According to Len Pasquarelli: It hasn’t yet been officially announced, but the starting quarterbacks for the Pro Bowl will be Steve McNair (of Tennessee) and Daunte Culpepper (Minnesota).
Good onya Daunte! This only goes to show why fans should not be voting for All-Star games – or at least that their votes should not be taken as a serious indicator of a player’s skill. In keeping with this season’s Black Quarterback Watch, here’s yesterday’s results:
Culpepper: 20/29 260 yds 69% 8.97 avg 3 TD 1 INT 117.0 rating
D. McNabb: 17/27 238 yds 63% 8.81 avg 1 TD 2 INT 72.8 rating
The ESPN fans, as I mentioned before, favored McNabb over Culpepper as the starter by 51 percentage points. Ludicrous. Week 16 actually wasn’t a bad game statistically for McNabb. But as usual, the Eagles weren’t in the game because of him, they were in it because of Brian Westbrook’s punt return – although the defense was no help at all. McNabb even made a very nice play in the pocket to avoid what looked like a certain sack, then seemed to overthrow Chad Lewis but the TE managed to go up and get it for a vital 4th-quarter first down on third-and-long. But that last INT that gave the game away was pretty bad. Not exactly the crunch-time performance that is supposed to excuse his “misleadingly” average stats.
Okay, but overrated. That’s my verdict. Still. And yes, I’ll continue hammering this into the ground for the rest of the season. It’s football. This is what we do. If anyone wants a long-winded rant on how Two-Minute Tommy Kramer was a better quarterback when he was drinking, I can deliver that too. My theory is that his balance was off without the beer in one hand.