FredEx rips McNabb; Barkley chimes in

Opinions continue to trickle in from different sources about Donovan McNabb and his return to Philadelphia.

Charles Barkley, a long-time McNabb supporter, thanks owner Daniel Snyder for sending him a Redskins No. 5 jersey, which he plans on wearing to Sunday's game.

"I've always said that Donovan's never gotten the respect he deserves in Philadelphia, and before Michael Vick got in the game, I didn't know that," Barkley said during an interview with Howard Eskin and Ike Reese on 610 WIP. "But I'm wearing my Donovan McNabb Jersey and I can't wait until Sunday at 4:15 Eastern."

Barkley hopes McNabb gets cheered by Eagles fans. He said when he returned to Philadelphia as a member of the Phoenix Suns, he received a huge ovation, and it was one of the greatest moments of his career.

He added that he's not worried about getting abused by Eagles fans for wearing Redskins colors and said he'll get the last laugh when the Redskins win. Barkley agreed to wear a Michael Vick jersey on TNT if the Birds win, and said he is pulling for Vick too.

"I'm really pulling for Michael Vick and I'm glad he's doing well, but he's just in the wrong place at the wrong time this weekend," Barkley said.

FRED-EX RIPS MCNABB

It's been awhile since Freddie Mitchell ripped McNabb, but he sounded off this week in an interview with Eskin and Reese, explaining why he has always had a problem with the former Eagles quarterback.

"I really didn't like him because he wasn't going down the progressions. He wasn't going one, two, three and then four," Mitchell said. "I was the third progression off the offensive playbook so it was like I'm running my routes as hard as possible and he's not looking at that. He's going from one to the safety valve, which was Brian Westbrook, which isn't a bad safety valve, but a lot of the great quarterbacks, they'll read down the progression and that's how the west-coast offense is supposed to be ran."

However, Mitchell said McNabb is now going through progressions better than he ever has, and the Eagles shouldn't have gotten rid of him.

Mitchell added that McNabb never made his teammates better, wasn't accurate and really did not want Vick here in the first place, despite what he said publicly.

"No, I don't believe he wanted him there at all because Donovan wants all the attention on him," he said. "When Terrell came, there was no attention to Donovan McNabb. Nobody cared about Donovan. It was the T.O. show. Now when Vick came, it's just more pressure on Donovan because he knows how Philly fans are. As soon as he throws that one ball in the dirt, they're going to be like 'Let's go to Michael Vick. What is he doing? We're paying him this money. Get rid of him.' From Day 1, they wanted to get rid of Donovan McNabb."

ROOTING FOR VICK

ESPN.com's Bill Simmons focused his Friday picks column on Vick and said he's rooting for the new Eagles quarterback:

If Vick didn't pay a reasonable price for his sins, it would be one thing. But he torched his career, blew a lucrative contract, went bankrupt, spent 19 months in prison and became a public pariah. That wasn't a reasonable price? Every prison sentence has four goals: remove a lawbreaking person from society; assess an appropriate penalty; incarcerate the individual as a deterrence from ever breaking the law again; and hopefully, rehabilitate him or her to become a contributing and upstanding member of society. With Vick, the first three goals were accomplished. The fourth goal seems to have been accomplished. What more do you want? Deny him a chance to make a living? Under what constitutional umbrella? The man paid his price.

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