Just one more reason why I will never understand how it is possible to make money gambling on the NFL:

The Eagles are three-point favorites on Thanksgiving night against the Arizona Cardinals.

The Eagles can't get out of their own way right now. Their offense is in shambles. Their quarterback has been jerked in and out of the lineup. The home field might be a mine field by halftime, if Donovan McNabb's struggles continue. And it could very well take a big number to beat the Cardinals, given the number of points they have scored all season.

Yet the Eagles are favored.

I know, I know, they're the Cardinals. And they're traveling East to play in the cold. And the Eagles are desperate. And the short week is an enormous handicap for a team that has to travel 2,000 miles. And yada-yada. But just looking at the way the Eagles have played lately, and just looking at running back Brian Westbrook's lack of explosion because of a bum ankle, and just looking at the way McNabb's play has fallen off of a cliff the last couple of weeks, it is hard to make the case with your eyes.

But I defer to the geniuses of the desert.

 

Maybe it was going to be like this anyway -- I can't tell anymore, and I'm starting not to trust my instincts on this one. But with the big quarterback do-si-do now underway, all eyes are now fixed on Andy Reid.

Like I said, maybe this was always going to be a part of the endgame. We haven't had one of these in such a long time that I can't really remember. Because, 10 years ago, Ray Rhodes was a lame duck for an entire season before being let go. Prior to that, Rich Kotite was a lame duck for an entire season, Jeffrey Lurie's first season as owner, before he was sent away. It has been a long, long time since any of us weren't sure about the head coach with five games remaining in a season. But here we are.

I am in the municipal minority because I think Reid should be back next year. I am as aware of his faults as anybody but I also am aware of the good side. He has not done a good job this season with what he has had to work with, and that is his fault. But he also is saddled right now with a self-destructing quarterback/star and a one-legged running back/star. Even if he had better managed his roster -- and he should have, and that is on him as the king of personnel -- this was going to be hard.

All of that said, I am neither blind nor deaf. I can hear what people are saying and I can see this football team crumbling. I can see that 108-yard interception return by the Ravens' Ed Reed and see the effort that was not there in trying to tackle him.  That right there might have been the most alarming 15 seconds of the season.

With that, Kevin Kolb again takes a seat and Donovan McNabb returns at quarterback. At 5-5-1, Reid will play this out now after the failed benching of Sunday. But, in an odd way, by highlighting the quarterback position he has kind of removed it from the calculation. This isn't about the QB now. This is about the coach.

Like I said, I think Reid should be back. I think he should be given a shot with Kolb. Somebody else should pick the players, but this is a demonstrated skill possessed by Reid -- developing a young quarterback -- and the Eagles should not forget that. Right now, I don't think they will. But if this team rolls over, well...

So that's the only thing you watch for -- effort and professionalism on the field and in a crisis. That is what you watch for -- that, and how it reflects on the head coach.

I don't know yet what Eagles coach Andy Reid is going to say, about Donovan McNabb, about Thanksgiving night, about the future. But it is over. After his halftime benching against the Baltimore Ravens, the McNabb era in Philadelphia is over.

Reid could very well keep his own counsel on this one. He could give it a day before announcing his decision because that is what he does. But we are finished here. McNabb is finished here. After three more turnovers in the first half against the Ravens -- three turnovers, zero points, oh well -- Reid yanked his starting quarterback and replaced him with young Kevin Kolb. And we are done.

After which, the Eagles completely rolled over and lost to the Ravens, 36-7.

Again, we are done. Ten years and over -- just like that. A few weeks ago, this was one of the highest-scoring offenses in the National Football League. Now, this is a group that cannot do anything. Running back Brian Westbrook has no first step, no burst, no nothing at this point because of a lingering ankle sprain. Backup Correll Buckhalter hurt his knee and barely played after the first couple of series. There is no third running back because Reid did not dress Lorenzo Booker. That this is borderline malpractice goes without saying.

But the quarterback was terrible, again. He started off decently but crumbled after a sack/fumble early in the second quarter. Two more interceptions followed, along with a streak of pronounced wildness. And then Reid made the decision that, whatever he says, will be impossible to undo. The Eagles were trailing by only 10-7 but he yanked the franchise.

That Kolb was no better just added to the whole downspiral. He threw two more interceptions, including one that the Ravens' Ed Reed returned 108 yards for a touchdown, an NFL record.

You see, you saw history.

Lots of history.

It remains open season on Donovan McNabb, who didn't know last week than an NFL game could end in a tie. The latest comments come from Warren Sapp, speaking on Showtime's "Inside the NFL" along with Phil Simms. The show airs Wednesday night at 9 pm. The transcript was provided by Showtime.


WARREN SAPP: "…when I heard him say it I almost passed out. I thought, 'This will follow you for the rest of your career.' Your legacy in the league, Donovan, will be throwing up in the Super Bowl, Rush Limbaugh and now 'I didn’t know they were ties in the NFL.'"

PHIL SIMMS: "It makes me sad; I can’t even laugh about it because he is a tough player, a good player. I believe, and a lot of people get mad when I say this, I think he is going to go to the Hall of Fame one day. He is probably going to throw for over 40,000 yards…. But you are right, you know how we are in life now and with TV, it’s perception. And these perceptions that have been put out there are going to stay with him until he wins a Super Bowl."

Then the topic turned to whether or not this would be McNabb’s last year in Philadelphia.

SAPP: "It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough, unless he gets them into a playoff run."

