Getty Chiefs coach Andy Reid brought Donovan McNabb to practice on let him address the team ahead of the Super Bowl.
When the Eagles won Super Bowl LII, Doug Pederson brought in Brett Favre to deliver an inspiring pep talk. Chiefs coach Andy Reid is going in another direction.
According to NFL.com’s Dan Pompei, Reid had former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb at Chiefs practice on Thursday and let him give the team a pep talk ahead of Super Bowl LIV.
Obviously, Reid is banking on McNabb’s 13 years of NFL experience — mostly spent playing for Super-Bowl contending teams — to motivate his troops. The joke every Eagles fan is sure to make here is that the lone Super Bowl McNabb actually advanced to was the game he reportedly barfed in.
“He’s been there and done it,” Reid told reporters on why McNabb was invited to speak. “He’s been in the league, played a long time. It was good hearing from him.”
McNabb has made no bones about which side he is rooting for this weekend. He’s pulling for his old coach and expressed excitement over being invited to speak to the Chiefs.
Did McNabb Actually Throw Up in Super Bowl XXXIX?
This urban legend has taken on a life of its own over the years, largely fueled by Freddie Mitchell’s biased timeline of events. In 2015, Bleacher Report’s Mike Tanier did an outstanding job of trying to piece together what exactly happened on that fateful day. Tanier’s ultimate verdict was that the alleged “Super Puke” may have been an “intentional misremembrance of an event.”
The play where McNabb is accused of vomiting is the first point of contention in any Super Bowl XXXIX timeline. Most of the “puke truthers” have called out a drive with about three minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
McNabb had just been tossed viciously to the ground by the Patriots’ Jarvis Green and then fumbled the exchange from center Hank Fraley on the following play. It took nearly 33 seconds for the Eagles to get off the next play, a first-down completion to Mitchell. The clock run-off — those 33 seconds of elapsed time — was due to McNabb barfing up his lunch in the huddle, per Bleacher Report.
Former Eagles fullback Jon Ritchie seemed to confirm the puking incident in 2014 comments on SportsRadio 94 WIP. “It looked that way. Some guys have those nervous stomachs,” Ritchie said, via The Inquirer.
I gotta respect @KingJames for standing up for his teammate. McNabb would never do that for me. @espn
Meanwhile, McNabb has vehemently denied vomiting in the biggest game of his life.
“No, at no point did I throw up,” McNabb told GQ magazine in 2010. “I got hit and dumped on my face a couple of times… and maybe I lost my wind a little bit.”
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