This afternoon, The Inquirer and Daily News reported that Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson is battling cancer.

I thought we could use the space here as a forum to share your thoughts and show your support for Johnson during this difficult time.

I’ll get things started.

During the last decade, it’s been impossible to watch an Eagles game without hearing the announcers talk about Johnson and his “exotic blitz schemes.”

Get pressure on the quarterback. Rattle him. Force him to make mistakes. Capitalize on turnovers. Those have been the qualities of a Johnson-coached defense.

Those have been the qualities that the Eagles’ fan base has embraced. And by doing so, fans have embraced Johnson. He tells it straight. He converses with the media. He explains the decisions he makes.

This city loves its defense. There’s no two ways around it. That’s how it’s been for as long as I can remember and that’s how it will continue to be.

On that note, it’s not really important at this time to speculate on Johnson’s future in coaching.

Instead, I’ll just say thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family during this tough time.

Please jump in and share your thoughts.

I received an e-mail from reader Aaron earlier this week, asking if Donovan McNabb was booed or cheered when he was in attendance at last weekend's Sixers-Knicks game at the Wachovia Center.

I wasn't watching the game, but a quick Google search turned up a couple different results.

From the Associated Press:

Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb watched from a front-row seat and received a loud ovation from the crowd. Eagles WR DeSean Jackson was also in attendance.

But from the New York Times:

Equally surprising was that the loudest boos were not for the Knicks, but for Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who sat courtside. A week after crashing out of the N.F.L. playoffs, McNabb might have empathized with the Knicks. He knows what it is like to finish a game wondering where the defense went.

But then there was this from the New York Daily News:

Eagles QB Donovan McNabb and Phillies closer Brad Lidge attended Saturday night's game. McNabb got the louder and longer ovation of the two.

So what was it? Did McNabb get booed or cheered?

To get some insight, I enlisted help from our two spectacular Sixers writers -- The Inquirer's Kate Fagan and Phil Jasner from the Daily News. Their responses via e-mail indicate that McNabb was cheered.

From Fagan:

The crowd cheered Donovan. You could hear, underlying the cheering, perhaps a few folks booing. But it was more than 90% very respectful, thankful cheering.

And from Jasner:

Initially some booing, then drowned out by cheering.

So there you have it. I understand I'm a little late with this, but I figured if Aaron was wondering, maybe some others were also. If you were at the game, feel free to chime in with your observations.

As for the rest of the week, we have a big-time post slated for Thursday. It will actually be a weekly feature here at MTC that will run every Thursday from now until the NFL draft. So be sure to check back.

And Friday, it won't be on MTC, but yours truly will be live blogging along with philly.com's Mike Potter straight from the Wachovia Center for Wing Bowl 17. It means a 3 a.m. wakeup call, but I've never been to the event so I'm looking forward to it. Any advice is appreciated. I've already been warned to wear a poncho and bring a plastic bag for my laptop in case things turn ugly.

New York Daily News columnist Gary Myers suggested earlier this week that Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin would be a nice fit to replace Plaxico Burress with the Giants:

He has two years remaining on his four-year $22.75 million deal that pays him $2.75 million and $3 million in the next two seasons. He said over the summer the Cardinals lied to him about upgrading his money, which could lead to an offseason showdown and a potential trade.

Boldin didn't want to talk about the offseason as he prepared for the Super Bowl in Tampa.

"I'm here to win a Super Bowl," Boldin said, according to Myers. "Thinking about what somebody else needs and what somebody else wants doesn't help me at all. I'm here to win a Super Bowl and that's it."

Earlier this week, NFL.com reported that Larry Fitzgerald would be willing to take a pay cut to keep Boldin. But according to The Arizona Republic, cap space is not the issue for the Cardinals. The issue is more about money and specifically the guaranteed portion of a potential new contract for Boldin.

Don't rule out Boldin returning to the Cardinals.

