Birds-Blogging: Sooooo close

So the Eagles come within an adrenaline-fueled bad pass/interception of either beating, or at least taking to overtime, the undefeated New England juggernaut. That's a feat that only the defending Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts have even come close to managing. Arguably the Birds played the Pats better than the Colts did. With just a very few exceptions, the Birds offense could move the ball at will and scored more first-half points against the strong Pats' defense than any team this season. They held the potent Pats' offense to their lowest point-total this season (the Pats' first 7 came from the defense on an interception TD return).



So, it's now long-past time for someone with authority in the Eagles organization to ask why the team seems to: be coached smarter, plays harder, works more cohesively, and just generally plays better* when "the franchise" Donovan McNabb is not starting at QB. And it may be time for someone above Andy Reid to recognize that he's either unwilling or incapable of asking that question and/or doing what needs to be done as a result of that question.



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* My own theory for why the Birds play better without McNabb is what I'd call the "nanny syndrome". When a parent or parents don't spend any time with their kids (due to work, lifestyle, whatever) and the nanny basically raises the kids, the kids eventually will stop responding to the parents, since they figure that the parents aren't the ones calling the shots (for all practical purposes) during the majority of their daily lives anyway.



Donovan McNabb has only started in 29 of the Eagles' last 48 regular season games. Sure, like a guilty parent showing up for the kids' final school recital, No. 5 ocassionally shows up for a play-off game, but he's missed nearly half of their regular season games, and a bunch of the games that he's actually played have been under the cloud of his returning from injuries. You can't blame the offense for having difficulty dealing with McNabb as the starter.



Now, one might ask, that "nanny syndrome" may hold for children, but these are grown men, well-paid professionals we're talking about. Well, which adult doesn't prefer working with someone who makes them look good over someone who embarrasses them? Somehow, miraculously, A.J. Feeley made the receiving corp and the front line look really good last night . . . just like Jeff Garcia made them look really good last year . . . just like Koy-fucking-Detmer made them look really good before that. Yet, when Donovan's starting, his inability to get the ball off in time, to the proper receiver, with an on-target throw, is the receivers' and o-line's fault.

Birds-Blogging

Three words:

Fair-Fucking-Catch!!!!

And, I wonder what Donovan McNabb's QB rating would be if you took out all of those bullshit dump-offs to Westbrook at or behind the line of scrimmage.

Is it too much to ask that on first-and-goal from the 6 that, on at least one of your three plays from scrimmage, you actually throw the ball past the line of scrimmage?

Bird-blogging, 2007

Ahh, training camp. And so begins the latest in the string of sure-to-be-unsuccessful Super Bowl campaigns by the Philadelphia Eages (now that's a Philly Sports Fan for ya).

"Franchise" quarterback Donovan McNabb returns this year after suffering a torn ACL (without any contact whatsoever, just running out of bounds) in week 10 last season.

That's not to be confused with the broken ankle that cost him 6 weeks in 2002, or the Sports Hernia that allowed him to play only 9 games in 2005.

McNabb has been an enigma. At times he's looked brilliant, but at other times he's showed a disturbing lack of touch and accuracy (especially for someone who's been in the league as long as he has).

On the one hand, he's never had great receivers (with the exception of T.O.'s brief, tumultuous visit to Philly) and arguably Donte Stallworth. On the other hand, he's very obviously gotten away from the scrambling style that used to at least create some opportunities for even his less-than-average receivers, and instead decided to become a strict pocket quarterback which has allowed opposing backfields to dominate the Eagles' receiver corp.

Now, I'm not stat-junkie, and I'm certainly not a fantasy-league geek, I'm just a guy who grew up watching the games. But it's always seemed to me that what I was seeing on the field never quite jived up with the numbers that people threw around about McNabb (and the Eagles offense in general).

So, thank to SalPal for doing the lifting on debunking Donovan's pre-injury 2006 season:

That oft-repeated, seldom analyzed conventional wisdom about McNabb's being on an "MVP pace" last season needs a reality check. Yes, before he was injured on Nov. 19, he had 18 touchdown passes and just six interceptions with a quarterback rating of 95.5.


But the Eagles lost four of his last five starts, beating only the lowly Redskins in Philadelphia (and in that game, McNabb completed just 46 percent of his passes). He lost in New Orleans, threw three picks in a loss to the awful Bucs in Tampa, couldn't get in the end zone at home against the Jaguars and exited the game against Tennessee with a quarterback rating of 33.5.

Now we learn that McNabb thinks he may have to play the whole season with a knee brace which is probably going to do absolutely nothing for his mobility, and which is kind-of at odds with what coach Andy Reid has previously said about the brace.

For too long the Eagles organization and head coach Andy Reid have been too personally invested in Donovan McNabb's success (going all the way back to McNabb being booed on draft day), that they've put that pride ahead of the good of the team. In fact, a large part of the problem has been that for too long "the Eagles organization" = "Andy Reid". Thanks Jeffrey.

Perhaps with the drafting of QB Kevin Kolbe, and the front-office talk of Kolbe being a "franchise-type quarterback", the team is finally willing to unhitch its wagon from #5's train.

Of course, we here in Philadelphia know what becomes of "franchise-type" players (Lindros, Iverson, Roland, Drew, Burrell). If they win, it ain't here.