Freak

Okay, let's first clear up a few things:

1. Anyone who plays in New England, Chicago or (especially) New York is going to be constantly under the gun. (That said, the same also goes for Philly.)

2. Trent Green, Joey Harrington, Drew Bledsoe... There's a difference between scrutiny and flat-out criticism; those guys have been criticized lately because they've been very bad football players.

3. Why on earth would you bring up Derek Anderson? I remember that guy taking criticism in college for not living up to his billing, but that was years ago. He was lauded last year for one game, fell off the map, and then played brilliantly this week. Mostly he's been just irrelevant.

What Donovan McNabb is getting at is that there are various stigmas attached to black quarterbacks, at all levels. For years it was obviously near-unfathomable to start a black quarterback in the NFL, but then in the past decade, that notion pretty much wore away. I think it's kind of rearing it's head again now though, as once-All-Pro quarterbacks like McNabb and Culpepper are regressing as they get older, and high-profile draftees like Michael Vick and Byron Leftwich have vastly underperformed. I'm curious to see if it'll affect Andre Woodson's draft position next April.

I also think it would be fair to say that white quarterbacks who play poorly get more chances to redeem themselves than black quarterbacks who drop off the same way.