McNabb not getting booed and yelling about it.

During a recent roundtable discussion on Fox Sports 1 — which proves the point that if a TV channel shouts, but no one watches it, it still makes a noise — Donovan McNabb had some advice for Nick Foles. First, of this coming year, McNabb said:

“I’m just a little worried if he can do it for a full season,. I’m just worried about that aspect, not so much of his health, but can you be consistent like what we saw last year? We’ve seen so many quarterbacks give us one year of greatness, and then all of a sudden they can’t live up to the expectations. I’m not saying he can’t do that in that offense, but I think expectations are a little bit too high for Nick Foles.”

We really all want to believe in Nick Foles here, and while his one year of greatness was in fact great, it was still only one year. Many QBs have gotten huge contracts off of one great year (or even one pretty good game, Matt Flynn), but there will be a lot of pressure on Foles to do well this year. Here is where McNabb is not wrong. He continued, according to Philly Mag:

“‘When you’re in command of an offense like that, the confidence is so high going into this offseason about Nick Foles, instead of the offense. Guys remember that. Guys have that in mind going into workouts, and they’re hearing so much about the quarterback. But for Nick Foles, he’s never truly been a guy where the focus is on him. In Philadelphia, the focus is on the quarterback. If he can’t do the same things he did in that first season, it’s gonna be tough.’

After host Joel Klatt jokingly asked McNabb how he would know, the former Eagles quarterback said: ‘Yeah, I know. Just be ready for the boos.'”

This is where, even if number five will always love us, he still pisses us off. At least he (kind of) admits that he was booed because he didn’t perform. But he’s still salty about it. You can tell. Fans have booed pro athletes on their own teams for many reasons, but the most frequent one is when they are expressing their displeasure when said player was doing poorly. Donovan was only really booed when he threw a horrible interception, or hurled a 3rd down pass at someone’s shoelaces, or forgot that NFL games could end in a tie. Those are all very boo-able offenses. Fans aren’t cheerleaders, and if they think you suck, they will let you know. Donovan should have accepted that as fact and gotten used to it a long time ago. And if Foles does those things, yes, he will probably be booed. But those boos aren’t expressions of “get out of here we don’t want you on our team,” they’re saying “hey, we don’t like that you just did something that helped the other team, don’t do that again.” It’s a perfectly reasonable expression of disappointment from a feverishly loyal fan base. And wouldn’t you rather be booed a little bit in a packed stadium than play in front of a half-full, half-interested crowd like the ones at Citizens Bank Park? I’ll answer that for everyone, because that answer is yes.

People will always remember McNabb getting booed at the draft. That day is its own monster. But enough years have passed that, on a national scale, no one really knows or cares about the times McNabb was booed by Eagles fans. And everyone would probably move on, if McNabb would stop bringing it up.