Donovan’s End?

The list of players who didn’t win a championship in Philadelphia used to be an important one. Now that the Phillies have won a title, who cares!

Nobody, in a way. But it’s still a list worth updating. And yesterday’s 36-7 loss to the Ravens may not only have ended the Eagles season (figuratively), it also might’ve ended the Philadelphia career of Donovan McNabb (literally). It’s a shame.

A lot of people don’t like McNabb, never liked McNabb, but he’s been a hell of a quarterback for the Eagles. He won a bunch of division titles, won a ton of playoff games and got the Eagles to a Super Bowl.

And yet. He threw four three picks in that Super Bowl, he had some bad games in the playoffs, he says dumb things at press conferences. (I don’t care about that last one.) And he joins Allen Iverson, Eric Lindros, and so on, as another Philadelphia superstar who didn’t add “champion” to his resume.

Eagles coach Andy Reid benched McNabb at halftime, with the Eagles trailing 10-7. (If we learned anything yesterday about the Eagles, it’s that they’re just as bad with another quarterback under center. They might be worse.) With the Eagles at 5-5-1, they might back it in and start Kolb the rest of the year.

Kevin Kolb did drive the Eagles down to the Ravens inch-yard line in the fourth quarter, but ended up throwing an interception to Ed Reed, who returned it 108 yards for a score. That play epitomized the Eagles season. Not because the Eagles didn’t try to run it in from the one-foot line. (What were they going to do, run?) No, that play was special because no less than five Eagles (Kolb, Westbrook, Herremans, Celek, L.J. Smith) had a chance to tackle Reed and none did. It seemed like Eagles were coming off the sidelines to miss the tackle.

The Eagles are fun to watch when they’re bad. Bad football can be kind of funny, and the Eagles are so snakebitten hilarious bad things happen to them almost every game. An NFL-record interception return? Sure! Only one missed field goal by opponents all year? Of course.

They are not, though, fun to read about, as people (and, increasingly, a media hungry for pageviews) in this city can’t write anything coherent about the Birds when they’re not above .500. So let’s lay back, put our feet up and enjoy the rest of the season. Let’s hope Donovan McNabb can do the same.