“I know this has been an emotional period,” Cardinals GM Rod Graves told Yahoo Sports. “I don’t want to get too far ahead of the process. We’re looking forward to getting together with Anquan after the season and trying to work something out. We’ve always said he was a core member of our football team, and we are committed to keeping our core players together. I’m hopeful we can do that at some place that makes sense for all of us.”

As far as trades are concerned, Roy Williams netted the Lions a first-, third- and fifth-round pick from the Cowboys during the season. Boldin is a better receiver than Williams, but the Lions also seemed to find a perfect fit that allowed them to maximize their player's value. While teams would undoubtedly be interested in Boldin, there's no guarantee that Arizona would be able to pull off a similar deal.

Note: If you're looking for excerpts from Joe Banner's Comcast SportsNet interview, click here.

The theme of tonight's Comcast SportsNet interview with Eagles president Joe Banner was that change is not coming to the franchise.

Don't expect an elite wide receiver. Don't look for the Kevin Kolb era to begin. And don't expect Andy Reid to be headed out of town anytime soon.

I wrote a couple posts today about the interview after CSN aired snippets of it last night -- one focused on Banner addressing Reid and McNabb's future and another on his comparison of Reid to John Madden -- but he had some other interesting things to say as the sitdown with Michael Barkann aired in its entirety this evening.

The focus in large part was the head coach. Banner addressed the possible issue of Reid having too many responsibilities.

""Here’s my answer. It’s a totally valid question. The key to the answer to the question is the quality of the people he’s surrounded himself with," Banner said.. "… Really what we do for Andy is kind of narrow the width of the question and then get him focused on the things that he has to evaluate, watch film on, make decisions on. And he feels very confident with the people kind of narrowing the question. So if he was trying to do all of those things and was surrounded with mediocre people or less quantity even of good people, it probably wouldn’t be a manageable situation. …I don’t have concerns with the number of hats he’s wearing."

While the hierarchy in the Eagles' front office has sometimes been fuzzy, Banner said Reid has the final say on all matters.

"Absolutely. Every decision we make," Banner said. "People have opinions and views and sometimes lobby for things or argue for things, but in the end, he evaluates all the information, takes all the input and he makes the decision and that’s what we do."

Banner also added that fans and the media shouldn't read anything into the fact that Tom Heckert was not at the Senior Bowl. Per Banner, Heckert was simply needed more in Philadelphia last week.

When asked if there will be any front office changes this offseason, Banner said, "There will not be."

And how long will Reid be the team's head coach?

"My hope is it's a long time," Banner said.

Later in the interview, Banner was asked about the general process he goes through in the offseason and the need to tweak the roster. Unwarranted, he brought up the Terrell Owens situation.

"When we signed T.O., people don’t realize, one of the reasons we signed T.O. was we decided that maybe the team was too passive in its confidence and that we actually needed somebody who’s gonna shake things up a little bit," Banner said. "There was an area about signing T.O. that was more than how he played wide receiver."

Here are a couple more excerpts from the interview. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts (as if I have to tell you to do so).

Q: Do the Eagles need to add an elite wide receiver?

A: "If you look at the teams that have won the Super Bowl and been in the Super Bowls, a significant minority of them will have those guys. So do you want one of those guys? Of course. There’s a very, very small number of those guys. Can you win without one of those guys? Absolutely. So we signed T.O. I think we acknowledged as it was reported, we had interest this offseason in Randy Moss. We’ve had interest in other players that have been speculated."

Q: Is it tough to sell the fans on no change?

A: "We spend more money than probably any team in professional sports doing focus groups and research, and then we also have the obvious measurables out there like TV ratings and ticket waiting lists and merchandise sales. We hire a national, independent, not from Philadelphia, company that does most of the sports research for... I don’t care whether it’s the Budweisers of the world, or the Yankees of the world, whoever’s doing it. The results are just overwhelming. I mean the popularity of Andy Reid in this city is as high as any coach in any sport in the country. The popularity of Donovan McNabb is as high as any athlete almost anywhere ever here in Philadelphia. …When you put things on balance and compare them to the rest of our league and professional sports and see what they’ve achieved, it’s phenomenal. And our fans overwhelmingly recognize that.

