"He's not a very accurate passer yet, and as a pure quarterback, he's way behind a lot of others. . . . I think people are overlooking how good the defense and special teams have been and how they've put the team in a position to win and kept it in a position to win, because he's not exactly winning games 42-39." -- Joel Buchsbaum, on whether McNabb deserved consideration for league MVP in December 2000.

Donovan McNabb has an impressive résumé. He's been to three straight Pro Bowls, was twice named his team's offensive MVP, and finished second in the voting for league MVP in 2000 (behind Marshall Faulk). Before this season began, The Sporting News proclaimed McNabb the league's top quarterback. He was also a consensus top 3 fantasy quarterback. (Yours truly ranked him #1.)

Was all of that adulation justified?

You certainly wouldn't think so based on his performance so far this year. McNabb's current QB rating of 51.1 ranks him 30th out of the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL. He is also 30th in yards per attempt (4.56), and is dead last in completion percentage (49.5%). He has thrown 3 interceptions, but has yet to score a touchdown.

In other words, Donovan McNabb is playing like a rookie.

In every statistical passing category, Donovan McNabb is playing well below the level he established for himself over the last three seasons.

Physical Skills

McNabb is a fantastic athlete who has always handled pressure well and come up big in the clutch. He is the essence of a multi-dimensional quarterback who can attack defenses with his feet or with his arm, and he's got the toughness, work ethic, and leadership qualities coaches look for in a quarterback.

The scouting report on Donovan McNabb looks like this:

• Arm strength: Excellent - one of the better arms in the league.
• Accuracy: Inconsistent. A weakness.
• Size: Adequate to good, at 6-2 1/8, 240.
• Decision-making: Generally excellent. Tends to avoid costly mistakes, although at times he will try to do too much on his own and end up forcing the ball.
• Pocket Awareness: Excellent. Can sense and sidestep the rush to buy extra time.
• Mobility: Excellent. Just a notch below Michael Vick.
• Leadership/Intangibles: Excellent. From the time he entered the league, he's made a positive impression on those around him with his attitude, maturity, confidence, guts, character, and work ethic.

Digression: An Enigma

Two of the statistics commonly used to judge a passer's efficiency are yards per attempt and TD-INT ratio. As Doug Drinen observed last year, most quarterbacks with a high YPA also have a high TD-INT ratio, while most quarterbacks with a low YPA also have a low TD-INT ratio. Donovan McNabb is a stark exception.

Entering this season, Donovan McNabb ranked fourth on the NFL's all-time list in TD:INT ratio (1.87) among QBs with at least 1,000 pass attempts. (He had also thrown the third fewest interceptions per attempt, at 0.0231.)

And yet his YPA has always been average to poor. His career YPA of 6.0 is about half a yard below the typical NFL average. Even when his YPA was a career-high 6.56 in 2001, it was still the lowest of any of the top 15 fantasy QBs that year.

Does this statistical oddity have an explanation? Perhaps McNabb's low YPA and high TD-INT ratio have much to do with his conservative passing style. For the last several years, McNabb's Eagles could expect to win low-scoring affairs if they avoided turning the ball over. McNabb therefore threw the ball away when in doubt, instead of trying to force the ball into coverage. Refusing to take a lot of risks with his throws resulted in a lower completion percentage and lower yards per attempt, but also a lower TD-INT ratio and lower interception percentage.

If that explanation is correct, we should expect McNabb's YPA to be higher when the Eagles are behind than when they are ahead, since when playing from behind it makes sense to take more risks.

Unfortunately for our theory, the stats do not bear it out. In 2002, McNabb's YPA was 7.36 while his team was leading, 5.68 when tied, and 5.57 when losing. Over the past three years, his YPA was 6.51 when winning, 5.25 when tied, and 6.56 when losing.

For now, I consider the mystery of McNabb's low YPA and high TD-INT ratio unresolved.

Overrated?

So is Donovan McNabb an elite NFL quarterback?

Despite his poor start to the 2003 season, I still believe he is. NFL defensive coordinators around the league would tell you that McNabb is one of the toughest quarterbacks to prepare for and defend against, since opposing teams typically must devote one player to "spying" on him to help contain McNabb on the ground, which limits the defensive schemes available to them. From a physical standpoint, he can do pretty much everything you'd want from a quarterback, with his sole weakness being his inconsistent level of accuracy. But that hasn't stopped him from leading his team to two NFC Championship games (although it is debatable how much of the credit should lie squarely on McNabb's shoulders).

From a fantasy perspective, keep in mind that McNabb's 25.9 points per game in 2002 made him the most efficient fantasy quarterback in the league, with about a 13% cushion over his closest competitors: Culpepper (22.6), Gannon (22.6), and Vick (22.2). He scored at least one touchdown, rushing or throwing, in every single game he played in last year. He had two 100-yard rushing games in 2002, making him the first quarterback in thirty years to hit triple digits twice in a season.

McNabb has had two poor games this season and one so-so game; but in my opinion, three games of mediocrity should not make us forget three years of exceptional production.

McNabb was probably overrated going into the season - he is not the best QB in the league, as The Sporting News had opined. But he is probably underrated now - he is not another Kordell Stewart, as some others have opined.

McNabb probably has too far to go to catch up to Peyton Manning this year. But in my view, he is still a decent bet to perform as a top 3-5 QB from here on out, and to finish in the top 6-8 range at the end of the year - a disappointment to anyone who drafted him in the third round, but still someone I'd rather trade for than trade at this point.

Overrated? The answer is not perfectly clear cut, but I vote no.