I think naming Michael Vick the starting QB for the Eagles was the right move. Most people think he was named the starting QB just because he had a very strong performance against the Packers and followed that up with another great performance against the Lions. While Vick’s play in both of those games was phenomenal and was definitely a factor in the Eagles decision, I think there’s more to this decision than what meets the eye.

There are three additional factors that I think contributed to this decision.

First, the Eagles offensive line. The Eagles offensive line has been riddled with injuries this season. Not only have the Eagles lost their starting fullback Leonard Weaver and center Jamaal Jackson, but Jason Peters, Nick Cole, and Todd Herremans are all playing banged up. Green Bay was able to bring pressure on virtually every down whether they were bringing just 4 men or 6 men. Andy Reid knows that with all the injuries to his offensive line, he needs a mobile quarterback so his team doesn’t give up 5-6 sacks per game. Michael Vick’s ability to avoid a 10 yards loss and pick up a 10 yard gain is uncanny. He does it multiple times in a game. I think it’s quite clear that the Eagles offensive line was the #1 motivating factor for this move.

Kevin Kolb is/was supposed to be the Eagles franchise quarterback. I don’t think they would just bench him for just one poor half of football unless there were other factors present. Another reason for the move is DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin standing behind Vick and voicing their wishes to Andy Reid that they want Vick as their QB. I don’t know if anyone else picked this up, but both Maclin and Jackson gave their TD balls to Vick after they scored in the Lions game.

Lastly, Andy Reid took a lot of heat for keeping Stewart Bradley in the Packers game after he suffered a concussion. Andy can now say that he’s making this move to protect his players.

What do you think were the motives behind the decision?

Donovan McNabb has been traded to the Washington Redskins for the Redskins 2010 2nd round pick, the 37th overall pick in this year’s draft, as well as 3rd- or 4th-round pick in 2011.

I’m shocked that the Eagles traded him within the division.

However, I am excited about the Kevin Kolb era to begin and I think that makes the Eagles a much better football team.

The good thing about this trade is there won’t be all the “what if we still had McNabb” talk this season if McNabb were traded to the Raiders.  We’ll know if the Eagles made the right or wrong move quickly.  The Eagles will either finish ahead or behind of the Redskins in the division and that’s really all there is to it.

Happy trails Donovan McNabb!

There is a ton of speculation surrounding whether McNabb will be traded this offseason.  The Eagles have a decision to make and they cannot keep delaying the inevitable.  Do they stick with #5 or do they move in a new direction and hand over the reigns to the quarterback that they surprisingly drafted with the 36th pick in the 2007 NFL draft?  I say the Eagles should go with Kevin Kolb and here’s why.

I’ve always been critical of Donovan McNabb.  He simply strikes a nerve with me.  It’s for all the obvious reasons: he has never won a Super Bowl after having several legitimate chances to do so, he has been injured way too many times, he doesn’t take the game seriously enough, and he is terribly inaccurate.  What bothers me the most is when he throws the ball straight into the ground or 10 feet over the receivers head on 3rd down and smiles and laughs about it.  That drives me absolutely nuts.

McNabb is far from a consistently accurate QB.  McNabb supporters will point to his interception to passing attempt ratio being amongst the best in the league.  That is a great characteristic of McNabb.  He rarely turns the ball over. That’s because he rarely gives the opposing team to opportunity intercept him because the majority of his passes are over- or under-thrown.  I would rather focus on his completion percentage.

In 2009, McNabb was 20th in the league — not even in the top half!  Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, David Garrard, and Jason Campbell all had better completion percentages then McNabb.  That is unacceptable!  This wasn’t just one isolated year.  In 2008, McNabb was ranked 18th in completion percentage.  Jason Campbell, Shaun Hill, Trent Edwards, and Jeff Garcia all ousted McNabb in the category.  McNabb beat out Ryan Fitzpatrick by a mere 0.8%.  In 2007, McNabb was ranked 20th.  Beaten by Joey Harrington, Brian Griese, Jon Kitna, Sage Rosenfels and Vince Young. In 2006, McNabb was ranked 23rd.  Again beaten by Joey Harrington and others such as Damon Huard, J.P. Losman, and Mark Brunell.  I could go on, but I think I made my point.  For the last 4 season, McNabb hasn’t even cracked the top 50% in completion percentage and his completion percentage was worse than Joey Harrington during 2 seasons.

