I don’t recall anyone saying McNabb was “the best”, or even close. The question at the time was whether he was in the realm of the “elite” - a legitimate question that race should have played no part. Yet voices on the left wanted to take his ever-so-slight slight under-ranking and turn it into a racial issue, and then Rush (as he is wont to do, and was frankly being paid by ESPN to do so) threw gas on the fire.
In the end, Rush got thrown under the bus, McNabb got the last best years of his career taken from him having to hang under this shadow, and the media laughed all the way to the bank.
I remember many pundits calling him the best. That was how the discussion was framed. McNabb was the best. I have a couple of NFL yearly magazines which rated McNabb as the best quarterback in the league.