Steve McNair wasn’t even in his grave before some sportswriters started dissing his talent as a quarterback.

Specifically, one writer for The Baltimore Sun delved into the question of whether or not McNair, who was fatally shot July 4 by a distraught mistress in what Nashville police described as a murder-suicide, is worthy of being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The reporter took a poll of 24 of the 44 members of the committee that selects PFHOF inductees. All but seven turned a thumbs down to McNair’s induction.

The reporter, were he on the committee, would probably vote the same way. Here’s what he wrote about McNair: “In 13 seasons with the (Baltimore) Ravens and Tennessee Titans, McNair finished with a pedestrian 60.1 completion percentage and an 82.8 passer rating (in comparison, Jeff Garcia’s career passer rating is 87.5.)”

You don’t have to know what a passer rating is – or even be a football fan – to realize there’s some major cherry-picking going on in that sentence. A comparison of two stats for just two players? How about comparing McNair to a quarterback who’s already in the PFHOF? Like, for instance, the sportswriters' precious Joe Namath?

Namath, like McNair, spent 13 seasons in the National Football League. (Five of them were with the American Football League before the two bodies merged in 1970.) Namath played 12 of those seasons for the New York Jets, and is famous for his overrated and downright lucky “guarantee” that the Jets would beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. But what do some of his career stats look like?

In the area of career completion percentage, where McNair had a “pedestrian” 60.1 rate, Namath had a percentage of 50.1. His career passer rating is – if you’re a Jets fan, you might want to sit down for this one – 65.5.

McNair threw 174 touchdown passes, Namath 173. McNair had over 3,500 more passing yards and threw only 119 interceptions. Namath threw 220 picks. Yes, the man who’s been the darling of sports journalists for over 40 years had more career interceptions than he had touchdown passes.

I can hear some BlackAmericaWeb.com readers now. Kane, they’re going to say, you’re doing what you accused The Baltimore Sun sportswriter of doing: Comparing only two players.

With my piercing intellect, I’d anticipated such a response. So I compiled 10 statistical categories and compared McNair’s numbers with 17 quarterbacks who are already in the PFHOF. McNair’s numbers were better than at least nine of those quarterbacks in eight of those 10 categories.

And I didn’t just compare McNair to obvious slouches like Namath, who wouldn’t even be in the PFHOF if it weren’t for Super Bowl III, and probably shouldn’t be there at any rate. On this list are names like Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Dan Fouts, John Elway and Roger Staubach. There are old-school legends like John Unitas, Fran Tarkenton, Len Dawson, Bart Starr, Sonny Jurgensen and Y.A. Tittle.

Nine of the categories I got from the Web site Pro-Football Reference.com. One of them is career completion percentage, where McNair had that “pedestrian” 60.1. Only Montana’s 63.2 was better. McNair’s was higher than 16 of the 17 already in the PFHOF.

The other categories are career touchdown passes; career interceptions thrown; percentage of passes thrown for touchdowns; percentage of passes thrown for interceptions; career passing yards; career passes completed; career yards passed per game and career passer rating.

The 10th category is one of my own creation. It’s a ratio of percentage of passes that went for touchdown versus ones that were thrown for interceptions. I divided the latter figure into .....

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