I’ve made my case about McNabb.  Now what do I like about Kevin Kolb?  Everything.  I like Kolb’s work ethic, attitude, and most importantly his skills on the football field.  Kolb has the attitude of a winner.  You can see that he takes the game very seriously when he plays.  He plays the game with a passion that cannot be met by McNabb.  Kolb throws a beautiful football.  It’s usually a tight spiral delivered right on the money.  He rarely over and under-throws receivers like McNabb.  Unfortunately, we haven’t seen enough meaningful games from Kolb to have a perfect picture of his capabilities.  We have the previous season’s Ravens debacle and two games this past season against the Saints and Chiefs to judge him.

I don’t put any weight into the Ravens game.  If McNabb was playing awful against the Ravens on a full week of preparation, what makes anyone think that Kolb would do any better against the Ravens without any preparation?  Kolb at least was able to move the football and pick up first downs.  He just made a few stupid rookie mistakes against a pretty good safety by the name of Ed Reed.  A more telling story of Kolb is how he played against the Saints and Chiefs.  In both games, Kolb threw over 300 yards and had 2 TDs.

Another reason that I feel that the Eagles should choose Kolb as their starting QB next season and trade McNabb is because the Eagles have a young football team at the skill positions.  With DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Brent Celek, and LeSean McCoy all 25 years or younger, I think it’s better to have a young QB to grow and develop with them.  I think Kolb has a better rapport with those players.  Just look at how well the offense played together with Kolb against the Chiefs.  Granted, it was the Chiefs, but we got a glimpse of what the future offense would look like with Kolb and these great young players.  Bleeding Green Nation has reported that when the young players have a question about the offense, they tend to go to Kolb instead of McNabb.

I think it’s time for a new era in Philadelphia and that Kevin Kolb should be the Eagles starting quarterback next season.  Trade McNabb for a 2nd-round and a 5th-round pick.  Pick up an offensive lineman in the first round and then focus on building up the defense in round 2 and 3. It’s the Eagles blue print for success.

Jay should be making his case for why McNabb should return to the Eagles shortly.

All Philadelphia Sports Readers,

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last couple a months.  As most of you know, the draft and free agency is my bread and butter and when I get most active with blogging on the Eagles since I, like all of us, love to put on my GM hat.

I swear the Giants front office reads this blog since I was rather high on Aaron Ross, Mario Manningham, Clint Sintim, and William Beatty, all players whom the Giants have drafted.

In any event, I’m currently studying for the Pennsylvania Bar exam, which will finally be over in one week.

After that, get ready for talk about the Eagles draft.

I’ll have a special guest writer, King Vaidya, on here to engage in a McNabb vs. Kolb debate.  He’s been a contributor to the website in the past.  I want Kevin Kolb to take the reigns next season and Jay is a devote #5 advocate.  I’ve alwasy been a fan of Kolb and have always criticized McNabb.  One can only take so many balls thrown into the ground on 3rd and 5 and seeing McNabb smile makes me want to punch the television.  I believe that Kolb will be every bit as good as Matt Ryan or Aaron Rodgers and Jay and I will be squaring off to make our opinions heard.

We’ll also be diving into the draft coverage heavily from March through April.

All I have to say now is that we desperately need to boost the offensive line.  I don’t care if we add a guard or a tackle, but we need another offensive lineman if we want to stop the Cowboys defensive line from raping us next season.

I would take a look at Idaho OG Mike Iupati, Illinois OG Jon Asamoah, and Maryland OT Bruce Campbell, who are all viable options when the Eagles are on the clock.  NFL Draft Countdown has the Eagles drafting OLB Sean Weatherspoon and I will tell you right now that the Eagles will not be drafting a linebacker in the first round.

Talk to you guys soon.

The Eagles roster has been set.  A.J. Feeley was released this morning.  Fenuki Tupou has been placed on IR.

