Donovan McNabb Released: Stick a Fork in Him, He's Done

This is the end of the road for Donovan McNabb.

Don't get me wrong, the quarterback could still catch on with another team now that the Vikings have given him his outright release. As quarterbacks in the NFL continue to drop like secondary characters in a horror movie, McNabb's availability will be attractive to teams looking to bolster their playoff chances or gate receipts. He might find work for a few more weeks, but that'll be it.

McNabb turned 35 last week. He entered the league to a chorus of boos in 1999's NFL Draft and his standing with the NFL's national audience only grew slightly better from there. He led his team to a Super Bowl in the 2004 season with the help of Terrell Owens. He was named to the Pro Bowl six times when the NFC featured Kurt Warner and Brett Favre in their respective heydays. He was the face of a still-popular ad campaign for Campbell's Chunky brand of soups.

I think that Eagles fans in Philadelphia appreciated McNabb. I'm not so sure that anyone else did. The level of credit McNabb deserved was always up for debate. Exactly how much did the Syracuse product contribute to an organization with quality skill players on offense and perennially stout defenses? He was indirectly criticized by Rush Limbaugh in 2003 in well-documented comments that still follow both men to this day. 

McNabb became a popular target for the national media in other ways, and sometimes he made it too easy. Barfing on the field. Accusations of getting tired in the Super Bowl. Not knowing the rulebook in that tie against the Bengals in 2008. The air guitar in the tunnel at Cowboys Stadium in back-to-back losses to that team in 2009. The Eagles had seen enough, and traded the face of their franchise to Washington, a team Philly would play twice the following season (they split the series, with each team winning once).

Minnesota was not a great fit, either, especially with wow-did-he-really-go-12th-overall rookie Christian Ponder waiting in the wings. McNabb managed six starts before his relegation to the bench, and that was that. He asked for his release earlier this week, and earlier today, he got it.

McNabb might go someplace else. The Chicago native has surely noticed that his hometown Bears could use a quarterback, and that lowly has-beens Jake Delhomme and Jeff Garcia were offered tryouts in Houston. Next Tuesday will be interesting for McNabb, if he isn't already signed by then. Tuesdays are when teams look at prospective free agents to replace whatever players have been deemed unfit for service.

McNabb to Chicago seems like a fun storyline worth cheering on, but one wonders how much of Mike Martz's offense can be picked up and executed on short notice. Other struggling teams like Kansas City and Jacksonville might consider picking up McNabb's $1.85 million waiver claim to spare their fans some misery, or at least give them a different kind of misery. That's really what McNabb's specialty is: a high-profile flavor of disappointment.

Still, talking about McNabb beats talking about Favre.