All I know is that McNabb made plays when he absolutely had to. The play when he got out of jail in the backfiels, scrambled and hit Pinkston at the pylon was a play that very few other QBs can make.
He also converted a 4th and 26 when the season was on the line.
Favre threw a dunderheaded pick that was the decisive play in the game.
The Eagles could not have won the game without number 5. they probably wouldn’t even be in the playoffs. Donovan deserves his props.
I love McNabb but to be fair I don’t think the team was built around him or any other one person, which may be why it’s so sucessful (of coure he’s the one with the 12 yr deal).
In fact, I believe putting McNabb back in the post season last year was a giant mistake and cost us (Philly) the superbowl. Feeley should’ve stayed in.
Of course I’m no expert.
But what’s great about the Eagles is that there’s no Allen Iverson of that team. The better the player, the lower the profile.
All due respect, but Feely was fine as a “don’t screw up” fill-in. In the playoffs, when you’re playing good teams, you need players that can make things happen.
The Iggles only have two offensive guys who consitiently make outstandinig individual-effort plays; and the other is Brian Westbrook.
Usually the term “rebuild” is not used with teams that make it into the 2nd round of the playoffs… but the window of opportunity for another Superbowl in the Favre era is certainly closing.
Fuckin’ Eagles. I almost want to see them make it to the Superbowl just so they get shredded by the Pats or Colts. The fact that Philly has never won the big enchilada is the last trump card I have over my other NFC East aficionados.
Honestly, I’m not trying to bash or flame here, but off the top of my head I can’t think of any teams starting 3 WRs that I would want less than Philly’s. Maybe there are some that I’m not thinking of, but they have to be in the bottom 5 in the league.
Yeah, but see - that’s part of my point. A lot of teams don’t start three WRs. Most teams have one STAR and one pretty-good WR and sometimes line up a third guy.
I looked at the stats for receiving yards among NFC receivers this season. The highest any Eagle ranked was 29th (Pinkston and Thrash tied). Oh ho, you might say… see? What this shows is that they lack a true #1, but McNabb spreads the ball around to compensate.
Anyway, I went down the list, marking down a team each time one of their WRs appeared. The first team to have three WRs appear was the Seahawks (6th, 12th, and 20th). The eight team in the entire conference was the Eagles, which puts them right in the middle of the pack. Ahead of them were Tampa, Dallas, New York, Minnesota, Green Bay, and New Orleans.
Of course, like I said - a lot of teams start only two guys anyway.
Whether you want to go with 2 (Thrash/Pinkston) vs other teams, or 3 (add in Freddy Mitchell) vs other teams…I’m actually looking at depth charts now. The only teams I’ll lower than PHI on the WR talent scale are:
Baltimore
Chicago,and this may be because they havent had a good QB since … :shrug:
and then there’s teams that have a one star WR and garbage elsewhere
Detroit, Miami, and Arizona. I can’t say that they’re collectively any better or worse that Pink/Thrash/Mitch.
Don’t take that as a knock on your team, obviously they’re doing things well. You don’t get to be one of the final four teams by accident. I just think they’re doing it in spite of their WRs. All JMHO, of course.
No big deal. The WRs are a weak point - but they compensate for that by having McNabb back there. As seen in the last game, he can run a bit, not to mention improvise when coverage is tight.
There’s also been a lot of attention paid to NE’s loss of… well, almost everyone throughout the season. Philly has lost four defensive lineman for the entire year, though, and the secondary has often been quite hobbled.
I predict this NFC Championship will be low scoring.
C’mon, Dan, you have to read my post in context. I stated (in case you’d forgotten) that my team is the Giants. That means that if Philly wins 8 Superbowls in a row, they still suck in my eyes. Philly is beneath contempt for fans of Big Blue. Go Panthers!
McNabb is overrated because he is overpaid. He deserves a starting job, but not a bazillion dollars.
My gutless wonder comment is based on QBs throwing dumpoff passes to the RB. That is the safety valve play; it doesn’t take much skill at all, it is not particular sexy, and often makes a game fairly boring. In fact, the reason you see dumpoffs is usually because the QB isn’t confidant that he can get the ball to the WR without the DB picking it off. Donovan’s 6.7 yards per attempt (an abysmal showing) confirms that he is Johnny Dump-Off, having little confidance in a traditional, vertical passing game.
