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Bob Ford: The ball starts with McNabb
By Bob Ford
Inquirer Sports Columnist
Jul 23, 2008
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - There was no goofy hat this time. No T-shirt with an inspirational message. No plug for the Web site where fans could find his blog. There was only the 31-year-old quarterback and the questions that can't be answered in mid-July. Not this year, not last year, not any year.
Donovan McNabb held his annual "State of Me" address yesterday as the Eagles opened what should be a long, hot and relatively uneventful training camp.
The news conference was also long, hot and relatively uneventful. McNabb refused to be dragged into the bubbling controversy over Brian Westbrook's contract. He sidestepped a question about the quality of the wide receivers. He said the expected things about the Eagles' competing for the division title and another shot at a Super Bowl. He laughed a lot.
Mind-reading is always a dangerous business, but McNabb seems more settled than he was in this same place a year ago. He was still mending from knee surgery then, still stung by the way the team and the town had embraced Jeff Garcia and still uncertain what the drafting of Kevin Kolb really meant.
"At 75 percent, I personally feel I can be one of the best quarterbacks in the league," McNabb said last year, a prediction that was not borne out, as the team lost five of its first eight games while McNabb struggled.
The plan was that McNabb would play himself back into shape, that the final stages of his rehabilitation could take place while he remained in the starting lineup. Maybe the coaching staff talked itself into believing that optimistic strategy could work. Maybe McNabb insisted on that course, hearing the footsteps coming from behind.
In any case, it was a disastrous miscalculation, one that coach Andy Reid hasn't gotten around to admitting yet. The result, directly enough, was a wasted 8-8 season and another calendar page torn from the careers of Westbrook, Brian Dawkins, Jon Runyan, Tra Thomas and David Akers, among others.
The way the Eagles are constructed - the way many NFL teams are constructed - you can lose in a variety of ways, but you can win only if your starting quarterback is right. Other things matter, but nothing else matters as much.
There will be a million words written and spoken about the Eagles' chances this season before we get to the 1 p.m. kickoff on Sept. 7 at Lincoln Financial Field against the St. Louis Rams.
A lot of those words will have something to do with Lito Sheppard, Asante Samuel and Sheldon Brown. Many will wonder if the defensive line is deep enough, if the linebackers are as good as advertised, if the receivers are talented enough, if Westbrook is disgruntled, if Runyan and Thomas have another season left in them, if the middle of the offensive line can hold its own.
All are good, worthwhile topics as one hot day stretches into another and the fans in the searing metal stands at Lehigh melt into little green puddles. All are interesting, but all are beside the point if Donovan McNabb isn't himself again.
"The ball starts with me," he said yesterday. "We have the players. We just have to put it together."
McNabb owned up to the fact that he was never himself in 2007, that even the three-game winning streak at the end of the season wasn't the final sign of recovery the team claimed at the time.
"I didn't prepare for the type of start we had last year," McNabb said. "I thought we would come out of the gate a little bit better than we did. I expected to come out a lot better than I did. That was the frustrating part about it, because you just don't have all of your faculties . . . the mobility, or . . . just the sudden movement to be able to react a little bit quicker."
Toward the end of the season, there was progress. But did McNabb ever feel 100 percent?
"Not at all," he said. "I kind of felt like that during the end of the year, but then I started rehabbing again and strengthening the leg, and really the whole body, in February."
He's says he is fully back now. His knee is as strong as it once was, his mobility has returned, and the twinges in his throwing arm have ceased.
"I feel good," he said.
Of course, a year ago he said he felt good enough to be one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and that turned out to be more than a tad off.
So, we wait for Sept. 7, reminded that training-camp words are not worth the humid air upon which they float. It doesn't matter what is said, or what kind of hat is worn, or whether the T-shirt message is trying to convince the viewer or the wearer.
What matters is the quarterback. If he is right, and the team is right about his being right this time, the Eagles have a chance to be very good.
The if-not, that we already know about.
Contact columnist Bob Ford at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com . Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/bobford .
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