The problem with new Eagles quarterback Mike McMahon suddenly became obvious to me Sunday.

He isn't white enough.

Let's be clear here. McMahon is certainly a Caucasian. But he just isn't the right kind of white to succeed as a quarterback in the National Football League. Peyton Manning is white, and his Indianapolis Colts are 13-0.

To be perfectly honest, it never would have occurred to me to judge McMahon's performance on the basis of his race. For too many years now, I have been ignorantly trying to assess athletes and coaches by the quality of their performances, not by the amount of melanin they have in their skin.

This is what makes the leadership and example-setting of men like J. Whyatt Mondesire so very important. As president of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, Mondesire had the wisdom and courage to criticize Donovan McNabb for "hiding behind excuses dripping in make-believe racial stereotypes."

Well, no one likes their excuses dripping in any kind of racial stereotypes, let alone make-believe ones. Thanks to Mondesire's column in the Philadelphia Sun, I realized two things.

First, there is a Philadelphia Sun.

Second, I learned that a player's winning percentage, statistics and overall character weren't as important means of measurement as his ability to live up to my own arbitrary racial prejudices.

So: Sorry, Mr. McMahon, but you're just not white enough for me.

It is clear that Reid was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the Eagles' fan base. It didn't work, though, because Philadelphia is unique among NFL cities.

In the last two decades — since 1986, to be exact — the Eagles have played 333 regular-season and playoff games (excluding the three strike games in '87). African American quarterbacks started 234, or 70.2 percent, of those games: 108 by Randall Cunningham, 100 by McNabb and 26 by Rodney Peete.

That means white QBs — Bubby Brister, Jim McMahon, A.J. Feeley, assorted Detmers — started 99 meaningful games for the Eagles in the last 20 seasons.

The point is that, more than fans in any other NFL city, Eagles fans were in danger of overlooking the race of their team's starting quarterback. That's what made Mondesire's broadside against McNabb so well timed.

Personally, I'm grateful for being shown the light. For far too long, I worried about things like facts, logic and fairness when forming my opinions and writing my columns. This is a huge waste of precious time when my head is full of perfectly good assumptions, misconceptions and outright misrepresentations.

Is it fair to judge McMahon as a white quarterback instead of merely as a quarterback?

Who cares! Fairness, schmairness!

The point is that I can do it just because I feel like humiliating somebody. And I have J. Whyatt Mondesire to thank for showing me the way.