On Steve McNair

This one is strange.

I will admit that my support for the Titans began in 1998...when the Houston Oilers relocated to Tennessee. Prior to that point I was, at best, a casual NFL fan. I backed the Dallas Cowboys, but only because my dad was a Redskins fan (him being from Virginia) and I guess I felt like being rebellious when I was five and "picked" a team. Then, the Oilers moved to Tennessee and, being a homer, I signed on. I knew virtually nothing about the Oilers when they came up north. I knew that Warren Moon had QBed for them a few years before and that was basically it.

The face of that franchise was Steve McNair. He was the young, hotshot quarterback who had set all kinds of passing records at a college no one had ever heard of but was capable of taking the team, putting them squarely on his shoulders, and carrying them down the field. It didn't hurt that he had Eddie George behind him, of course, but McNair was the leader. When the people of Tennessee embraced the Titans, they embraced Steve McNair. He, essentially, was the Tennessee Titans. The state had just "lost" their collective hero Peyton Manning from the Vols to the Colts...so there was a place there ready to be filled.

It also didn't hurt that he was invincible on the field. The man just didn't go out of the game unless the pain was absolutely dire. I always suspected that the impetus for his toughness was the fact that Neil O'Donnell was his back-up, but regardless McNair was basically unbreakable. There was a pure tenacity of his playing style that you simply could not recreate...and that was why the fans fell in love with him. He became a hero not, I don't think, because he wanted to be one....but because it was hardwired into his personality. His scrambling style. His alertness when he dropped back to pass. The man could play.

Apparently, if the latest news out of Nashville is correct, he liked to play in other ways too. Should this turn out to be a murder-suicide, as the press is speculating, and his life was ended by a 20-year old waitress from Dave and Busters who he had hooked up with a condo and an Escalade, the tragedy will be all the more senseless. A man who seemingly had it all, including the respect and admiration of his colleagues, the press, and an entire state, blew it all on a glory-seeking floozy who couldn't understand that she was the other woman.

McNair's reputation will largely remain unscathed though. If we have learned anything from the last week it is our culture is willing to forgive pedophilia and self-mutilation in order to make a buck and remember the good times. I'm kind of torn about this one. McNair meant a hell of a lot to a hell of a lot of people. When the Titans wear a black circle with a #9 inside it this season, the fans will remember the good times. Maybe that is how it should be.