Bird Watching: All they have is each other
Philadelphia fans want greatness. They’ll happily settle for grit.
Chuck Bednarik was both. So was Reggie White.
Donovan McNabb is neither.
Never mind the fact McNabb is the guy who led the Eagles to four straight conference title games and, when he finally got a good wide receiver, a Super Bowl. Never mind that McNabb is the guy who once played on one leg against the Arizona Cardinals. Never mind that McNabb made it back from ACL surgery in just 9½ months.
None of that matters.
McNabb is also the guy who lost three straight conference championships and choked —literally, when he vomited on the final drive — in the Super Bowl. McNabb is the guy who was too thin-skinned to handle a loudmouthed, prima-donna wide receiver, even if it was the best receiver in the league and the best the Eagles ever had. And McNabb is the guy who failed to hold up for an entire season three of the last five years.
That’s why Sunday’s 33-25 win in Washington will be remembered, if it is remembered at all, for the Eagles’ magnificent goal-line stand at the end of the game (as well as for Joe Gibbs’ head-scratching play calls and mismanagement of timeouts). Never mind that McNabb fought through a mangled shoulder to complete 71 percent of his passes for 251 yards and four touchdowns.
But, as the Eagles try to eke their way to .500 before it’s their turn to face New England, there is at least one guy who appreciates and believes in McNabb, just like he has from day one.
Andy Reid.
Reid — who is so extremely committed to being a winning coach that he has a pair of emotionally neglected adult children in jail to prove it — openly embraced McNabb on the sideline at the end of the game. It has been a difficult time for both men, and after the win, Reid lauded his quarterback’s “gutty” performance.
“There was a lot of love there … a lot of love,” McNabb said of the hug.
Of course there was. If George Bush’s legacy is tied to Iraq, Reid’s legacy is tied to McNabb, at least when it comes to the Eagles. In his first NFL head coaching job, Reid took a perceived risk by drafting the scrambling Syracuse QB in 1999. He made McNabb the cornerstone of his rebuilding of the Eagles and of his own NFL coaching career.
As much as these two men have accomplished in the past eight years, as much as these two truly nice people have done for this franchise and for the fans of this city, the only embrace they feel is from each other.
They are viewed in Philadelphia as the same person. They are talented but not transcendent. They have won here but haven’t won it all. And, most damning, they show very little fire. They are seemingly emotionless, win or lose.
Philadelphia fans are harsh. But the truth is they will put up with not winning for a while, perhaps even longer than they should, if you show that you care.
If you show that you care as much as Philadelphia fans do.
Reid and McNabb simply aren’t that way. There is no throwing of clipboards, no knocking over of podiums, no tirades, no tears, no meltdowns for the ESPN archives, no jubilant screaming, no jumping for joy, no anything. No passion.
That’s why, after eight years and more success than most of the NFL, Reid and McNabb are still outsiders. If they want to be embraced here, they have only one recourse.
To cure the bad blood, all they have to do is something Reggie White never did in Philadelphia, something Buddy Ryan and Dick Vermeil never did here, something no Eagle has done since Bednarik 47 years ago.
Win a championship.
That’s all. You’ll be embraced for life, and for the afterlife.
Trouble is, with the tandem of Reid and McNabb, that’s never going to happen.
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