According to pro-football-reference, no Eagles WR had 50 catches in 2003. That’s beyond bad. Even worse, all WRs combined had 127 catches. Hey, all 5 Eagles WRs combined equals 1 Marvin Harrison. 
The Running Backs combined for 100 catches even. 100 catches for RBs, 127 for WRs…hmmm, looks pretty sad if you ask me.
Again, I hated every one of the 2 thousand dumpoffs to Tiki this year. I screamed the same complaints at my Giants.
Very few teams “start” 3 WRs. Almost all of them start a base package, which only has 2 WRs. The normal question is “Do you start a FB or TE2?”
I respect traditional passing. In order of which receiver takes the most guts to get the ball to: WR1, WR2, TE1, WR3, TE2, HB, FB
A good passing game should have 320 completions per season. (20 per game.) Eagles weren’t so bad, with 278. (I thought it was much lower.)
The distribution of that 320 should be:
200 to all WRs (62.5%)
70 to all TEs (22%)
50 to all RBs (15.5%)
The Eagles had:
127 to all WRs (46%)
50 to all TEs (18%)
100 to all RBs (36%)
Until McFlabb starts earning the respect of opposing secondaries, he will never get my respect. (17 passing TDs?! Laughable.)
Andy Reid, however, has won over my respect beyond belief. That friggin’ guy can coach like I would never have believed. I think the Giants have the worst coaching in the NFC East in 2004…and the Giants have solid coaching.
Donovan is probably worth exactly half of what he is being paid. IOW, he’s got Bledsoe-itis. (Bledsoe has at least shown he can throw to WRs, though.)
Fine, so you’re biased. Which makes at least some of your arguments worthless.
Well, he’s the ninth-highest-paid QB (as of 2002, anyway)
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salaries/playersbyposition.aspx?pos=3
Through the '02 season, he was behind Favre, Couch, B. Johnson, Stewart, Collins, Brunell, Plummer, and Manning. Of course, Plummer and Stewart are with new teams, now. At any rate, McNabb was making $5,754,938 at the time - hardly a huge amount in the NFL.
Quarterbacks don’t usually plan to do those dumpoff passes, you know; they’re the result of wideouts being well covered. To me, a gutless act would be to toss it into the crowd when there are open teammates. I don’t know why you don’t like RBs as receivers, but the truth is that using them as such can only add to a team’s weapon arsenal. Back when Larry Centers was in his prime, he did it all the time.
It’s funny how you pick on his YPA and ignore the fact that a QB must depend on two things in order to have a high YPA - a strong OL that gives him a LOT of time and fleet WRs that can get deep. The Eagles simply haven’t had a deep threat in a long while, and - get this part, because it might be too tough for you to grasp - they still win a lot. Obviously, you don’t need a deep threat to win on a consistent basis.
Heh. Ok. Let’s look at your vaunted Giants. They had two guys with over 60 passes this past season. What was their record again?
It’s funny you harp on how awful and pathetic and gutless McNabb and the wideouts are when your team is in the toilet with a solid QB and bona fide deep threats in Hilliard and Toomer. In short, fat lot of good those players did. What you don’t get is that McNabb brings a lot of intangibles to the line of scrimmage that many quarterbacks cannot - like your Mr. Collins. McNabb is a leader, and that’s what impresses me.
A good passing game should get that? I’m sorry, tell me again - what teams did you play on? 
Okay, maybe it should be like that, but obviously they’ve proven it doesn’t have to be like that.
The Eagles lost four games this year. They didn’t lose them because their passing game sucked. Their passing game was worse overall than your Giants’ passing game, and yet the Eagles were far, far more successful.
If you seriously don’t think opposing teams - yes, even the secondaries - don’t respect McNabb’s talents, you’re either a narrowminded “fan” who thinks only in terms of Giants=GOOD and Everything Else=BAD or a complete ignoramus. Every time a team’s getting ready to play the Eagles all I hear from the other team is how they’re gonna have to be on their toes, trying to anticipate his actions.
As with most New York fans, Ellis is talking out of his ass.
Be specific. List the number of starting QB’s who are better, right now. I’d say about 8; which means he’s right where he should be.
Or like … a team that wants to throw to its RBs! What a concept!
Where the fuck are you pulling this “should” stuff out from? Oh, your ass? Well, that explains the smell.
I’m sure the Colts are shocked to hear that they were the best passing team in the league … after all, they didn’t get 62% of their passes to wideouts. Not that they should feel bad – 9 of the top 10 didn’t. The Chiefs must really suck. They only got 46% of their passes to wideouts, … same as the friggin’ Eagles.