The loss of Stewart Bradley now becomes glaring on the depth chart with a few new names at the LB position.   Here’s a good read on rookie LB Moise Fokuo, Fokou who? Word is also going around that Macho Harris may have the starting FS role over Quintin Demps.

It’s also good to know that Danny Amendola and Jack Ikegwuonu have been added to the practice squad.  The practice squad also includes guards Paul Fanaika and Mike Gibson.

Quarterbacks (3) – Donovan McNabb, Kevin Kolb, Michael Vick

Running Backs (3) – Brian Westbrook, LeSean McCoy, Eldra Buckley

Fullback (1) – Leonard Weaver

Wide Receivers (7) – DeSean Jackson, Kevin Curtis, Jason Avant, Jeremy Maclin, Reggie Brown, Hank Baskett, Brandon Gibson

Tight Ends (2) - Brent Celek, Tony Curtis

Offensive Lineman (10) - Jason Peters, Todd Herremans, Jamaal Jackson, Stacy Andrews, Shawn Andrews, Nick Cole, Max Jean-Gilles, Winston Justice, Mike McGlynn, King Dunlap

Defensive Lineman (9) – Trent Cole, Brodrick Bunkley, Mike Patterson, Victor Abiamiri, Chris Clemons, Juqau Parker, Jason Babin, Darren Howard, Trevor Laws

Linebackers (6) – Chris Gocong, Omar Gaither, Akeem Jordan, Joe Mays, Moise Fokou, Tracy White

Safeties (4) – Quintin Mikell, Quintin Demps, Sean Jones, Macho Harris

Cornerbacks (5) – Asante Samuel, Sheldon Brown, Joselio Hanson, Ellis Hobbs, Dimitri Patterson

Specialists (3) – David Akers, Sav Rocca, Jon Dorenbos

Any Reid finally got the memo to run the ball and look at what happened.  Brian Westbrook had 4 TD’s.  Of course the Cardinals defense isn’t anything close to the Ravens defense, but I’m just saying that Donovan McNabb is only as good as his running game.

I, among most others, threw Donovan McNabb under the bus after the Bengals game.  Four turnovers in that game, another three turnovers to boot in Baltimore.  That’s seven turnovers in seven quarters of football.

Was it all Donovan’s fault?  No.  The playcalling was terrible, the offensive line played poorly, the Eagles had no running game, and the wide receivers were dropping passes and not getting open.  That still doesn’t take away the fact that Donovan McNabb should have won that game against the 23rd ranked defense. That was the worst game from McNabb that I have ever witnessed.  Balls were thrown right to defenders, balls were thrown right into the ground 20 feet shy of a receiver.  Balls were thrown 15 feet over receivers heads.  Donovan was terrible.

Things didn’t improve much the next week at Baltimore and Andy decided to light a fire under McNabb’s ass to get him playing better.  If McNabb still played at this poor level, there’s a young guy that we drafted #1 that we could throw in there.

The McNabb I saw against the Cardinals is someone I haven’t seen play all season long.  He wasn’t the careless player who laughs when he makes a terrible throw.  He had a little hustle in his step.  Instead of being a statute in the pocket like he has been most of the year, he actually tried moving around a little bit and look at the results.  McNabb finally played like his job was on the line.  If there’s anything positive that came out of the benching of McNabb it’s that the pressure of losing his job is making him play with more passion and pride.  That’s something that should have been in his head from the start.

Do I still want Kevin Kolb as the QB of this team?  Let’s look at the facts.  Yes, McNabb was incredible in 2004, but we can’t keep living in the past.  It’s 2008 going into 2009 and since 2004, McNabb has suffered two very serious injuries, is now 32, has gained a bit of weight, has lost his best asset (his mobility), and hasn’t had a single season that’s close to earning him a trip to the Pro Bowl.