SIMMS: "Unless he turns it around and they have really good success in the playoffs, for once I actually believe this could be the end."

And so it goes. Maybe it will stop by Sunday, after the pre-game shows have finished chewing on it. Maybe.

This not-knowing-the-overtime-rules business is a sideshow for Donovan McNabb. His bigger issue is the series of terribly slow starts that have plagued him in the last month. But, still, it's out there.

How would I deal  with it? If I were him, or his people, I would get David Letterman on the phone immediately. I would offer to tape a Top 10 list, pronto -- the top 10 rules Donovan McNabb wasn't aware of. You know -- "No. 6...no white shoes after Labor Day." That kind of thing. He should make fun of himself and hope that people can then recognize this for what it is: stunning, yes, but a lot more embarrassing and symbolic than it was meaningful.

Some people say it could have affected the outcome of the Eagles' 13-13 tie against Cincinnati. I don't see it. There is an imperative with every possession in overtime -- because everyone knows, if you give up the ball, it could  be your last shot. There can be no greater incentive than that. That is everybody's motivation, in the first minute of overtime or the 14th -- don't give up the ball because you might not get it back. Not knowing when the game might end does not change that.

The only time it could potentially have an effect would be at the very end of the quarter. For instance, let's say that McNabb audibled out of the Hail Mary he threw on the last play of the game and dumped the ball off short instead, thinking there would be another quarter. That would have been bad, a clear error because he didn't know that the game would end after 15 minutes of overtime, even if tied. But that's the only situation I can imagine where his lack of knowledge would be an issue -- and, well, it didn't happen in reality. He threw the Hail Mary.

Anyway, that would be my two-pronged PR strategy -- make fun of himself (like Mike Schmidt wearing that wig-and-glasses disguise after ripping the fans in a long-ago newspaper story), and after everybody got done laughing, gently make the point that it really didn't matter during the game.

And then go out and try something different, like completing a pass or two in the first quarter at Baltimore.

I am going to make a good-faith effort here to try to forget for a minute that Donovan McNabb has turned himself into a national punch line by not knowing that an NFL game can end in a tie. Although it will be hard -- the day began with "Mike and Mike" incredulous on their ESPN Radio/TV/Podcastapalooza, and the news cycles will just roll from there -- I'm going to try to keep this to football.

The last time McNabb had a game as bad as Sunday's four-turnover game in Cincinnati was in 2003. It was the second game of the season against the New England Patriots, a complete disaster. The Eagles were 0-2 and reeling. The quarterback was playing terrible football. Then as now, everybody said there was no physical problem. It was just happening, inexplicably.

Reid's response back then was the three-headed monster running game featuring Duce Staley, Correll Buckhalter and Brian Westbrook. Even though he never really admitted it out loud, Reid changed his play-calling somewhere between subtly and noticeably. He ran it more, called a more traditional game, leaned on other people. And it's funny -- even though McNabb stabilized some, he was never really great in 2003. But the Eagles made it to another NFC Championship Game because they were able to take an alternate approach.

This year, there is no obvious backup plan. I have said it before and will say it again: that is Reid's failing here, this lack of a fallback plan in so many areas. But this one stands out. It is hard to believe they could even think about shifting to a more run-oriented offense at this point, not with the short-yardage problems the team has had, not with Westbrook looking as beat up as he often looks, not as long as they continue to pretend that there has been Federal legislation enacted that makes it illegal for Buckhalter to touch the ball more than twice a game.
 
They appear to be stuck here.

Oh, you've noticed?

Overtime in Cincinnati.

Not exactly like April in Paris, if you know what I mean.

What a disaster. What an absolute disaster.  This final score -- Bengals 13, Eagles 13 -- is more than a terrible result. It is the end. If you can find a way for the Eagles to get out of this mess now, you have better eyes than I do.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, of course. The Eagles were nearly double-digit favorites coming into this game against a Bengals team that had won only once all season. This was supposed to be the game where they played well and built momentum for their playoff push. This was the plan.

Instead, they came out and played a dreadful offensive first half. Quarterback Donovan McNabb was erratic and had four turnovers for the day, three interceptions and a fumble. There were a bunch of dropped balls, too. It was just a terrible offensive game in a huge spot -- long-yardage, short-yardage, the whole thing.

Watching it play out really did have a slow-motion, nine-car pileup look to it. For the longest time at the end, you never really thought the Eagles might win the game. The only question was if they would lose it. But with 7 seconds left, the Bengals' Shayne Graham missed a 47-yard field goal that would have won it, wide right. Oh, happy day.

I had pulled the number out of my, uh, pocket the other day on Daily News Live, saying that I thought the Eagles had about a one out of three chance of making the playoffs with seven games left.

Turns out, my, uh, pocket has been vindicated by the number-crunchers at footballoutsiders.com. They update the playoff odds every week for every team, running some kind of simulation where they play out the season 10,000 times on their computer and commence ciphering.

Last week, before they lost to the Giants, the Eagles were slightly better than 50-50 to make the post-season. Now, with just that one loss, the number has plummeted to 34.9 percent. (By comparison, the Giants are 97 percent, the Redskins are 55.1 percent and the Cowboys -- despite the bravado of owner Jerry Jones -- are 2.5 percent.) How the Eagles could be about 15 times more likely than the Cowboys to get in makes me wonder, seeing as how they have the same record and the Cowboys already beat the Eagles, but ours is not the reason why. Ours is just to report what the computer says.

Anyway, one out of three.