attempting to sell any of his teammates on the notion that he should be the starting quarterback, in the hopes that perhaps enough players will clamor for McNabb that he’ll be reinstalled at the top of the depth chart. But it is known that McNabb is willing to publicly declare that he should be the starter.
Because he already has.
NFL Network special correspondent Andrea Kremer asks McNabb in an interview that will air Sunday morning whether he should still be the starter in Minnesota. “Absolutely,” McNabb says. “Absolutely.”
He thinks he isn’t the starter because the quarterback gets both the credit for a team’s success and the blame for its failures. “Well, I mean, everyone focuses on my position,” McNabb told Kremer. “We should be sitting here, I’ll be honest, at about what, 4-3, 5-2, or whatever? We had games that we should have won, but we just didn’t. Now is it the quarterback position?”
What he’s overlooking is the fact that he wasn’t benched due to his play or because he’s the scapegoat for a 1-5 start punctuated by a blowout loss at Soldier Field that ran the team’s road record against the Bears to 1-10 since 2001. Chrisian Ponder is playing and McNabb isn’t because the Vikings realize that the playoffs are a pipe dream, and because the Vikings need to know what Ponder can do. Especially if that 1-5 (now 1-6) becomes 1-10 and worse, giving the Vikings a crack at Andrew Luck.
McNabb also flatly denied a report, originating last weekend on the same network, that he was benched because he showed up late for meetings and practices.
“Never,” McNabb said. “But from just people from the outside listening, they’ll say, ‘Oh, you know, sources said that he’s not putting in that time to be a top tier quarterback.’ Well, just come to Minnesota. Pack up your big jacket and your headwear, and come watch me.”
They can watch him practice. For the foreseeable future -- and possibly the rest of the year -- they won’t be able to watch him play.