For the Birds
I forgot to mention some Eagles related items. I was disappointed to hear Jeremy Maclin blew out his ACL in training camp. Last year Maclin was clearly the Eagles best wide receiver, delivering much more consistent performances than Desean Dipshit Jackson. This certainly isn’t the way I wanted the Chip Kelly era to kick off. It will be interesting to see if they bring someone in to try to help fill the WR slot.
The other Eagles news was that Donovan McNabb was officially retiring, as an Eagle. To be honest I was kind of surprised, I thought he did already officially retire since he didn’t play at all last year.
It’s a nice move by the Eagles and I think it will be cool when they honor him during the KC game, when Andy Reid will also be in town. I expect both men to get a warm welcome from Philly fans, despite the love/sort of dislike relationship both had over the last decade or so.
Both Donovan and Andy, in the big picture, delivered many years of winning football which any football fan can appreciate. However both were also involved in some crushing disappointments, that in many fans eyes at times, almost outweighed the success. Yes we loved getting to the NFC championship so many times but the pain from losing again and again when the ultimate victory was in grasp built some sort of perverse resentment from fans, myself included.
For years I lamented some of McNabb’s shortcomings like his poor accuracy. His ankle high, 3 yard passes became almost legendary. His sucking wind as the game wound down during the Eagles Super Bowl appearance was another image that is not easily washed away. His mouth also became troublesome at times when he would seemingly create issues where none needed to exist.
I got sick of hearing every year how Donovan spent the off season reinventing himself. One year he came in bigger and stronger than ever. The next he would come in lean and mean. Every year there were reports of how hard he worked on his throwing accuracy in the off season. I have no doubt he worked hard in the off season to get better, it just seems like throwing accuracy for the most part is something you just have or not. McNabb, was blessed with many physical gifts but hitting a guy consistently in the numbers was not one of them.
I felt sort of bad for Donovan after the Eagles unceremoniously sent him packing. He had a pretty embarrassing lack of success in both Washington and Minnesota before he wasn’t even invited to a roster in 2012. If anything it confirmed to me that much of his success as an Eagle was the result of Andy being able to utilize McNabb’s strengths and hide his weaknesses to a large degree, something his subsequent coaches couldn’t figure out how to do.
So anyway, I’m happy the Eagles are giving McNabb a proper send off. Despite his warts, the guy deserves it. He brought the city a lot of happy fall Mondays.