Jason Campbell: the franchise QB who was never given a fair chance

     Unlike most people, I was sad to hear that Donovan McNabb had been traded to the Redskins. While I agree that McNabb is an upgrade over Campbell right now, he is clearly not the team's franchise quarterback (he has probably three good years left in the league). The Redskins had a franchise quarterback in Campbell. With the worst offensive line in football (he was sacked 3rd most in the league), some of the worst receivers, and a revolving door of different offensive systems, Campbell played pretty darn well. He had a 64.5% completion percentage, which was 10th best in the NFL and better than Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Carson Palmer, and Donovan McNabb, among others. His overall passer rating was 86.4, not great, but good enough for 15th best in the NFL (out of 32 QBs) and better than, among others, Carson Palmer, Vince Young, and Matt Ryan. While he didn't have amazing stats, Campbell did increase his statistics every year in every major category, showing room for further improvement. The point is that Campbell was a good quarterback who had a chance to get a lot better and turn into a real franchise cornerstone for the Redskins and the Redskins blew it.
      When examining any trade the main question has to be, 'how will this help the team compete for a Super Bowl'? Even with McNabb the Redskins will still suck next year. Those who say they can make the playoffs next year just because of McNabb are crazy. They will still have one of the worst offensive lines in football, regardless of who they draft. Their running backs are the best running backs in the league three years ago, but today all are over the hill.While their young wide receivers showed progress last year, overall their receiving corps still sucks. Their defense is pretty good, but their cornerbacks are all fairly bad. So McNabb won't be any use this year. While the Redskins could legitimately become serious contenders three years from now, there are significant doubts to that as well. After that it's unsure how good McNabb will be. McNabb seems to be a stopover until the Redskins draft a "real" franchise QB, despite the fact that they already had one in the first place in Jason Campbell.

      So did I misrepresent some of the facts in my post? Am I overestimating Campbell's skill? Comments would be appreciated.