Steve McNair's football story has been told over and over. Fans know the way he went from star quarterback at HBCU Alcorn State to Heisman Trophy finalist and eventually the No. 3 pick within the 1995 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers.
He led the Tennessee Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV. He was the 2003 NFL co-MVP with Peyton Manning and was considered considered one of the hardest quarterbacks because of his physical form of play during 13 seasons with the Oilers/Titans and Baltimore Ravens. His number 9 was retired by the Titans in 2019 and he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame (2012) and the College Football Hall of Fame (2020).
But the questions surrounding McNair's death have persevered for greater than 15 years.
“Untold: The Murder of Air McNair” is the brand new Netflix documentary that tells the story of how he became an NFL star and fan favorite, while also shedding light on the circumstances of his murder on July 4, 2009, in Nashville.
However, the documentary doesn’t offer much beyond what has already been told.
A photograph of Steve McNair as a member of the Tennessee Oilers in 1998. (Larry McCormack / The Tennessean via Imagn)
The authorities' official version is that McNair was shot by his lover, 20-year-old Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi. She took her own life next to him, allegedly for financial reasons and since she realized that 36-year-old McNair was having multiple extramarital affair.
There are mentions of other theories, namely by private detective Vincent Hilla former Nashville police officer who wrote a book detailing problems he saw in the course of the investigation. The documentary also raises questions on Adrian Gilliam, the convicted felon who allegedly sold Kazemi the gun utilized in the crime.
McNair's friend Wayne Neely discovered the bodies and is seen within the film offering money to the detectives during questioning, but there isn’t any explanation as to why a person under suspicion would offer money to the police.
McNair's good friend and Alcorn State teammate, Robert Gaddy, talked to him a few $13,000 dispute related to a business enterprise with McNair that put them in a difficult position, but he regretted that it prevented him from helping McNair. Neely called Gaddy from the scene, and it was Gaddy who called the police.
One of the film's most gripping moments is when Gaddy talks about how difficult it’s to live amid conspiracies that suggest he had something to do with McNair's death, but he refuses to say more out of respect for McNair's family, which incorporates his widow Mechelle and 4 children.
Mechelle just isn’t interviewed within the film.
In the documentary, McNair's coach at Tennessee, Jeff Fisher, said there have been some things about McNair's death that weren’t right, but he didn’t want to invest on what may need led to his death.
The film is lower than an hour long, and there was a chance to delve deeper into McNair's post-career story. But hearing a lot about McNair the football player felt misplaced at times. You can't tell his story without mentioning his NFL profession, but what Fisher said to McNair after he lost the Super Bowl seemed less vital than the conversations they might have had post-career.
What was McNair's attitude toward life after football? Are there any lessons to be learned from that?
Kazemi is alleged to discovered from one other womanLeah Ignagni, who also saw McNair in the times before his death. During the film, a tape of Ignagni's interrogation by police was played, by which she states that she only saw McNair for a short while and was just having fun with him. But learning more about that tells us nothing about McNair and his life after football.
Mechelle has spoken openly up to nowand said she knew of other individuals who had dealings along with her husband, but didn’t know Kazemi.
It's obvious that McNair was popular. Even Kazemi's ex-boyfriend Keith Norfleet admitted within the documentary that McNair was his favorite player growing up. He talked about how embarrassing it was to interrupt up with Kazemi only to see her in a relationship together with his favorite football player.
But there's no further information on why McNair was popular off the sphere, which could explain why he stayed connected to Nashville after retiring following the 2007 season. I learned more about Norfleet than I did about McNair or Kazemi.
Perhaps it was best to let McNair's football legacy stand by itself quite than rehashing the style of his death.
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