By now, we’ve heard about Steve McNair, and how his life came tragically to an end. I won’t talk about his character, and what a great family man he was, or what a great representative he was for the city of Nashville. Frankly, I can’t.
During his playing days with the Titans, my Indianapolis Colts played McNair twice a year. His scrambling skill, coupled with his ability to get his ball to his receivers though they weren’t terribly talented was always a back breaker. In the early part of the decade, the Titans were the thorn in the Colts’ side. I hated Steve McNair.
That was the thing about McNair. If you liked his playing style, or were a Titans fan, you loved him. If you liked the pocket passer or ever had to beat him, you hated him. It was very hard to like Steve McNair, but at the same time, it was very hard to dislike him either. He was perhaps the last prominent football player without context in the NFL.
This day in age, we get to see most skill position players play out their college days, and often get to see them even get recruited out of high school. Steve McNair went to tiny Alcorn State, and didn’t really arrive in the public spotlight until the draft approached. It’s hard to say he was an underdog either, because he was picked third overall. You had no reason to root for or against him, unless you were cheering for the Oilers/Titans, or the team they were playing.
Brett Favre had a similar background, coming from small town Mississippi to become a career long, gritty quarterback. Somehow, however, the media took to Favre, and came to enjoy covering him, interviewing him at every opportunity. He even had a cameo in There’s Something Abount Mary. Favre became well known, but for various reasons, became less and less likeable. McNair, for whatever reason, never became the media darling.
Now with his horrible passing, the details of his life, both the good and the bad, are being disseminated to the masses, really for the first time. Sure, there is reminiscing on his wonderful NFL career, but really, for the first time we are hearing from his family, finding out about his life after the NFL. Only now, in death, are we able to figure if we like or dislike Steve McNair.
McNair in life, unlike so many players this day in age appeared to us simply as a professional football player. With the media able to permeate everything this day in age, is such an eventuality possible anymore? Maybe Joe Flacco, small school (Delaware), first round pick, thus far fairly awkward socially, is the next Steve McNair. If he is, we can only hope his life doesn’t end so tragically.
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