Coming off the terrible tie in Cincinnati and the lopsided loss in Baltimore, it should be fascinating to see how the Eagles in general and quarterback Donovan McNabb in particular are greeted before tonight's game against the Arizona Cardinals at Lincoln Financial Field.

It's a pretty good bet that the Eagles will introduce their defense before the game, but there will still be some reaction from the crowd the first time McNabb and the offense take the field. It's entirely possible that this will be McNabb's final start at the Linc because if the Eagles lose their next two games -- tonight and Dec. 7 at the Giants -- they may be officially eliminated from playoff contention by the time they play Dec. 15 in a home Monday night game against the Cleveland Browns.

The Eagles will play tonight's game without cornerback Asante Samuel, who was deactivated because of a neck stinger he suffered Sunday at Baltimore. Running back Correll Buckhalter also was deactivated with a sprained knee ligament. In a somewhat surprising move, Joselio Hanson rather than Lito Sheppard will get the start in place of Samuel. Running back Lorenzo Booker will dress for the first time in four games because of Buckhalter's injury. Running back Kyle Eckel will dress for the first time since joining the Eagles last month. The Episcopal Academy product has not played in a game since last season.

 Former Eagles cornerback cornerback Rod Hood (rib injury) was deactivated by the Cardinals and replaced in the starting lineup by Ralph Brown.

The already difficult assignment of covering the NFL's best trio of wide receivers figures to be even more difficult for the Eagles tomorrow night because they will likely be without Pro Bowl cornerback Asante Samuel.

After twice suffering stingers during the Eagles' loss in Baltimore Sunday, Samuel was listed as doubtful for the Eagles' Thanksgiving night game against the Arizona Cardinals, who have three wide receivers -- Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Steve Breaston -- among the top 15 in receiving yards in the NFL.

Samuel sat out of practice for the third straight as did running back Correll Buckhalter, who is also listed as doubtful with a sprained knee ligament. Buckhalter said Monday that he would not play against Arizona. Running back Brian Westbrook did practice today and was listed as questionable for the game.

Donovan McNabb will be back at quarterback Thursday night when the Eagles play the Arizona Cardinals at Lincoln Financial Field.

Coach Andy Reid made that announcement at his weekly news conference following the Eagles' ugly 36-7 loss to the Baltimore Ravens Sunday during which he pulled McNabb in favor of Kevin Kolb after halftime.

"As I said (Sunday), sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward in a positve way and Donovan will do that," Reid said. "This has nothing to do with Kolb's performance or Donovan's performance."

Reid added that he would not have changed his decision to relieve McNabb with Kolb in the second half against the Ravens.

"Donovan is going out to play," Reid said. "Sometimes it's good to step back and look at things at a little different angle. I expect him to go out and play his heart out. I think I know Donovan McNabb better than anybody in this room. Six turnovers, that's not him. That's not his game. That's not any part of his game."

McNabb had six turnovers in the Eagles' last two games and has thrown interceptions in each of his last four games.

Asked if McNabb would start the final five games, Reid said, "As I sit here right now, he's my starting quarterback."

Reid said his decision Sunday was based upon what he thought was best for his team first and for McNabb second.

"I will make every decision on what I think is best for this football team," he said. "That's the seat I sit in and the way I'll always approach it."

Reid also defended his decision to have quarterbacks coach Pat Shurmur inform McNabb of the quarterback change during halftime.

"That's how things are," Reid said. "I really don't care what anybody else thinks about that. That's how we do it. The coach approaches that player and then I talk to them afterward. It's not a matter of disrespecting Donovan or any other player."

Asked if he was concerned about the reception McNabb will receive before the Eagles' Thanksgiving night game against Arizona, Reid said, "You can't worry about all that. You take care of what you can control. You get rid of the ifs and play."

The likelihood that the Eagles will be without Brian Westbrook for Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens increased today when the Pro Bowl running back missed his second straight practice because of knee and ankle injuries.

