NFL Predictions 2011: Donovan McNabb's Full Season Statistics

Entering his 13th season in the NFL at the age of 34, the Minnesota Vikings acquired quarterback Donovan McNabb with belief that the veteran still has some game left in the tank.

McNabb's career is highlighted by making five NFC Championships and one Super Bowl appearance. It's low-lighted by a trade to the Washington Redskins in 2010 which ended with him riding the bench for the duration of the season.

Known for his accuracy and touchdown completions, McNabb ranks fourth best all-time in career interception percentage and has one of the highest winning percentages among active quarterbacks.

Let's take a stab at how McNabb's stats could stack up this year with the Minnesota Vikings.

Passing Touchdowns

Let's start with passing touchdowns.  

McNabb's best year statistically was in 2004 when he completed 31 passes for a touchdown. It was this year that McNabb lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl with the high octane offensive duo of he and wide receiver Terrell Owens.  

Owens grabbed 14 of McNabb's 31 touchdown passes that year and the two seemed virtually unstoppable in their first season playing together.

In 2003, with a very weak receiving corp, McNabb completed a little more than half that many touchdown passes with 16 and although the team still made it to the NFC Championship game, they were lead mostly by a committee of running backs in Brian Westbrook, Duce Staley and Correll Buckhalter.

Comparing these two teams to the 2011 Minnesota Vikings, the similarities are much more apparent with the 2003 Eagles squad than the 2004 team. With Minnesota losing go-to receiver Sidney Rice to Seattle and picking up no one in free agency, the jury is out as to who will be the Vikings No.1 defense altering, deep ball grabbing, top receiving threat.

With that said, the Minnesota offense will likely be very run heavy with star running back Adrian Peterson seeing plenty of carries and responsible for most of the load. 

Unless the Vikings pull a miracle wide receiver out of the sky or polish off a diamond in the rough during training camp, I think we can expect 16-19 passing touchdowns max out of McNabb this season.

Rushing Touchdowns

Let's face it, although McNabb has had a couple of decent rushing seasons in his career, they were in his younger years and those days have long since passed him by.

In McNabb's sophomore season he carried for 629 yards and six touchdowns. In his fourth year in the league, he carried for 460 yards and six touchdowns.

Those young legs, however, no longer exist.  

McNabb has not rushed for over 200 yards since the 2007 season and in the past four seasons he's had a total of four rushing touchdowns.

With that said, Minnesota will be lucky to see McNabb reach the end zone with his feet once this season, and that's if he trips over his shoelace and falls across the plane.

Interceptions

One number that has always been impressive throughout Donovan McNabb's career is his interception percentage. McNabb ranks fourth-best all-time in career interception percentage and second-best all-time in career touchdown-to-interception ratio, just behind the New England Patriots' Tom Brady.  

McNabb has only thrown double-digit interceptions in six of twelve seasons in his NFL career, however, three of those six seasons came in the last three years, with McNabb throwing a career high of 15 in 2010.  

With few receiver options this season in Minnesota and a running back as illustrious as Adrian Peterson, McNabb's passing numbers will probably be down, ultimately lessening the chance of interceptions.

However, we can not ignore last years stat as McNabb's career high 16 interceptions came on just 472 pass attempts, which ranks sixth in pass attempts per year in his career.

It would be nice to see McNabb get back to his old ways of single digits in interceptions and come out of this season with just eight or nine, but he could have as many as 11 or 12.

Completion Percentage

For the duration of his career, Donovan McNabb's completion percentage is a number that has always been fairly consistent.  

His percentage has pretty much stayed in the range of 57-61 percent, with the exception of his all-time low of 49 percent in his rookie season and his all-time high of 64 percent coming in 2004 when the Eagles went to the Super Bowl.

McNabb's career average completion percentage is 58.9 percent, so expect it to be right around there this season.