David Aldridge | McNabb is good, and he's not Vick

Once again, we are reminded of how lucky this city is to have Donovan McNabb.

Bread and Circuses a.k.a. NFL '07, opens its training camps throughout the country this week, with the Eagles making their annual sojourn to Lehigh beginning Friday. And a week from the following Monday or Tuesday, we'll probably hear the annual State of Donovan Address.

But no matter what this year's SODA reveals - 5 is all the way back from his knee injury, or 5 still is a little rusty - it will be a far sight better than what the Falcons have to endure.

Think what you will about McNabb, but he's never been accused of killing dogs in the most inhumane - or inanimal - ways or running what amounts to a criminal enterprise out of his home, as Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was last week by federal authorities.

We get so insulated up here, in our sorrow and anger at titles not won, that we don't think anyone has it as bad as we do. Yet consider what the Falcons - and the league - have to deal with just as the NFL's public relations colossus is getting up to speed.

Vick may be one of the league's 10 most popular players, one of the few guys that people recognize without his helmet on. He plays the league's glamour position. And he's an inspiration for fans of all hues, but especially African Americans who can relate to his upbringing in Newport News (that city, again!) and his exciting style of play.

I don't want to do what so many do in situations like these - make one black man the hero while the other has to be a villain. We saw this when Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier, and Ali, shamefully, sought to make the hard-life Frazier into an Uncle Tom. Much of America, blacks included, let him get away with it.

And we are seeing it in baseball, where folks who otherwise wouldn't give a damn about Henry Aaron are holding him up as a paragon in comparison to that awful Barry Bonds - who is, apparently, plotting the violent overthrow of our government, poisoning our children's lunch milk and wearing white after Labor Day on the way to breaking Aaron's home-run record.

Aaron is beloved now, when his shining example of grace under adversity in 1973 and 1974 can be triangulated to help condemn Bonds. But no one seemed to care much as Aaron shouted at the top of his lungs over the last 30 years about the lack of minorities both in the dugout and at the league office. I don't recall Aaron being on the cover of Sports Illustrated that week.

So I don't want to make Vick into the sinner, while McNabb ascends to the heavens. But there is an inescapable comparison: One guy never gets in any trouble, and the other guy seems to need Chico's Bail Bonds on speed dial.

Vick, like the Duke lacrosse team and Kobe Bryant and others who were accused of much but ultimately convicted of nothing, is allowed his day in court. So if we were wrong to convict those guys in Durham before all the evidence came out, we'll be wrong to do the same now to Vick.

Yet Vick keeps finding himself in trouble - with women, with fans, with airport security. And it's always someone else's fault if you listen to him.

Meanwhile, there's McNabb, whose only transgression this off-season has been giving interviews - the horror, the horror - without the express written consent of the Eagles' brain trust. As usual, McNabbologists pored over the tea leaves to discern hidden meaning in his words.

But here's all you need to know: McNabb will certainly be good enough to hold off Kevin Kolb and A.J. Feeley for the foreseeable future. And the Eagles' best chance at winning this season is to look at the recent past.

The offense became much more balanced after McNabb was carted off the field against Tennessee. In the first nine weeks of last season, the pass-run ratio was, roughly, 34-25; after McNabb's injury, it fell to, roughly, 30-27. A grateful defense caught its breath.

So, McNabb has to demand that the Reid/Mornhinweg game plan/play calling duo continue to put as much faith in its offensive line's run-blocking abilities as it did last December, when Jeff Garcia was under center. A division with defensive question marks in Dallas, Washington and New York can be run over. It doesn't need to be finessed.

This season shouldn't be about McNabb proving he's as good as new. It should be about the Eagles protecting the best chance they've got by letting Brian Westbrook and Company help him shoulder the load.