Westbrook admitted Wednesday that he has not been able to make cuts as crisply as usual because of the high ankle sprain that has bothered him since a Week 3 game against Pittsburgh. The Eagles have gone 1-1 in the two games they've played without Westbrook this season.

Even with Westbrook it's going to be difficult to run the football Sunday against a Ravens defense that is ranked third overall and against the run. The Ravens aren't bad at pass defense either. They rank eighth in the NFL in that department and are tied for second in the league with 15 interceptions.

Eagles safety Brian Dawkins shook his head in disbelief when the overblown subject of quarterback Donovan McNabb's ignorance about the overtime rules was raised this afternoon.

"To me, that's one of the most ridiculous things ...," Dawkins said. "If you ask cats in this locker room going into that game, did they know the overtime rules were as such, I'm pretty sure the majority of them would have said, 'No, we did not know that,' because it does not come up. We don't sit at the meeting before the game and say, 'Listen, this is what's going on if it's overtime.' It never comes up.

"What you're thinking in an overtime game is that we're going to get the ball and go down and score. It's never going to come to a second overtime. ... I've been a part of it where there was one and we tied with the Baltimore Ravens. I actually knew the rule because I was a part of it. Those guys weren't a part of it."

Dawkins' defense of McNabb lost some steam and logic momentarily after that.

"If we had won that game and he had said what he said, would it be a big deal now?" Dawkins asked the gathered media. "No, it wouldn't be a big deal if we had won that game. But because we lost the game, it's a huge deal and now Donovan is an idiot because he didn't know. ...  It's ridiculous."

Of course, McNabb would never have made his infamous disclousure if the Eagles had won because the game would have ended in overtime. It should also be noted that the Eagles did not lose, they tied.

Anyway, Dawkins' point was that too much is being made of McNabb's remarks and he has a point there because it didn't impact the outcome of the game. 

Dawkins said when the Eagles played to a 10-10 tie with the Ravens in 1997 that he actually didn't know the overtime rules.

"Call me an idiot," Dawkins said. "I was an idiot in 1997. We went through the first overtime and had another coin toss. I knew there was overtime, but we went through the overtime and had another coin toss. As a matter fact, I might be loopey right now," Dawkins said. "We might not have even played two overtimes. We'll have to go back and look, but from my vast memory ..."

There was only one overtime period in 1997, too.

"See that, now I'm an idiot because I thought we had two," Dawkins said. "I'm an idiot."

John Harbaugh said when the Baltimore Ravens' schedule was released in the spring, the date Nov. 23 got stuck in his mind.

"I just remembered the date, for whatever reason," Harbaugh told reporters at his news conference in Baltimore Monday. "That got stuck in my mind a little bit. That might be the only one I remember the exact date on."

Understandable. The Ravens' head coach spent 10 seasons in Philadelphia, working nine as the special teams coordinator and his final one as the secondary coach. He knows the Eagles' organization better than any in football.

Harbaugh tried to say this game doesn't carry any extra weight for him, but by the time he was done saying it he had essentially admitted otherwise.

"Not really," he said. "I'd like to say it does. I think it'd be a good story. It'd be interesting to talk about it. I've got a lot of great relationships there. I love those guys -- the coaching staff, players, people who are really good friends. But the Ravens are my football team. The guys in this room that just had this team meeting in here, these are my guys and I'm proud to be their coach. It's more about our guys than it is about their guys, for sure.

"I know you say, 'Well, that's what he's going to say.' Now, competitively, you're going against your brothers. It means something. It's exciting. There's a little bit of something at stake and it'll be fun before the game. But when the game starts, it's going to be our players playing against their players and whoever plays the best is going to win. It wouldn't be much of a showdown between me and coach Reid out there. I think I'd be able to cover him and he'd probably be able to block me. That'd be my guess."