I’m willing to give Kevin Kolb a mulligan.  Andy Reid threw him to the wolves.  He had to go in  relatively unprepared against the NFL’s best defense.  If you expected him to go in there and play like Joe Montana, that’s delusional.  Kolb made two bad interceptions and a critical one in the endzone, but let’s give Ed Reed a bit of credit.  He is the best safety in the NFL and if I was playing Madden and saw Reggie Brown come across the endzone, I probably would have made the same call.  Throughout that drive, Kolb was looking sharp and looked like he had a good grasp of the West Coast Offense.  Kolb throws a very nice ball, he’s more mobile, but his decision making is obviously poor due to inexperience.  I don’t think he’s going to end up being a bust.  Kolb will be a very good player one day.

The Bottom Line: The Eagles are 6-5-1, which is last place in the NFC East, and unless they win every single game on the remainder of their schedule, they will not make the playoffs, something that McNabb has gotten to since 2004.  Remember who the QB was the last time the Eagles made the playoffs?  That would be Jeff Garcia.  McNabb: 5-5.  Garcia: 5-1.  Garcia clinched a playoff spot, beat the Giants in the first round, and then lost to the Saints in the next round.  The Saints loss wasn’t Garcia’s fault.  He played great.  The Eagles run defense lost that game.  If the 2008 Eagles defense played on that 2006 team, the Eagles could have played the Colts in the Super Bowl.

I’m tired of McNabb costing us a playoff spot season after season.  McNabb plays very good at times, but performances like last night are few and far between.  Westbrook won that game for the Eagles, not McNabb.  Unless McNabb can miraculously get the Eagles a playoff spot, the Eagles need to go in a new direction.  I still love McNabb.  He’s given us many great memories, but let me define insanity to you.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  McNabb hasn’t led the Eagles to the playoffs since 2004 and his time is running out.  The Eagles need to take a new direction and that means a change at QB and at head coach.

If the above statement were true, then I would have to conclude that the majority of Eagles fans who wish to have Donovan McNabb benched are idiots. If you people who hate on #5 have anything to be thankful about this Thanksgiving, it should be that you were blessed to have on your team, one of the most revered and dominant QBs to play in the NFL in the past 25 years. In his 10^th season as lead Bird, D-Nice still throws nearly 32 times a game to horrendous receivers, and until recently, puts up jaw dropping numbers. What we as true Eagle fans should be doing is orchestrating a coup to overthrow the Eagles front office and management. I, along with hopefully some of you, have been kicking and screaming for the front office goons to sign a #1 wide receiver (or at least a #2) since the beginning of the season. If you as a reasonable, logical and rational Eagles fan can’t see how the absence of a #1 wide receiver is the single most destructive variable in the Eagles demise over the past 4 years, then you are nothing short of delusional. In 2004, with the help of just one big time wide-out (who will remain anonymous) McNabb was able to pass for more than 30 TDs on nearly 4,000 yds passing with a ridiculous passer rating of 104.7. Both Donovan and the anonymous wide out thrived and put up career numbers since both were the key ingredients in catalyzing the infamous Eagles heavily pass oriented west coast offense we still use to this day.

So you see my friends, the problem does not lie with our franchise QB, it lies with the front office final decision makers. I am insulted that Donovan McNabb was benched last Sunday, I’m insulted that my friend, colleague, and co-owner of this site wrote some anti-McNabb article and then went ahead and posted it, and most of all I’m insulted that the front office of my team stands steadfast to their commitment to sign players like Greg Lewis year after year, while shutting the door on available #1 receivers. I don’t buy the, “We offered him a contract” excuse anymore when I know for a fact that we can offer/buy any receiver with the shat-load of money the Eagles can currently allocate.

“GET ME A RECEIVER OR GIVE ME DEATH IN THE FORM OF KEVIN KOLB”

– Jay Vaidya

I, among the vast majority of Eagles fans, have been calling for the Kevin Kolb era to begin.  Last week my words about McNabb were harsh.  The loss to the Bengals was inexcusable.  Despite wanting to see this team take a new direction, it was sad seeing McNabb benched.  I didn’t expect it to happen this soon.  I figured he would play out the rest of the game and if he lost, there would be maybe a 20% chance that Kevin Kolb would be the starter on Thanksgiving against the Cardinals.  Knowing Andy Reid, I figured McNabb would be the starter until the Eagles were mathematically out of the playoffs.

