McNabb to Start Again, but How Long Before He’s Shown the Door?

By JUDY BATTISTA
November 24, 2008


On the day after Barack Obama won the presidential election, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb mused what it would be like for his team to win the Super Bowl and to receive the congratulatory telephone call from the country’s first African-American president.

After being walloped by the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, the Eagles are not going to the Super Bowl. And even if they do in the next few years, McNabb probably will not be the quarterback taking that call from the Oval Office.

His benching after one half Sunday almost certainly represented the beginning of the end of an era in Philadelphia.

Sure, Coach Andy Reid announced Monday that McNabb would start when the Eagles host the Arizona Cardinals on Thanksgiving night. But it is hard to imagine Reid will go into another season with McNabb as the full-time starter after benching him — and not delivering the news himself — with the Eagles trailing by just 3 points against a fearsome defense. It is an ignoble and stunning conclusion to what seemed not that long ago like a rare quiet and healthy season for McNabb.

But even then, there were warning signs in the horrible starts, the hot finishes and the inexplicable streaks. And now this: McNabb has thrown five interceptions, fumbled twice and tossed just one touchdown pass in the past two games. Most shockingly, he also admitted he did not know that a game could end in a tie.

McNabb has not been the only problem in the offense’s meltdown. The running game, with Brian Westbrook, is confoundingly underused, with runs coming on a little more than a third of the offensive plays. Still, McNabb was made the de facto scapegoat by Reid, the man who was once his most steadfast champion.

Reid might have made a terrible mistake benching McNabb when he did, though, because it thrust Kevin Kolb, a second-round pick who did not throw a pass last year as a rookie and who had attempted just nine passes as a professional before Sunday, into an unwinnable situation. The Eagles were on the road against one of the N.F.L.’s most intimidating defenses. Soon enough, Ed Reed intercepted a Kolb pass when Philadelphia still had a chance and returned it 108 yards for a touchdown.

“Sometimes with a player, you step back an inch and maybe you go forward a mile,” Reid said, which certainly made it sound on Sunday as if he thought McNabb could return.

Reid left himself with two awful options: stick with Kolb even though he would have had only three days to prepare for the Thanksgiving game, or put McNabb back in as a likely lame duck and brace for an absolutely brutal reaction from fans when he takes the field Thursday.

He has made his choice, for now. But either way, amid a slow but steady decline in recent years, the Eagles are sliding into a rebuilding mode. They are in last place in the National Football Conference East, two games behind the Washington Redskins in the win column, and are perhaps the league’s most underachieving team. Their playoff hopes are hanging by a thread.

It has been a sometimes exhilarating, sometimes infuriating decade for McNabb and the Eagles. No matter what happens in the short term, McNabb will probably have to be traded in the off-season. And as bad as he looks right now, he will probably draw interest elsewhere (Minnesota, anybody?) particularly if Reid plays him again and he bounces back.

McNabb was once just a few points — and an upset stomach — away from defeating the New England Patriots and becoming a Super Bowl champion. But on Sunday, he was quite literally left standing in the cold.


Changing Fortunes

Whoever acquires McNabb will be taking a similar leap of faith that Miami did with Chad Pennington or that Atlanta and Baltimore have with the rookies Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco. The N.F.L. gives credence to the quick fix (hello, Brett Favre). And this season, for better or worse, has been one of huge swings.

Last season at this time, the Detroit Lions were preparing to play a meaningful Thanksgiving game against the Green Bay Packers. This year, they are among 10 teams that have already lost more games than they did all of last season.

The Lions are reaching Tampa Bay territory; with remaining games against the Tennessee Titans, the Minnesota Vikings, the Indianapolis Colts, the New Orleans Saints and the Packers, they are in danger of going winless. No team has done that since the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14. The Miami Dolphins can tell the Lions what that pursuit is all about. They heard the questions and comparisons to the woeful Buccaneers last year, when they started 0-13. But then they played the almost-as-awful Ravens and won in overtime.

The luckless Lions do not have a team nearly as bad on their schedule, although at least they can take some comfort in the notion of a quick recovery being demonstrated by the Dolphins and the Ravens.

“We’re ahead of schedule,” Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter said last week.

Incredibly, some of this season’s worst teams — the Chiefs and the Raiders, for example — are not on the list of teams that have lost more than they did last year. That tells you that the decline in Kansas City and Oakland has been more gradual. Here are the teams that have already lost more: the Cleveland Browns (they benched Brady Quinn on Sunday, so where do they turn next?); the Patriots; the Colts; the Jaguars; the Chargers; the Cowboys; the Packers; the Lions; and the Seahawks.

Needless to say, injuries to star players — like those to Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Tony Romo, Matt Hasselbeck and Shawne Merriman — account for a large part of the drop. But consider the Packers. They sent Favre packing and are now on the list of teams that have lost more often than they did last season. The Jets picked up Favre and have been winning more often.

Here is the much shorter list of those that have won more than last season: the Jets, the Dolphins, the Ravens, the Carolina Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons.

No team is likely to top the best one-season win increase. That belongs to the 1999 Colts, who won 10 games more than they did in 1998 thanks largely to the pairing of a more experienced Peyton Manning and running back Edgerrin James.


Tomlinson’s Troubles

After losing to Indianapolis on Sunday night, the Chargers may have found their window closing.

San Diego has had perhaps the most talented roster in football for several years. Yet the Chargers might have squandered their best shot at a Super Bowl with this group when they lost in the American Football Conference championship game to the Patriots last season.

The ownership gave Coach Norv Turner a vote of confidence last week, saying he would be back in 2009. But with his Chargers (4-7) two games behind Denver in the A.F.C. West and way out of the wild-card race, Turner could be trying to get them back to their previous level rather than trying to improve on it.

The biggest concern is running back LaDainian Tomlinson, who has acknowledged he feels worn down. At times this season, he has not displayed his usually excellent vision to spot holes, his stellar ability to cut or the strength to finish off runs by pushing through tacklers.

He is averaging 3.8 yards a carry, his worst performance since his rookie season and well below 2006 (5.2) and 2007 (4.7). He is also averaging 18 carries a game, down from a career average of 21.

The question that will loom during the off-season is whether Tomlinson is wearing down for good. He turns 30 next year, the traditional point at which N.F.L. running backs begin to decline.

Here is an especially bad sign: on Sunday night, Tomlinson ran 21 times for 84 yards, an average of 4 yards a carry. But that was against the league’s 25th-ranked run defense, which had been allowing 136.8 yards a game and 4.3 yards a carry. The Colts were also without their run-stopping linchpin, the all-Pro safety Bob Sanders.

Tomlinson has never finished a season with fewer than 1,236 yards, his rookie-year production. He needs 466 yards over the final five games — a little more than 93 yards a game — to get there.

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