Unfortunate Lessons Learned at ESPN

RUSH: Tom in New York City. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.

TOM: Rush, just to further back you up on the McNabb thing. When you see game highlights of McNabb, he’s running with the ball and embarrassing the defense. When you see game highlights of Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw, YA Tittle they are throwing the ball because they’re quarterbacks. I’m backing you up 100% on the McNabb thing, he should be a halfback, maybe even a fullback, he’s a big guy, he’s not a quarterback, he doesn’t run the team like a quarterback.

RUSH: Well, that’s what Steve Young’s point was. Let’s keep the points where they were, that was Steve Young’s point early in the season, on September 28th. And don’t forget, there were two championship game losses here that can be traced to the quarterback position of the Eagles. And so that’s what shaped those comments on September 28th. I’m not going to take back what I said. The Eagles made a great investment drafting McNabb, and he does bring a dimension to the game. He’s a running quarterback. One of the problems I’ve always had, he’s a Randall Cunningham type, but he’s doing it better. No NFL team has actually won the Super Bowl with a running quarterback- quarterback that’s their leading rusher. It doesn’t happen, this is not the college option game. It may change for the first time this year. But there’s no questioning McNabb’s talent. He’s got raw talent. But there are other people on this team that are doing great contributory things that are being not so heralded as well because of this whole situation that happened with me and what you said, or the previous caller said about self-serving behavior on the part of the sports media in this case.

Again, this really was about the media – whole comment was about the sports media. It’s always struck me, I mean this started, if you want to trace my original comments to this, go back to this whole Augusta National thing. I couldn’t believe, here comes Martha Burk, who is Martha Burk? She’s an absolute wacko and she comes and starts telling a private club what they must do, and the whole sports community joins with her, the whole sports reporting community, practically of all of them, join with her, as though Augusta is a bunch of antique, antiquated cavemen types and they’ve got to be gotten rid of, and they’re going to lose, Martha Burk is going to win.
Well, Martha Burk is gone and Augusta National still exists as it is. It just struck me, these guys are as much the social engineers in the sporting community, sports reporting as the mainstream press is in the cultural and political arenas. And that’s the whole sum total of the comment. Just an integrity of reporting issue. I was not focusing on criticism of McNabb. That’s what the segment was. And I was trying to explain why everybody thought McNabb was regressing, when I didn’t think he really had, I thought the reporting had elevated him beyond where he performed. Well, this year he’s performed better season-long than he has up ’till now. He’s gotten better. So, good for him! That’s wonderful. Everybody’s happy about it, including me.
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