Well, we got our first taste of Kevin Kolb and it wasn’t too promising.  First, you have to give credit to the Baltimore Ravens.  They’re arguably the best defense in the NFL.  Both QBs for the Eagles had two interceptions with a passer rating of rougly 11.  The offensive line deserves its share of the blame for the terrible performance of both McNabb and Kolb.  With the way the Ravens play, the Eagles offensive line couldn’t even stop a four-man rush.  The one advantage that I see Kolb having over McNabb is his mobility.  At least Kolb could escape the pocket to buy another three seconds before having to chuck the ball away.

Will Kolb remain the starter?  That’s what I’m interested in seeing.  Once you make the switch, you can’t go back.  I can’t wait and hear what’s said during the press conference.

If we’ve seen McNabb play his last game as an Eagle, thanks for the memories Donny.

During Donovan McNabb’s press conference, I thought that he would admit that he had a long night of taking shots of Patron with the boys at the local strip joint, but instead, his lame excuse for his performance was that he didn’t know the game could end in a tie.  Please, if you can’t beat the Bengals in 75 minutes when your defense gives you every opportunity to win the game, you don’t deserve to play in the NFL.  Period.

The ride is over.  We were fooled into believing that McNabb will resurrect his career after finally getting healthy again.  We were wrong.  McNabb doesn’t have it anymore.  He is a washed-up has-been.

Just look at the stats.  Since the bye week: 53.8 completion percentage, 6 TDs, 5 INTs.

Don’t give me this McNabb just had one bad game talk.  The only time that we see a brilliant performance from McNabb is when he’s playing the Rams or Lions.  Those games don’t count.  When McNabb faces any middle-of-the-pack defense, he struggles.

This team needs to take a new direction.  It’s time to fire Andy Reid.  If we could have only fired him last year and promoted John Harbaugh, we would be in pretty good shape.  It’s time to trade McNabb for whatever we can salvage.  And it’s time for the Kevin Kolb era to begin.  Begin it now!

Do you think we can get a 4th-round pick from the Lions for McNabb this offseason?

Let the Bill Cowher rumors begin!

Spads conducted an interview with Eagles President Joe Banner.  Here are some highlights:

– Why no moves were made at the trade deadline: Eagles are always looking for ways to improve the team.  They were in talks with KC, but they did not want to trade Tony Gonzalez.  They felt compelled to listen to offers due to Tony’s request, but none of the offers were good enough.

– How Banner views Roy Williams being traded to the Cowboys: The Cowboys paid a lot.  Banner wouldn’t pay that much despite the player that Roy is.  Cowboys traded two 1st -round picks for Galloway and 12 years later, they still haven’t won a playoff game.

– The acquisition of acquiring Tracy White and releasing Tony Hunt: The addition of White will help the Eagles on special teams.  It’s disappointing when a first day draft pick doesn’t work out, but even the best evaluators usually hit only 50% of their picks.  You go into draft knowing some will work out and others won’t.  When a situation doesn’t work out, you have to move on.

– Thoughts on the Fullback position: Eagles are back with Klecko and they feel good about him, but they’re still searching for the answer.

– Eagles players coming back to the team (Westbrook, Curtis, Brown): Adding players to what we have is optimistic going forward.  It’s time to get on a roll with these players.

– Salary Cap: It’s time to offer extensions to players.  Eagles are evaluating options, but don’t want to discuss publicly who they’re approaching and not approaching.  The Eagles  both starting tackles are in the final year of their contract.  Unfortunately, the Eagles will have to let some players hit free agency this offseason.

– Draft Moves: We got good value for the picks.  We essentially traded Anthony Spencer for Kevin Kolb, Stewart Bradley, and Brent Celek.  It looks like the Eagles won that one.  The Eagles also essentially traded Jeff Otah for a 2009 first-round pick and Trevor Laws and then got DeSean Jackson to boot.  The Eagles gained a lot of value there.

– The Falcons: Amazing turn around for them.  Great QB and they play aggressively.  Obviously a game the Eagles have to win going forward.