McNabb To The Skins, REALLY??

I had to take a few days to let a trade of this magnitude sink in before i could legitimately, and hopefully unemotionally, comment on it. I mean this is the guy who I've lived and died with every Sunday for the past 11 years. It's not that easy to move on, at least for those select few of us from Philadelphia who actually have a brain in our heads. But don't worry, I won't gush on about how great Donovan was and how much I loved him, you got enough of that reading the Iverson entry from 2 weeks ago. However, I have such mixed thoughts and ultimately I'm just very confused. Sooooo, I decided to do what any indecisive, petty, 26-year-old (usually female) would do and make a pro/con list for the Eagles trading Donovan McNabb to division foe Washington.


Here's what I came up with:

PROS  (she is certainly a pro)

-He is well past his prime
-He lost 4 NFC championship games, 3 of which were to less talented teams
-He lost a step, or 7
-He could never fully handle the pressure that came with playing in a market like Philadelphia, especially when the clock showed 2 minutes or less
-The fanbase grew restless to the point that management was almost forced to deal Donovan
-The Eagles aren't good enough on D to compete for a title the next couple years anyway so we may as well find out if Kolb can play, and at the same time gather more draft picks
-The Eagles now have 5 of the top 95 picks in the upcoming draft, and could acquire more
-Reid and McNabb had a decade together to figure out how to win a championship and they couldn't get it done
-The Eagles organization as a whole became stagnant and needed a change of blood
-Kevin Kolb is in the last year of his contract and if the Eagles didn't find out how good he was this year, they couldn't have signed him to a long term deal and he would have left for free agency next summer
-The average age of the offense is now 24, the youngest in the NFL
-Kolb, Desean, Maclin, McCoy, Celek, and Avant have a chance to gel together for many years and eventually become the most explosive, dynamic, unstoppable offense in the entire league

CONS  (she is certainly a con)

















-He is by all measures the greatest QB in franchise history......and its not even close
-He brought the Eagles to the playoffs 8 times in 10 years as a starter
-He led the Eagles to 5 NFC Championship games

-He carried the likes of Charles Johnson, Torrance Small, Todd Pinkston, James Thrash, and Freddie Mitchell to 11-win season after 11-win season
-He is the NFL's career leader in TD/INT ratio
-4th and 26
-The 14 second rollout bomb to Freddie Mitchell against Dallas
-He was the most effective running QB, not named Mike Vick, to ever play in the NFL
-He is a franchise QB who still has at least 4 more years of quality play left in him
-He makes downfield throws that no one else on the planet not named Peyton Manning can make
-We have absolutely no idea what to expect from Kevin Kolb
-John Elway had the exact same statistics, a little worse even, at this point in his career and went on to win 2 Superbowls after the age of 34
-He will now have a chip on his shoulder not only throughout the rest of his career, but certainly the two times he gets to play the Eagles each season
-The Eagles are now no better than third best in their own division

THE VERDICT
There ya have it. The pros and cons cancel each other out and what we're left with is........well......who the fuck knows?? I certainly don't. Do I think it was time to trade him and move on to the next phase of Eagles football? Yes. Do I think it was smart to trade him to Washington? Absolutely not. I fully believe with all my heart that Donovan McNabb is more than capable of winning a Superbowl. Of course he is not the top 3 QB he once was, and can no longer carry a team on his own, but he is most definitely a franchise QB who can lead a good team to victory. He has proven it over and over again despite the naysayers. And yes, there were many. Donovan was a winner, is a winner, and will be a winner. I have no information to support this, just a hunch, but I think you are gonna see Brandon Marshall in a Redskins jersey sometime in the next month or two. With that D, 3 very capable RBs, Shanahan's coaching, and McNabb at the helm, I'd say watch out for the Washington Redskins this season. And for all the Eagles fans who think the grass is always greener on the other side, I so badly hope you're right. Maybe Kolb will be the new Aaron Rodgers and step in for a legend without missing a beat. But, maybe he won't. Just ask a Dolphins or Broncos fan how fun football was when they lost their respective franchise QBs. I bet you won't like the answer.

In the meantime, lets pray.....and cheer along with her:


and her:


and them:


for this guy to lead the Birds to the promised land:


E-A-G-L-E-S.........EAGLES!!!!!!