IS GLAD SPRING TRAINING IS FINALLY HERE
Donovan McNabb was asked about the way TV cameras caught him, after one of the Eagles’ failed red zone excursions, turning toward the sideline and seeming to yell “just run the ball,” or something similar.
“I’m a football player. I want to score,” McNabb said. “Do I remember that? I don’t know. I’ve said a lot of different things through the course of the game. I’m sure they might have clips of it, they might not. But again, it’s about winning ballgames, and I want to do whatever it takes to have a win.”
Asked about the rollout play to the left that the Chargers were all over, an incompletion to Brent Celek on second-and-goal from the 1in the second quarter, McNabb said if the Eagles had it to do over again, “we wouldn’t roll to the left. We would never roll it to the left.”
The quarterback was then asked if he can check to a runnning play instead of a pass play: “If the pass is there we’ll pass the ball.”
The Eagles' run-pass ratio was titled heavily toward the pass Sunday against San Diego, although getting down early was a part of that equation. McNabb was asked whether he was concerned that the coaches lost faith in the run game without Westbrook.
“I don’t think they will lose faith in running [LeSean] McCoy. I don’t think they’ll lose faith in running [Leonard] Weaver and [Eldra] Buckley," McNabb said. "I think that whatever play is called, we have to be able to execute and do the right things, do our job. If it calls for us to block somebody, we block somebody. If it calls for me to check into another play due to the front coverage, check into another play. To get it to our receivers, get it to them and let them work. I think that each individual has to do their job and if we do that, good things can happen.”
*
Two lengthy consecutive game streaks are on the line Sunday night. The Eagles' Sheldon Brown was optimistic that his streak of 133 games would continue. He said was a limited participant in practice and indicated there was "a good chance" he could play Sunday despite a hamstring injury.
In Chicago, coach Lovie Smith suggested that center Olin Kreutz's streak of 111 consecutive games played is likely to continue. He has missed the last two days of practice with a bad back.
"I think you look at history a little bit," Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "How many games has Olin Kreutz missed? He hasn't missed a lot. It's going to take a lot for him to miss (a game). If I was a betting man, I 'd say he'd be out there."
*
Donovan McNabb is not the only one terming this a "must-win" game.
Said NBC analyst Rodney Harrison: "This is a must-win game for two teams that have been inconsistent and underachieving."
NBC's Tony Dungy also looked at the bigger picture with what is at stake for the Eagles and Bears: "Thanksgiving is when you start looking at playoff implications. It's always better when both teams are in a similar situation. Head-to-head is the first tiebreaker and teams know that a game like this could decide a playoff spot."
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
Download our iPhone/Android app for even more Birds coverage, including app-exclusive videos and analysis. Get it here for iPhone or here for Android.
 | Join on Facebook |
