| |  McNabb must stay focused, disregard Vick
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
Part of a generation that grew up inundated by the be like Mike mantra, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb might be far better served in Saturday night's divisional round matchup to purge from his memory banks whatever remnants of that suggestion are still rattling around in his cranium.
Try to be too much like Mike -- Vick, of course, not Jordan -- and McNabb and his teammates could again fall short of a Super Bowl berth that, ever since a five-point loss at St. Louis in the 2001 NFC championship game, they feel is a matter of manifest destiny.
Eight weeks of idle hands, the result of a broken right fibula, could turn McNabb's innate competitiveness into the devil's workshop on Saturday night. And if the devil makes him do it, he could find himself attempting to emulate the derring-do of the Atlanta Falcons young quarterback.
|  | | McNabb threw 17 touchdown passes and ran for six more in his 10 games this season. |
To which his Eagles coaches and teammates have simply advised: Derring-don't, Donovan.
"All he has to do," said Philadelphia slot receiver Antonio Freeman, "is be himself. That's all. And everything else will take care of itself."
It is human nature, however, to want to transform any postseason matchup into a high stakes game of "Can you top this?" And since Donovan McNabb was Michael Vick in the league long before the peach (state)-faced upstart was, there could be some subconscious proprietary claim on his part.
After all, Vick is viewed now as the NFL's premier big-play performer, the primary reason this divisional-round matchup is being contested in prime time. The quietly prideful McNabb, who last season adorned the covers of no fewer than six season preview magazine covers (including that of ESPN The Magazine), is the man with the huge question mark hanging over his head. And anxious to answer all doubters with an unforgettable exclamation point performance.
But it has been eight weeks since McNabb snapped his fibula on the third play of a game against the Arizona Cardinals. Eight weeks since he refused to allow team physicians to X-ray his ankle at halftime. Eight weeks since he gimped through that Nov. 17 game and, operating mostly from the pocket, threw a career-best four touchdown passes in a 38-14 rout. Eight weeks since he limped to the sideline and informed coach Andy Reid, who sensed his star was in pain, "I'm hurt and I'm playing."
In that stretch, backups Koy Detmer and A.J. Feeley shepherded the team to five victories in six contests. And in that stretch the throaty Philadelphia fans, like the Hebrews awaiting the Messiah, kept praying for a miracle and wondering if there was any way McNabb could return for the playoffs. In that stretch, Vick supplanted McNabb in the minds of most fans outside of the 215 area code as the quarterback practitioner of all things possible.
Not so long ago, when you closed your eyes and conjured up visions of a quarterback following up a 40-yard completion with a breathtaking 40-yard scramble on the next snap, the player in your mind's eye was in an Eagles uniform and wearing that familiar No. 5. McNabb didn't invent the concept of the robo-quarterback but he certainly enhanced it. But inactivity, along with the brilliance of Vick, has put a new man in the center stage spotlight. When a kid walks into a sporting goods store now, and asks for an official NFL uniform jersey, league marketing statistics now show that he wants something in red and with a No. 7 on it.
But on Saturday night McNabb will be afforded the opportunity to regain his throne, and seems eager for the chance, even if he won't concede that.
"How could I not be looking forward to playing?" he asked, rhetorically, after a midweek practice session at which his every breath was scrutinized by a media contingent obsessed with all steps or missteps. "This is what you play for in the NFL. The other stuff (with Vick), I can't get caught up in that at all. He's a great player. Everyone knows that."
The two men are more than acquaintances, McNabb having squired Vick around the Syracuse University campus on a recruiting trip four years ago. They have seen each other socially, chatted it up on the telephone, remain amiable. But when friends turn into foes on Saturday, the important thing for McNabb to remember is that he doesn't have to turn into Vick.
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He doesn't have to be like Mike. His motto ought to be just, 'Be like Donovan.' That's plenty good enough. ” |
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— Eagles RB Duce Staley, on QB Donovan McNabb |
Vick isn't the one, after all, whose right foot squeaks when he walks. Nor is he the quarterback in this game who will be challenged to become a human equivalent of Rust-oleum, charged with immediately knocking off nearly two months of mental and physical hiatus. No, Vick is the guy capable of sprinting 40 yards upfield, sidestepping tacklers as if they were little more than speed bumps with pulses.
McNabb is the player who can't afford to bite on the temptation to out-Vick his opponent. At this stage of the season, everything else is superceded by a win-and-advance mentality. And if that means subjugating an individual's skills for the good of the whole, so be it. But at some point, one would think, McNabb will watch Vick move spryly out of arm's reach of a would-be tackler, and wonder if his gimpy ankle will permit such elusiveness.
Reid is gambling his superstar won't fall into that trap. Heck, he's gambling in general that the switch back to McNabb, after Feeley performed so well in the caretaker role, is a sage one. There have been other coaches, although not many, faced with the same roll of the dice.
Just ask Marty Schottenheimer about the 1997 playoff contest in which he re-inserted a rehabilitated Elvis Grbac into the lineup after Rich Gannon had played so well in his stead over the final six games of the season. Grbac was awful in a 14-10 home loss to Denver and the Chiefs, who posted the best record in the AFC that year (13-3), spent the entire ugly offseason second-guessing themselves for the move.
There has been no hesitation, though, by Reid in deciding to return to his ballyhooed starter for the franchise's latest make-or-break game. Hopefully, for Reid and the Eagles, there will be at least a nanosecond of hesitation by McNabb if he attempts to emulate Vick's every move. Or tries to one-up his opponent because, after all, that's what the quarterback position is about.
There is bound to be some residual effect from eight weeks off. At some point early in the game, McNabb will overthrow an open receiver, make a poor read, try to get outside the pocket and find his legs simply won't carry him with the same alacrity they once did.
Throughout the week, McNabb has been coy but calculating in responding to questions about his condition. He insisted early this week, and somewhat testily, that he is "not limited" in what he can do on the field. Later in the week, there were good-natured hints that anyone who doubts his movement skills or ability to maneuver into and out of harm's way might be surprised.
"But I know," said McNabb, who at the time of his injury actually had more rushing yards than did Vick, "everyone sees this as some big test."
The test won't be delayed, at least not if Falcons defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and his charges have their way, it seems. All week long, the Falcons have broadly suggested they will challenge McNabb on his opening series, attack the pocket and force him to reveal his physical worthiness.
"We'll find out fast just what he can and can't do," said defensive tackle Ellis Johnson. "We're going to know after that first series, believe me. If he is (less than 100 percent), we'll keep coming after him. If he's back to being the old Donovan McNabb, then maybe we'll have to adjust accordingly. But everyone is going to know pretty fast which one of those it is, man."
The conventional wisdom is that the league will see a McNabb who falls somewhere in between those polar standards. The conventional wisdom also is that, at some point in the game, McNabb will test himself and see if he is, indeed, up to Vick's warp-speed movements. In such a case, the Eagles are counting on McNabb to exercise good judgement and judiciousness.
"He doesn't have to be like Mike," said tailback Duce Staley. "His motto ought to be just, 'Be like Donovan.' That's plenty good enough."
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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