E-mail from friend and loyal blog reader Lemur this morning:

You should have included the part of the Banner interview where he compares Madden to Reid…it was ridiculous…he said Madden coached the Raiders for 10 years, like Reid, and went to 5 AFC championship games, like Reid, and won a Super Bowl…and he is considered a Hall of Fame coach yet Andy is criticized in this town.

Um, well Joe, the Super Bowl is huge!!...if Andy had won a Super Bowl he would not be criticized….this is why people get so mad at Banner.

Lemur is right (it happens every three months or so) that I should have included the Reid/Madden comparison from the Joe Banner interview on Comcast SportsNet. So here is exactly what Banner said:

"I was telling the story to somebody the other day. John Madden coached at Oakland for 10 years," Banner said. "He won fewer regular-season games and he went to five championship games. He did go to two Super Bowls versus one, and he did win one. But in Oakland that got him elected to the Hall of Fame. In Philadelphia, that gets Andy, at least from the public's perspective, uncertain about his job."

To be honest, given my age, I can't comment properly on how Madden compares to Reid. I never saw the guy coach. So instead, here are the numbers from pro-footballreference.com, and I'll let you all argue about the comparison.

Regular-season record: Madden went 103-32-7 for a winning percentage of .763. Reid is 97-62-1 for a winning percentage of .610.

Playoff record: Madden went 9-7 for a .563 winning percentage. Reid is 10-7, a winning percentage of .588.

Conference championships: Madden got there seven times and was 1-6. Reid has got there five times and is 1-4.

Super Bowls: Madden was 1-0. Reid is 0-1.

Click here for the previous post about Banner's other comments about Reid, Donovan McNabb and the team's pending free agents.

Following the Eagles' NFC championship loss to the Cardinals, Joe Banner raised some eyebrows with his comments about Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid.

"What do they say? If you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, you're kind of kidding yourself," Banner told Comcast SportsNet's Derrick Gunn after the game.

Today, in an interview with CSN's Michael Barkann, Banner clarified his comments.

"I still think my answer was unambiguous but for the first time in all the years I’m here, somebody interpreting differently than I meant (laugh), so we thought that it was important to clarify it because you don’t want those things to take on a life," Banner said. "And the reality is my view and our view is unambiguous. We can win a championship with those people and they will be back and I’ve gone on to say we believe we’re very lucky to have them."

Banner was also asked about McNabb's desire to sit down with management in the offseason and possibly discuss a contract extension.

"We’re not gonna -- as we have always done -- talk about what we’re gonna do and not do publicly with contracts," Banner said. "But we’re obviously more than happy to sit down with Donovan and discuss or address any issue he wants. That’s not unusual. It’s probably unusual that he discussed it publicly but it’s not unusual for Andy to talk to Donovan or us to talk to Donovan. He’s a special player and been a huge part of our success and more than happy to do that."

Banner was asked a follow-up question about the perception that McNabb can't get over the hump and doesn't come through in clutch situations.

"We all know the only way we can end that conversation is to win the Super Bowl. And that’s legitimate," Banner said. "It’s a fair criticism. It’s a fair question, but until we win a Super Bowl...we know that’s what we gotta do. My own view is that to have even gotten to where we’ve gotten to, we had to win an awful lot of big games and I don’t care if he scores on the last drive of the game and that’s how we win or he scored on the first three drives of the game and that’s how we won. To me it doesn’t matter. We have to have won an awful lot of games. He had to have played well in a lot of important games. Andy had to have coached well in a lot of important games for us to have gotten to this many games. But our ultimate goal is to win a Super Bowl. Their ultimate goal is to win a Super Bowl. And they know the only way to prove that that criticism is isolated but inaccurate is to get on the field and prove it."

Last week, we told you about Michael Irvin's reality show, which will feature contestants competing for a chance to get on the Cowboys' training camp roster.

This week, it's Terrell Owens.

