Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb did not throw up in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXXIX. No one at the game saw him throw up. No one watching the game at home saw him throw up. It didn’t happen.
But there’s a persistent myth that McNabb puked in the Super Bowl, and when he was asked about it on Reddit, he took umbrage.
“No, I didn’t puke. It’s unfortunate that we still talk about this 11 years after playing in the Super Bowl. But, no. That did not happen and hopefully we can stop talking about it. Once again, go watch the game tape,” McNabb wrote.
So where did the myth come from? It seems to be a combination of the fact that McNabb did throw up on the field in a regular season game once, and the fact that teammates discussed how exhausted McNabb was while trying to lead the Eagles down the field late in that Super Bowl loss to the Patriots. Over time, those two separate incidents have morphed into one.
It’s fair to criticize McNabb for the end of that Super Bowl, as his old teammate Terrell Owens did: Owens has pointed out that McNabb looked tired late in the game and struggled to move in the two-minute offense, and Owens is right about that. But we should put to rest the old myth about McNabb. He didn’t puke.