Offensive lineman Shawn Andrews spent all but one season of his NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles, and according to him, the locker room atmosphere was absolutely horrible. Andrews says that then-quarterback (and current awful Twitter user) Donovan McNabb was disrespectful and constantly demanded attention.
After hearing about the situation involving Dolphins linemen Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin, Andrews opened up about his time in Philly from 2004 to 2009, including his troubles with depression due to the shitty treatment by his teammates.
Via Sync Weekly:
“I could be sitting in the players’ lounge with a group, having some laughs, and [McNabb would] get his say in so the attention can shift,” Andrews says. “He was the type of person that had everything in the world he could want, but that still wasn’t enough. He wanted the attention on him. There was a whole lot of that behavior. He wasn’t just that way with me. I’m thinking, ‘Every day I strap on my shoulder pads and helmet, I’m here to protect you.’
“[McNabb] was a big part of it — he was a big part of my issues there. Bully is a strong word, but he was degrading to me and spread rumors. It’s bothered me that I haven’t really spoken about it.”
Someone started spreading rumors that Andrews was gay, and even though they were rumors, he says teammates treated him differently.
Andrews says the questioning and rumors became so great among teammates that he waited until everyone was out of the shower before he entered the shower, so as to not raise suspicion that he was looking at others. Either that, or he raced to a shower in the corner where he could face the wall and not be accused of peeping.
“If you want to question some one, I’d see guys in the shower talking face to face,” Andrews says. “If you want to go further, I’ve even seen a teammate piss on another teammate. They think it’s funny. They are having a conversation and the whole time one guy is peeing on him and the other doesn’t even know. This is the stuff that goes on, and I am the one having to defend myself. There were a lot of immature dudes on the team.”
Andrew was mentally broken by the end of the 2007 season. He had suicidal thoughts and started seeing a psychiatrist. The lineman stayed away from the team for a while to deal with his emotional stability, but when he came back to explain his absence to his teammates during training camp, McNabb again made him feel like shit.
“I poured my heart out. I’m not a public speaker, so I was nervous,” Andrews says. “But I felt it had to be done, so I was standing there talking, and in the middle of talking to them I was making eye contact with as many of the [players] as I could. So guess who was looking at me rolling his eyeballs? Can you guess who was doing that while I was pouring my heart out to my teammates? You know how that made me feel? After that, my thoughts were so screwed up. Then I started to stutter and thought, ‘These guys probably think I’m full of sh*t.’ At that point I really cared. [McNabb] was rolling his eyes at me the whole time.”
When Andrews signed with the Giants in 2010, he says that the organization's attitude was completely different than the Eagles. Everyone was nice and Eli Manning wasn't a dick. Andrews wishes he could have spent more time playing on Manning's line. But injuries forced him to retire after just one season in New York. Today, Andrews lives in Arkansas with his wife and son, enjoying the time spent with his family. The main takeaway should be that Andrews has lost weight and found happiness after football, but damn, Donovan McNabb sounds like a huge fucking prick.
Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
H/t to Nathaniel