Then there’s this:
Well, we’re all glad to hear about what you “respect.” And we all appreciate your pronouncements on knowing what “takes guts,” since after all, the object of the game is to impress you with their guts and look “sexy.”
Of course, if you’re right and completing less than half his passes to WRs is a sign of being gutless, he’d better change that now; it’d be a shame if he
kept
on
doing
that
every
single
season
of
his
entire
career.
You utter buffoon. The Eagles offense IS Andy Reid. He’s an offensive guy, and he calls the damn plays! Screen passes, eight-yard hitches, timing patterns off a three-step drop, distributing the ball to as many different players as possible … you think McNabb just makes that shit up? That’s Reid’s offense out there.
Bottom line, Einstein, is that the goal of the offense and of the QB is not to look pretty, it’s to score points and win. McNabb does.
Oh God, just kill me now for not flaming a DTC post. DTC you ad a great point on the pass. But allow me to assert the 4 reasons Green bay won that game?
2-4. I just can’t shake that shitty feeling from #1.
Next year
Absolutely correct. A comparison of dry statistics is the last haven for losers. McNabb is a big-game, big-play quarterback. How many QB’s in the league routinely have their opponents put “spies” on him, have the opposing defenses disrupt their strategies to compensate? Donovan is the man.
Anyone who watched that magnificant performance of his and described it as weak has an axe to grind. Go Birds!
BTW, Ahman Green tripped on the fourth and goal because Corey Simon drove Wahl backward. Let’s not pretend it was just bad luck.
Big Game? Like the last 2 NFCC games?
I’m half taking a potshot and I’m half serious. I realize that he can be a difference maker on the field and that defenses have to plan for him. He’s a very good QB. But if the Eagles lose today IMO he’s going to take over the role that Manning just shed this year – “Mr. Can’t Win the big one”.
If the Eagles and Colts will both win today (and I think they will) then we will people saying the losing QB can’t win the big one, even if the score difference is 3 points and the winning team scored on a ball fumbled by a running back.
You don’t get that far without winning big games.
And Manning hasn’t shed it. If they lose today or next week, you’ll keep hearing that crap. And if they win it all and lose in the playoff next season, it’ll come back. Just the example of the one-track-mind media.
Like three huge road victories this year, against Miami, Green Bay and Carolina. Like last week’s win. Like the play-off win against the Bears.
I understand Donovan’s greatness will ultimately be defined by a Super Bowl ring–and he’ll get one–but he is already a big-game QB.
Wow. It’s been two days since the Eagles lost their third straight NFC Championship game, and no one has come in here to trash talk. Amazing.
Well, in spite of the fact I’m a life-long Packer fan in Packer country, I won’t rise to the bait. Actually, the Eagles are my favorite non-Packer NFL team.
As has been expressed numerous times in this thread, the Packers blew their chance. They failed to get it done on offense, defense, and coaching.
Because I was traveling to move my daughter back into college after the holiday break, I didn’t get to see the Eagles - Panthers game. I had to listen to it on radio in the car. As a consequence, it is hard to tell what exactly went wrong, but it sounds like the Eagles got outplayed. Of course, when McNabb got injured all hopes of winning the game went out the window.
I wish you Eagles fans well, but based on players on the field, I think the Packers have a better chance of getting to the Championship game next year than the Eagles. I think the Packers learned some valuable lessons this year.
Yeah, they got outplayed. No excuses here. The Panthers totally deserved their win.
It just seemed to me that the Eagles didn’t show up to play. They choked badly, and I don’t know why. It’s not an injury issue - although McNabb being hurt wasn’t helpful - so that’s no excuse. They were trailing only 7-3 late in the game, but then they completely fizzled. Poor, poor play.
If you’re an Eagles fan, you gotta feel like your heart’s been removed. You’re pissed at them. Lose if you must, goes the Philly fan’s credo, but please play with heart and passion. It’s a blue-collar town, and we respect workmanlike success. We do not respect dispassionate performances.
Meh. The O-line played well; they ran OK and the pass blocking was good. Duce was absolutely playing with passion (gonna miss him). The D-line was beat to hell with injuries (WTF is Sam Rayburn? Isn’t he an actor from old Westerns?). The DBs were fine.
All due respect to the Panthers, I can think of two main reasons the Eagles lost, and they rhyme with “Trash” and “Stinkston.”
And Reid for sticking with them every year.