That's right. T.O. will be featured on a VH1 series this summer that examines his life off the field.

Per the Associated Press, T.O.'s best friends and publicists Monique Jackson and Kita Williams will serve as his matchmakers and therapists.

First of all, do you know any other guy who has TWO best friends who are girls?

And secondly, I wish the show featured Owens' old publicist Kim Etheredge (yes, I had to look up her name). Then she could tell us that Terrell has over 25 million reasons to do this show.

I'm mocking the idea, but I'll probably tune in. Owens was pretty entertaining on HBO's Hard Knocks last season. And if this series is even half as good as that Scott Baio 45 and Single show, it'll be worth a half hour of my time each week.

For the first time since the end of August, there was no "10 observations" post on Moving the Chains this Monday morning.

And yesterday, for the first time since the end of August, there was no football.

There were NBA games on TV. And I hear there was an NHL All-Star Game, although I have been unable to confirm. But, no football.

I spent some time with family, went to the gym and delivered a blog post on the most recent writer to rip Philadelphia. How'd you spend your time?

It is Super Bowl week, but I'm going to ease into Steelers-Cardinals at a slow pace. Watching Pittsburgh's plane board just doesn't excite me at this point. We'll look at some prop bets later in the week, plus I'll make my pick. And if anyone has anything interesting to say during Media Day, we'll note it.

Anyway, these aren't 10 observations, but here are some NFL thoughts to mull over on this football-less Monday afternoon:

** Great Q&A with Jeffrey Lurie by The Inquirer's Bob Brookover yesterday. I thought his comments about the loss to the Panthers in the NFC championship were especially interesting.

"The Carolina game I didn't think we had a great chance. I thought we had a decent chance. We were in the championship game and it was at home, but we were so banged up, but I didn't feel great about our chances in that game. It was less disappointing to me."

Didn't think they had a great chance? Really? I remember being at that game and feeling pretty confident that they'd finally break through.

** Some strong comments about Lito Sheppard made by Hugh Douglas on WIP yesterday. Douglas said everyone knew Lito was lazy when the Eagles drafted him, and that he hasn't changed one bit. Douglas credited Sheppard for being a playmaker but said he wasn't exactly a hard worker.

** ESPN's John Clayton said this weekend that he wouldn't be surprised if the Cardinals dealt Anquan Boldin. Just saying. [Note: Sometimes this blogging thing is just too easy]

** There's a new story everyday in regards to the LaDainian Tomlinson situation. Last week, he addressed the trade rumors on his Web site. G.M. A.J. Smith then made comments that some perceived to be mocking. Then stories surfaced that Tomlinson could be asked to take a pay cut. And yesterday, Shawne Merriman chimed in, saying the situation should never be dealt with in the public.

** And finally, thoughts and prayers go out to the Ray Didinger and his family. Didinger's father passed away recently at 85 after a fight with cancer.

That's what at least one writer thinks.

Allen Wilson of The Buffalo News wrote a column last week (that we somehow missed here at MTC) in which he said Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb is too good for Philadelphia, and he wishes the Birds would get rid of him.

The Philadelphia Eagles said Monday that quarterback Donovan McNabb will return next season. He has two years left on his contract, so they have no reason to get rid of him. But I wish they would. Philadelphia doesn’t deserve him. Since arriving in the NFL in 1999, McNabb has been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. But I don’t know of any professional athlete who is less appreciated in the city he plays for.

You can click on the above link to read the entire column, but it's mostly commentary you've heard before. The fans booed him when he was drafted. The fans are too hard on him. The city is unforgiving. McNabb was the reason they got to the NFC championship.

You get the picture.

He ends the column:

Word is the 32-year-old McNabb wants his contract reworked into a long-term extension, a stance that has created speculation that Philadelphia may rethink its decision and send him packing. Some Eagles fans would like that. So would I. McNabb has never been treated with enough respect in Philadelphia anyway, so he should leave. He deserves better.

Yesterday, we posted comments from NFL Network's Jamie Dukes, who had a similar stance.