The biggest story in the NFL Offseason happened on Sunday night when the Eagles decided to trade their franchise player, Donovan McNabb to the Washington Redskins for a second-round pick and some other things. The trade left me wondering and scratching my head for various reasons.
Now let be known that I am not the biggest McNabb fan and personally feel he is slightly overrated. I understand getting to the conference championship is special but it isn't the Super Bowl. At least Jim Kelly, and John Elway got to the Super Bowl multiple times even though in defeat. Dan Marino is the only quarterback that I would categorize as someone who was a premier franchise QB yet not many Super Bowl appearances.
Despite all of that, it is still a mind-blowing trade. I cannot believe the Eagles traded him to a rival and more so the ravenous fans being completely okay with it. I mean this is your rival who you see twice a year and the face of your franchise for the last 10 years will be playing on the other teams. I would be up in arms if this happened with the Packers, but I really think it shows how much the city of Brotherly Love never got behind McNabb.
They never were for his entire career, I mean hell he was booed from the get-go on draft day when the Eagles decided to take McNabb over Ricky Williams (great decision looking back on it today). No matter that he almost always delivered a winner with the Eagles, the fans still found some room in their cold hearts to dislike him after one mistake. The pressure kept building to finally give Kevin Kolb a chance at quarterback and now many Eagles' fans have got their wish. Fans are baseing his success off two 300 yard performances against weak defenses, I think no one has a harder job than him next season. Easily comparable to Aaron Rodgers but I feel it might be harder since he already showed some glimmer of hope in the regular season.
As for the Redskins, I cannot see how this doesn't help them out once they find some wide receivers. Curious question, would the Skins' ask McNabb if they would entertain the possibility of bringing Terrell Owens into D.C.? Hmm.... Very interesting if you ask me. Anyways, he will have a three-headed attack of Clinton Portis, Larry Johnson, and Willie Parker in the backfield, which I think is risky but all of those guys have something to prove this season a lot like McNabb. He is working with an offensive mastermind in Mike Shanahan who has made pretty much every quarterback look good and another guy with something to prove in the National Football League.
I still think their offensive line will be the biggest question mark and if they can figure it out after they likely draft Russell Okung in the first round, this team becomes very dangerous. They already have a average to above average defense and now they have an offense to put points up on the board, look out NFC East. Further, I think their division is pretty much wide open, all teams have the same sort of questions marks headed into the draft and it should be an exciting season in the NFC East.
All I know is the McNabb back to Philly is a must-see TV game to see how big of an FU moment it will be for the former superstar. I just think there will be a large chip on McNabb shoulder and he will bring the noise at Lincoln Financial Field. Not to mention, I think this sort of thing amplifies tenfold in football because you only see them once or twice instead of 2 to 4 times in the NBA, or multiple times in baseball.
The one thing I wonder today is will the reaction be the same come late October?
-Charlie.
2 comments:
I wasn't sure what to make of this trade. I think McNab is good, and still has a few good years left probably--I mean, he's an upgrade from Campbell, but I'd rather have those two draft picks. I think Campbell was "good enough" to win with. We need to start building with draft picks.
Signing Larry Johnson and Willie Parker to go along with Portis is another head scratcher for me. For several years now we keep hearing (especially from the players) about how much talent they have, yet they keep failing miserably. It seems this team always love to build a team by how it looks on paper.
Yeah I always thought that Campbell got screwed by having six different Offensive coordinators in six years. He never got comfortable in a system.
Yeah the only logical explaination I can give you is that Shanahan's system that is heavy on running and he isn't sure that Portis can carry the load all by himself. The other thing is, I believe he shipped Portis to Washington in the first place.
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