Donovan McNabb was in no hurry time to leave the Redskins

Donovan McNabb was in no hurry, except when it was time to leave the Redskins:

What made McNabb and Coach Mike Shanahan such a poor match? The half-buried causes and resentments aren ’t clear even to the participants, but let’s start with unreasonably high expectations that came with McNabb’s “stature,” as his agent puts it.

The Redskins and McNabb seemed to expect something better than what they actually got. When the Redskins obtained McNabb from the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for second- and fourth-round draft picks last summer, they thought they were getting a franchise headliner with deep experience, appearances in six Pro Bowls and five NFC championship games. Nothing wrong with that assumption — except they were also getting a 33-year-old veteran who after 11 seasons didn’t quite have the legs he used to, and worse, didn’t have the flexibility to adapt to a new philosophy, either. And who wasn’t inclined to admit, much less correct, some bad habits.

As if that wasn’t enough, there was a subtle but plaguing complication. McNabb no doubt thought his experience could — and should — trump the imaginative flights of the Redskins’ young offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan. The offensive coordinator is the coach’s kid, who at 31 is younger than McNabb. When it became clear that Kyle’s precise, almost-computer-like scheme didn’t suit McNabb, who was going to defer to whom? Was McNabb really going to let a junior executive such as Kyle correct his reads, or his footwork, or his inaccuracy?

Only the Shanahans and McNabb know what really happened to sour their relationship — whether McNabb was just a scapegoat or whether he indeed was more image-conscious than industrious.

Anybody who thinks Donovan McNabb choked in the Super Bowl needs to sit down and watch the game again.


First of all, McNabb took an absolute beating that night in Jacksonville. The interior of the Eagles’ offensive line was mauled play after play by Tedy Bruschi, Richard Seymour and Vince Wilfork, and McNabb absorbed a number of brutal shots both before the whistle and after, in the pocket and out.

McNabb’s six-yard TD pass to L.J. Smith that gave the Eagles a 7-0 lead in the second quarter was fairly routine, but his 10-yarder to Brian Westbrook in the third quarter that tied the game at 14-14 was an absolute work of art. McNabb threw a missile that somehow wove its way through three defenders before finding Westbrook in the end zone. And his 30-yarder to Greg Lewis in the game’s final minutes might have been McNabb’s finest pass as a pro -- an absolutely spectacular strike down the seam to a leaping Lewis.

The most baffling thing about that Super Bowl is that McNabb is blamed for everything when nobody else on the team other than Terrell Owens did much of anything to help the Eagles’ cause.

Westbrook is never mocked for his mediocre rushing performance (15 carries for 44 yards). Brian Dawkins is never mocked for not making a single play in the biggest game of his life. Nobody ever brings up Jevon Kearse’s inability to bring any pressure on Tom Brady or the fact that the Patriots’ tailbacks ran for 113 clock-consuming yards against Darwin Walker and Corey Simon and the Eagles’ vaunted defensive interior.

Eli Manning put up 17 points in a Super Bowl against the Patriots and was hailed as a superhero. Donovan put up 21 points in a Super Bowl against the Patriots and was dismissed as a choker.

This wasn’t a great performance by McNabb, but he was certainly not the biggest or the only reason the Eagles lost that day.

The verdict now seems clear, though the method of arriving at it by benching him was unpleasant and painful to watch. In the end, there was no arguing with the statistics: McNabb had the second-worst completion percentage of his career, and threw more interceptions (15) than touchdowns (14). It was obvious that the Shanahans had to look for a quarterback with whom they are more compatible.

That they’ve identified John Beck as that quarterback is an oblique comment on just how dissatisfied they were with McNabb. Among Beck’s qualities: he’s young, malleable, fleet, accurate, gung ho, and an apple polisher. Also, he’s unsung. Which apparently will be a relief to them.