Harbaugh has done a terrific job in his rookie season as the Ravens' head coach. Baltimore, 6-4, has already won once more than it did a year ago despite starting rookie quarterback Joe Flacco, a first-round pick from Audubon High School in South Jersey and the University of Delaware. You can read more about Flacco from Marc Narducci in tomorrow's Inquirer.

It's over.

The Eagles' chances of making the playoffs.

Donovan McNabb's career in Philadelphia.

Andy Reid's ability to call plays, win games, etc.

It's all over.

That's what you're going to hear this week in quadrophonic stereo.

All the people who know everything are going to tell you it's over. Time for a new coach, time for a new quarterback, time to move on.

And they might all be right. Any and all reason for hope seemingly vanished Sunday in Cincinnati.

The Bengals played exactly the way you'd expect a 1-8 team to play and the  Eagles played exactly like the Bengals.

Why should anyone believe in a football team, a coach or a quarterback that couldn't beat a team that did everything it could to lose?

 Before you pull the plug, however, there is one thing to remember: Sometimes weird stuff happens in professional sports.

In their 11th game a year ago, the New York Giants lost 41-17 at home to the 4-6 Minnesota Vikings, falling to 7-4. Quarterback Eli Manning threw three interceptions that day and they were all returned for touchdowns. It's hard to imagine the Giants sitting up at the Meadowlands the following Monday plotting the design of their Super Bowl rings.

There are more stories like that one from this decade, too.

Pittsburgh lost its last two games in November and its first in December to fall to 7-5 in 2005. Had they lost again, they wouldn't have made the playoffs. They didn't lose again.

The 2000 Baltimore Ravens went five straight October games without scoring a touchdown and were 5-4 after nine games and they, too, won a Super Bowl.

When the Phillies lost two out of three in Florida in mid-September and slipped two games behind the Mets and four behind Milwaukee in the wildcard race, were more people plotting a parade down Broad Street or manager Charlie Manuel's firing?

After watching the Eagles in Cincinnati, there's no reason to believe they can duplicate those unlikely runs above. No reason at all.

But it is a dangerous business to declare something is over before it's actually over.

Sometimes the pregame is more entertaining than the actual game and this has a chance to be one of those days.

Quite a scene developed early this morning, according to Eagles commentator Mike Quick and Eagles web site coordinator Dave Spadaro.

Both men witnessed Bengals star receiver Chad Ocho Cinco/Johnson cut into a line of Eagles wide receivers during warmups and run a slant pattern. When Cinco (Donovan McNabb) hit Ocho Cinco (Johnson) in stride, the Bengals' receiver went to his knees and looked up into the sky, then hugged McNabb.

Apparently Ocho Cinco has the same dreams at night as a lot of Eagles fans.

The problems with the Eagles' run offense have been and will continue to be dissected, but running back Brian Westbrook made the point today that his team has the same problem as a bachelor resisting marriage: a lack of committment.

"We don't always have it, no," Westbrook said. "At some points in some games we have it, at some points in other games we don't. I think that there are situations at times when we probably should have more commitment to the run."

You got the impression that Westbrook felt one of those times was Sunday when he carried 13 times for 26 yards in a 36-31 loss to the New York Giants. Westbrook, however, refused to speak specifically about the Giants' game.

"I'm not even going to look back at the New York game," Westbrook said. "We're going to look forward to the Bengals and try to move on from there."

Speaking in general terms, Westbrook said a good running game requires the same traits needed for a good marriage.

"You have to have patience and you have to have belief in it," he said. "Of course in the running game there is going to be some plays where you're not going to have too much of a gain. You might have a couple yards here and there, but then you might have plays where you  get 12, 20, 30 yards. You have to be patient, you have to believe it's going to work. You have to have that commitment to it."

For the record, the Eagles have 221 rushing attempts this season. Only Detroit (177), St. Louis (213) and San Francisco (214) have fewer among NFC teams and those three teams are a combined 4-23.