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.

T.O. Shows His Eagle Pride

Last night as the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to defeat the mighty Bengals, the NFL Network showed an interview of Terrell Owens by noted journalist Deion Sanders. And T.O. was wearing a shirt with an Eagle on it! Anybody else I’d chalk it up to coincidence, but there is no way it was not a direct, intentional move by Terrell Owens. We’ve been through this before, no?

Papa John’s Celebrates Eagles Tie

Double toppings! And people were going on and on about how this tie was a bad thing.

Update: This is not the first time an Eagles tie game has ended in discounted pizza. Bryan Graham writes: “The Eagles and Ravens played to a soporific 10-10 stalemate on Nov. 16, 1997. But the biggest losers were the Baltimore-area Pizza Hut owners, whose season-long gimmick promising $1 off a large pizza on Monday for each Baltimore sack on Sunday backfired when the Ravens got to quarterback Bobby Hoying a franchise-record nine times. The area’s 52 outlets ended up marking down pies to $1.69, creating multiple-hour waits and lines around the block.”

Ha ha, Bobby Hoying.

NBC’s Cole Hamels Dis

Hey, there’s Joe Biden, taking in the Eagles game last night in South Philadelphia. And with him is Hollywood Hamels, enjoying his status as a Philadelphia hero. Let’s zoom the camera a bit and focus in on Cole and… hey!

Don’t pan away from Hamels! You’re in Philadelphia, NBC cameras. Since when does the VP trump the World Series MVP around here? Talk to me when Joe Biden wins Most Valuable Vice President.

Look how NBC is treating Cole. The man has to move his neck in from offscreen to get on camera. How rude. Doesn’t the channel know what’s important?

Ahh, yes, here is the shot for the viewers, not Cole Hamels but Jeffrey Lurie, who also recently struck out 30 people in the playoffs. Clearly this is all the panning and zooming NBC needs to do.

Oh, yeah, and the Eagles lost.

On Further Review…

Thanks to Football Outsiders for noticing that the blimp cam showed the ball had crossed the plane on the Bears’ 4th & Goal stop at the half-yard line in the Eagles’ disappointing loss last night. Right? Right?? I’m not completely sure due to the angle. All it has to do is cross the front of the white line; it looks like he got in. Sigh.

Exhale: Westbrook ‘Day To Day’

Yes, it’s true, Eagles fans. The man who could probably be elected mayor is listed as day-to-day. That means his ankle isn’t fractured (which we already knew) and the MRI apparently didn’t show anything all that serious.

Everyone’s already thinking the same thing right here: He doesn’t need to play Sunday for the Eagles to beat the Bears. Give him Sunday off and the Eagles will still be 3-1 heading into a game against Washington. Then again, if we remember last season’s game against the Bears…

Up With The V! Dot The I!

Well, that was a fun sports weekend, wasn’t it? The Eagles didn’t exactly play like world-beaters, but they fought past the Steelers, 15-6. And the Phillies fell out of first on Friday night, but rallied to win the next two games to go up 1 1/2 in the division; they’re 98 percent playoff bound.

Okay, so Brian Westbrook is hurt. So is McNabb, though he came back. And L.J. Smith might as well be a statue and the Phillies bullpen can’t possibly carry them through the playoffs with how often they’ve pitched this year. Eh, whatever. Let’s just think good thoughts for now.

Nobody Wants To Say Bad Things About Brian Dawkins

On his blog yesterday, Daily News columnist Rich Hoffman summed up the conventional wisdom on Brian Dawkins: He might be getting too slow. But look at all the recriminations beforehand:

I have to admit, up front, that my heart is not in this one. But you know, after the Dallas game, that people are now going to be asking the question if Brian Dawkins is done. I don’t think he is — but I honestly can’t decide if my judgment is being clouded by the fact that this is a conversation I just don’t want to be having. But here we are. Again, I don’t think he is done. But the conversation is a fair one at this point.

This is kind of the conventional wisdom on Brian Dawkins, too, incredibly: Eagles fans just don’t really want to complain about Brian Dawkins. Iggles Blog wonders if this is a Philadelphia first: “I’ve been racking my brain to come up with another time when Philly fans — as a whole — have been so loathe to complain about such an obvious slippage in on-field performance.”

Hmm, not sure, though one of those good-guy hockey types could have gotten away with it. But, hey, let it be known: If you say all the right things, play a little dirty and be one of the stalwarts of the defensive secondary for about a decade, Philadelphia fans will like you.

Has this ever happened before? [Iggles Blog]
The Dawkins Question [The Idle Rich]

DeSean Jackson’s Blunder, Frame By Frame

There’s a lot to be said about last night’s Eagles game today, but for now let’s just focus on DeSean Jackson’s goal line fumble, which Bryan Graham has helpfully documented. On a long pass from Donovan McNabb that would have been his first NFL touchdown, Jackson tossed the ball behind him just before he crossed the goal line. I haven’t checked completely through The Eagles Encyclopedia yet, but I believe it is the stupidest play in Eagles history.

Eagles-Cowboys, Tonight!

Oh, it’s on!

The suddenly resurgent Phillies have the night off, and it’s the Eagles who take center stage in our tiny town’s all-too-important sports world as they take on the Cowboys in Dallas tonight.

Be ready to hear a lot about Donovan McNabb versus Terrell Owens tonight. No, really. Like be ready to hear about it nonstop, without fail, until the end of time, because when the Monday Night Football announcers (read: Tony K.) get on a topic, it’s impossible to get them off. It should be an excellent, game, though, and maybe the magic this town had over the weekend will travel down to Texas to give the Eagles a win.

If not, though, it’s probably best to avoid sports talk radio for a while. Actually, that’s a good idea even if the Eagles win.