I guess we should be used to this by now.
For the third time in the past five years, Donovan McNabb will miss at least the last six games of the regular season after tearing his ACL in Sunday’s 31-13 loss to the Tennessee Titans at Lincoln Financial Field.
The injury occurred on a seemingly innocuous play early in the second quarter, when McNabb rolled to his right and attempted to complete a pass as he went out of bounds along the Tennessee sideline.
McNabb, unable to put any weight on his right knee, was taken off the field and is expected to miss between 8 and 12 months, wiping out not only the rest of the 2006 season, but also leaving his 2007 season in doubt.
In other words, the worst nightmare for Eagles fans has come true. Again. The only player the Eagles couldn’t afford to lose was lost for the rest of the season.
It’s a nasty deja vu.
In 2002, McNabb missed the final six games of that season after breaking his foot against the Arizona Cardinals on a wet and rainy day at the Vet. In 2005, McNabb struggled all year with a hernia until he was finally forced to stay out for the rest of the season after injuring himself to the point where he could no longer play the Cowboys in Week 10.
Now this. Oh, and let’s not forget his injury against the Carolina Panthers in the first half of the Birds’ 2003 NFC Championship Game, which knocked him out of that competition.
What makes losing McNabb so difficult is that there are absolutely no backup plans. Donovan is asked to do more for his team than any other quarterback in the NFL. He doesn’t have the talent that the Peyton Manning and Carson Palmers of the world have and he doesn’t have a coaching staff that understands the importance of establishing a running game.
The Eagles expect Donovan McNabb to be their everything and everything. They put all your eggs in your basket, give you marginally talented receivers, and continually fail to establish an identity by running the ball. And that philosophy works, as long as Donovan is healthy and hits the ball around the Linc the way he can.
Unfortunately, that plan fails massively when everything and everything is lost during the year.
Because the Eagles have refused to pay attention to the running game, don’t have Pro Bowlers at catcher and sport a defense that’s as dependable as an Anna Nicole Smith babysitter, they’ve screwed up.
The only way the Philadelphia Eagles can be successful is if Donovan McNabb runs the show. And now it won’t be. Maybe not for long.
The answer in the backup QB? Jeff Garcia, who was 26-48 (48 pass attempts ???) for 189 yards and a touchdown, but had serious trouble moving the Eagles anywhere Sunday.
Did anyone else think that Garcia hadn’t seen the practice field this entire season? You’ve been practicing with the team all season, right? Is it too much to ask your backup QB to step in and at least be marginally competent against a 2-7 defense?
As for the Birds and their prospects here in 2006, you can say goodbye to the playoffs. He was asking a lot of the Birds to run a 6-2 second half with his killer schedule and a healthy Donovan McNabb. But now they’ve lost to previous Titans 2-7 at home, and asking them to go 5-1 in their last six (@ Indy, CAR, @ Wash, @ NY Giants, @ Dal., ATL) with a back -up QB , with no running game, poor defense, and a horrible call is just bullshit.
It can not be done. Not with Jeff Garcia or AJ Feely at QB. Not with a receiving body that throws passes like the ball has cancer. Not with a defense that misses too many tackles and allows Travis Henry to rush 143 yards. Not with a coaching staff that continues to call for third-and-goal game action passes from the 1/2 yard. And not with a special teams unit allowing a 90-yard punt return for a touchdown to PacMan Jones.
It’s not happening, folks.
Then another season is wasted. The 4-1 of the Birds, a distant memory. At 5-5, it would take a genuine miracle for the Eagles to go 5-1 in their last six, against a killer schedule with a weak backup QB, players who appear to have given up and a coaching staff. You can’t seem to get out of your own way.
With McNabb, maybe it could have been done. Without it, there is no possibility.
Perhaps the worst thing about McNabb’s injury is the label we must now bestow on # 5 …
“Prone to injury.”
You can’t miss so many games so many years in a row without being labeled “injury prone” or “fragile.” You just can’t count on Donovan McNabb to give you a full 16-game season again.
He is a fantastic player, perhaps the best quarterback in Philadelphia Eagles history. He is a man greatly underrated by the citizens of Philadelphia, but you have to wonder how much longer his body can hold out.
Maybe it’s time to invest a second or third round pick in this year’s NFL Draft on a quarterback. Not someone to replace McNabb, because he should be the starter on this team until he retires or he can’t play anymore, but someone who can be groomed to be a viable backup.
Because at the rate it goes, who knows how many years Donnie Mac has left? A torn ACL is no joke. While Carson Palmer has recovered from his ACL tear in the span of about eight months, Daunte Culpepper is still in pain in his knee and will likely be out of the game for the rest of the year. It is not known how long it will take # 5 to heal from this.
We may not see a fully healthy Donovan McNabb again until the beginning of the 2008 season, if we will.
A terrifying thought in the middle of another lost season.
