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NFL News | April 5, 2010
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McNabb to Redskins trade impacts the rest of the NFL draft
By Peter King
April 5, 2010
This is what the most interesting trade in the NFL since Eric Dickerson to the Colts in 1987 came down to...
From Washington's perspective, Mike Shanahan looked at Donovan McNabb and saw John Elway. In 1995, Shanahan took the Denver coaching job and inherited a quarterback who couldn't win the big one, who'd gotten stale, who'd lost the faith of the locals in Denver to deliver a Super Bowl.
Elway, then 35, went on to play four years for Shanahan and win two Super Bowls. In 2010, Shanahan takes the Washington coaching job and deals for a quarterback who couldn't win the big one, who'd gotten stale, who'd lost the faith of the locals in Philadelphia to deliver a Super Bowl. McNabb is 33. He wants to play at least four more years.
From Philadelphia's perspective, and I've written this a hundred times, Andy Reid looked at his team and saw Groundhog Day. Highly competitive every year, falling short every year, usually with some painful offensive futility involved. The vomitous, time-wasting drive at the end of the Super Bowl five years ago, the no-touchdowns-in-the-first-21-possessions frustration in the final two games against Dallas last season. And Reid has a capable young drone, Kevin Kolb, a player whose release, demeanor and progress in three years intrigues him.
I like the trade for both teams. I like Reid trusting himself enough and having enough guts, as Bill Belichick did with Drew Bledsoe nine years ago, to trade McNabb to a division rival. Since the Super Bowl loss to New England, Philadelphia is eight games over .500 in all games, and Reid saw the team hitting a wall. When a coach sees a team getting stale, he has to change, and Reid has done that with the release or trade of nine current or former starters between ages 27 and 33 since the end of the season.
I like Shanahan and GM Bruce Allen knowing they probably couldn't get the college quarterback of their dreams, Sam Bradford, in trade with St. Louis -- and going out and getting a 2010-ready passer who will upgrade their team drastically at the most important position on the field. I'll be surprised if Washington isn't at least four wins better this year, a .500 team.
McNabb should be thankful and supremely motivated. Reid always said through this that he'd do right for McNabb, his first draft choice with the Eagles when he became coach in 1999, and he did.
Reid told me last night -- and I believe him -- that he was sure McNabb would have played wherever he was traded, and the fact that he reportedly wouldn't have gone to Oakland and signed a long-term deal there "had nothing to do with this trade.'' But when you trade a quarterback to a team you'll play twice a year, the trading team is thinking: This guy can't hurt us. We know everything about him, and we know we're better turning the page without him.
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