How will McNair be remembered now?

Steve McNair was always one of my favorite players. I loved his heart. I admired his toughness.

A hangnail would have put me on injured reserve. But not McNair. My lasting image of him is the way he willed himself to play, suited up with so much padding he looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I always thought he belonged in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Today, those memories of him are hard to remember.

The circumstances surrounding his tragic death have overshadowed anything he did on the football field. Maybe in time I will feel differently. But right now, all I can think about is how he died, at the side of a 20-year-old woman who was not his wife.

McNair was not the first athlete to cheat. Perfect human beings are not enshrined in the Hall of Fame, we all know that.

But the way in which McNair died will be the first thing I remember when his name comes up. Teammates and coaches have talked about what a great competitor he was, what a great person he was, what a great player he was.

Unfortunately, his exploits on the field are not what anyone wants to discuss.

We are wondering how he died. All of these questions have been bandied about on the Internet: Was it a murder-suicide? A double-homicide? Did his wife hire someone to do it? Did an angry ex-boyfriend of the woman do it? Why was McNair in a condo with her at 2 a.m.? Why was she driving a car registered to him when she was pulled over for a DUI earlier in the week?

We are searching for answers right now, so we know how to feel about McNair, so we know what legacy to assign him.

His legacy should be one that puts him into the Hall of Fame. The case for him began when he retired following the 2007 season after 13 years with the Titans and Ravens. Many football observers believed ultimately he would fall short of enshrinement.

Public sentiment seems mixed.

I always believed McNair deserved a spot because of what he meant to the game. His stats are not anywhere near the Brett Favre stratosphere, but they are good enough. He threw for 31,304 yards, not in the top 20 NFL career passing list — but more than Terry Bradshaw (27,989), Joe Namath (27,663) and George Blanda (26,920).

He is one of three quarterbacks with at least 30,000 yards passing and more than 3,500 yards rushing. McNair was co-MVP in 2003.

No, he never won a Super Bowl, but he was the second black quarterback to start in the big game, behind Doug Williams. And McNair was a part of one of the most memorable Super Bowl games, when his pass to Kevin Dyson in the closing seconds against the Rams came up 1 yard short of a touchdown that would have tied the game.

McNair helped revolutionize the quarterback position. Not only was he “Air” McNair, he could run, too. His ability to play through pain was incredible. On top of all that, he immediately made the Tennessee Titans relevant after they moved to Nashville from Houston.

The image of him on the field has been replaced with the thought of his wife and four sons. How does a mother explain to her children how Daddy died? What happened to McNair is too hard to reconcile with his exploits on the field right now.

Hopefully that changes.