Blow this farging team up

[MadMarchHare]

By Ashley Fox

Inquirer Columnist

Don't play the kid.
Instead, get the old man some help.

This abomination of a season isn't Donovan McNabb's fault. He hasn't gone from one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL to one who deserves to be benched for a rookie second-round draft pick out of Conference USA. The Eagles won't be better with Kevin Kolb under center. Not now. Not this year. Not even next year.

Everyone outside of the NovaCare Complex is so quick to jump off the McNabb bandwagon. It's understandable. With the position, great praise and great blame go hand in hand. If you're going to get the glory when the team wins, you have to accept being the goat when it loses.

The Eagles are 3-5. The natural tendency is to blame the quarterback or blame the coach.

For the record, I'd do the latter. But that's another conversation for another day.

McNabb gets all that. He might be sensitive, but he's not stupid.

But it's just wrong to think that the 23-year-old Kolb will make this offense and this team better. He won't. He can't. He doesn't yet know how. Maybe one day, but not now.

What would help are a few players not named Westbrook who can actually catch a pass and make a play. It would help to have a true No. 1 receiver, not someone you think can emerge as a No. 1. It would help to have a healthy, proven tight end. It would help to have a legitimate second running back.

For the love of special teams, it would help to have someone who can give the offense decent - if not spectacular - field position once in a while. And it would help to have a few more playmakers on defense, guys who can create turnovers and get stops. It would help to have a premier strong safety.

That the Eagles lack all of the above is not McNabb's fault. Yes, he takes sacks when he should throw the ball away. Yes, his passes aren't always on the mark. Yes, his record of late isn't the greatest.

But have people forgotten how he started the year off last year? How he was lethal with the long ball? How he still could move? How he thrived when he had a good wide receiver?

All of that is not gone. McNabb's not done. He doesn't have the weapons, and he's not 100 percent McNabb. That isn't an excuse; it's a reality. So is this: A quarterback is always better his second year after a major knee surgery than his first.

So don't accept the knee-jerk premise that benching McNabb for Kolb is the right thing to do. It's not.

For one thing, as dead as the Eagles looked against Dallas - and they did look dead as early as the second quarter - the season isn't over. Get a win in Washington and another against the Dolphins, and the Eagles would be .500 with six games to go.

It's a long shot, to be sure, but the Eagles aren't out of it. Not yet. The Giants were 6-2 and looking strong a year ago and look what happened. They crumbled, losing six of their last eight to sneak into the playoffs a dead dog.

For another, remember there are no guarantees with Kolb. The Eagles think he will thrive as a starter in this league, otherwise they wouldn't have used their top pick last April to snatch him up. But, the Eagles don't really know. No one does.

It took the Dallas Cowboys nine failed quarterbacks and six years to settle on Troy Aikman's replacement. Think Jerry Jones wasn't trying to find the perfect quarterback? It's an inexact science, as the Cowboys learned firsthand as they ripped through Tony Banks, Quincy Carter, Ryan Leaf, Clint Stoerner, Anthony Wright, Chad Hutchinson, Drew Henson, Vinny Testaverde and Drew Bledsoe before settling on an undrafted product of Division I-AA.

"He's the man for the 2000s," Jones said after signing Tony Romo last week to a six-year, $67.5 million deal. But the fact is the Cowboys wasted the first six years of the "2000s" finding Romo.

So, get off McNabb's back for a while. Give him some more time. It stinks because the wait for a Super Bowl win seems endless, but wait another year to harshly judge McNabb.

In the meantime, demand that your team gets McNabb some help in the off-season. Like a receiver, and a tight end, and a punt returner, and . . .

Hey, Ashley, you dumb twat, you're missing the point.  You don't bench McNabb to get better this season.  You bench McNabb to determine if Reid farged up when he drafted Kolb.  So the (hopefully) next coach knows if he needs to fix yet another Fatman fargup.

Nothing is going to substantiatively improve the play of this team this season.

[rjs246]

Articles like this that express undying optimism for this season make my ass twitch.

[Tomahawk]

Articles like this that express undying optimism for this season make my ass twitch.

with giddy anticipation?

[rjs246]

You may have missed the point of that post...

[reese125]

All of that is not gone. McNabb's not done. He doesn't have the weapons, and he's not 100 percent McNabb. That isn't an excuse; it's a reality. So is this: A quarterback is always better his second year after a major knee surgery than his first.

Really? Carson Palmer would disagree

[ice grillin you]

the quarterback isnt necessarily better the knee is

[Sgt PSN]

All of that is not gone. McNabb's not done. He doesn't have the weapons, and he's not 100 percent McNabb. That isn't an excuse; it's a reality. So is this: A quarterback is always better his second year after a major knee surgery than his first.

Really? Carson Palmer would disagree

Really?  Carson Palmer would disagree with you disagreeing about him disagreeing with Ashely Fox. 

2006:  16 G, 324 Comp, 520 Att, 62.3%, 4035 yds, 7.8 Avg, 28 TD, 13 Int, 93.9 Rat

2007:  8 G, 190 Comp, 294 Att, 64.6%, 2193 yds, 7.5 Avg, 16 TD, 10 int, 91.0 Rat

He's currently on pace to throw for approx 4400 yards and 32 td's this year which would make it his best season as a pro.   

[rjs246]

Really?!?!?!

[Sgt PSN]

No.  I made all that up. 

[rjs246]

I just wish you weren't a liar.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I'm a unit manager.  People fear me!  I drive a Dodge Stratus!

[Don Ho]

Articles like this that express undying optimism for this season make my ass twitch.

It took the Dallas Cowboys nine failed quarterbacks and six years to settle on Troy Aikman's replacement.

now thats optimism!  

excuse me Ashley,  Troy Aikman won three super bowls.

[ice grillin you]

so aikman gave dallas one ring for every three qb's theyve gone thru in trying to replace him

would anyone else have taken that from donovan?

[smeags]

1. Eckel's right

2. Although he's right, its no shock at all that he's once again blowing Modrak. He lost his inside info, most of it, when Modrak was shtein canned. He's been blowing him since then.

3. When scouting directors or personnel guys are fired and new ones come in, they usually put in "their boys". This happens all throughout the NFL.

yeah but when "their boys" come up with gems like matt mccoy over and over again it eventually comes back to bite you.

[Sgt PSN]

I just wish you weren't a liar.

I wasn't always a liar.  Then the Corps made me a recruiter and all that changed.