Bob Ford: Donovan McNabb: Quarterback or victim?

You wonder whether there is still time for Donovan McNabb to overcome his accomplishments in Philadelphia. That is what the real stars here are asked to do.

They have to take their weighty careers and stack even more upon them, like a house of cards built higher and higher in the strong winds of local opinion. Dick Allen couldn't do it. Mike Schmidt couldn't. Not Ron Jaworski, not Allen Iverson.

They either won championships or became symbols of a divided populace. Schmidt won one and even that never quieted the unrest. His title was chalked up to the addition of Pete Rose's competitive fire, and every strikeout was still booed louder than every home run was cheered.

McNabb is near the end now, at least in the actuarial reality of the NFL, and it appears he has only a two-week window before the current season becomes another public referendum on his status as the Eagles' starting quarterback.

He has two weeks until Michael Vick is eligible to play, two games that, if they are disappointing, will lead him into a bittersweet home stadium for that third weekend. And after that, who knows?

Because his numbers have accumulated slowly and the championships have not accumulated at all, McNabb is less appreciated in Philadelphia than anywhere else in the NFL.

This season, with 680 more yards, he will surpass 30,000 passing yards for his career. He already has more than 3,000 rushing yards. The list of quarterbacks who reached both those numbers? Fran Tarkenton, Steve Young, John Elway, Steve McNair.

Good company. McNabb also has thrown for 194 touchdowns and just 90 interceptions in his career. The list of quarterbacks who have at least 100 more touchdowns than interceptions? Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Steve Young. Read those names again.

If you listen to a large segment of Eagles fans, McNabb must have broken into the computer and put himself on that list like some hacker inventing a personal high score for Frogger. Must be, because those six other guys are Hall of Famers or will be.

Right, and those six other guys usually had great receivers on their teams. McNabb, for the most part, has made do with mostly acceptable talent. This is a guy who had back-to-back 3,000-yard seasons when his leading receivers were Chad Lewis and Charles Johnson the first year and James Thrash and Duce Staley the next.

McNabb's detractors point out that the Eagles made the Super Bowl only during the honeymoon season with Terrell Owens, as if that pointed out a failing of McNabb's in the other years rather than habitual goofs by the organization.

The season when Andy Reid finally gave McNabb a receiver like Owens, the quarterback threw for 31 touchdowns and eight interceptions. At the time, that made McNabb the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for at least 30 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions in a season. It's been done only twice (by Brady and Manning) since.

But even the most vociferous among the anti-McNabb corps would admit the numbers are there. The problem with McNabb has never been how he is as the quarterback. It is about how he acts as the quarterback.

For want of a better word, McNabb is "lighthearted." Jim Boeheim added him to the Syracuse basketball team because McNabb joked around and kept the other players loose. It is his nature.

In the week leading up to the NFC championship game last year, I was working the Arizona locker room and asked Cardinals defensive end Bertrand Berry about McNabb. Berry is one of the guys who always take part in the annual practice sessions McNabb organizes in Phoenix during the off-season. What's McNabb like to be around?

"Come on, man. You know," Berry said. "He's a clown."

This does not make McNabb a bad guy, but combine it with five trips to the NFC championship game, one failed Super Bowl effort, and a molehill of small wins that never seem to be followed by scaling the final summit, and the civic patience with watching oh-gosh-my-bad laughter after an incomplete pass grows perilously short.

So, to sum up - two weeks.

The stage is set for McNabb to be a victim again, to play a role he has played too willingly before. This time, though, he would have a pretty good case. Bringing in Vick - whether with McNabb's tacit approval or not - is a grenade in the locker room and in the stands.

McNabb enters his two-game grace period with a wreck of an offensive line, a star running back who hasn't taken a snap yet and might be gimpy already, a so-so tight end, and receivers who are either kids or just average veterans. Other than that, everything's fine.

The stage is also set, however, for McNabb's greatest and most unexpected turn. It is an opportunity and a challenge that, if he grabs it and owns it, could finally win him this town without reservation.

Maybe it shouldn't be necessary after all these years and all those accomplishments, but if McNabb lifts this unsettled offense and carries it on his right shoulder for these two games, there might yet be time for him.

If he, either literally or figuratively, spits on the ground, claps his hands in the huddle, and says, "Follow me," just this once, maybe it will happen that way. There will be two games after which it would seem ludicrous for Vick to replace him, or even to take away more than a smattering of snaps.

It can go one of two ways, as always. McNabb will end up this season as either the victim or as the quarterback. He's been both before, and just has to decide which one he'd rather be now.