About 200 people showed up, a laughable demonstration, true enough. But laugh at your peril.

This could be all of us, sooner rather than later.

Now, if Donovan McNabb were to get hurt again this season, really hurt, or if he were to play terribly this season, really terribly, it all will be easy enough for the Eagles. They will move on, give the quarterback job to Kevin Kolb, and do it with the complete support of the community. They will do their best to talk up McNabb's future prospects and past accomplishments as they trade him someplace - and, preferably, someplace far away. But they will do it and there will be no complaints.

The problem is that life is not usually like that. What if it is an injury that nags but does not debilitate? What if it is a lousy year caused by injuries that decimate the offensive line? What if he has a good year but the defense collapses? What if he has a weak year but the defense carries the Eagles a goodly distance? What if McNabb is just OK on a team that is just OK?

What if it is like that, less black-and-white and more gray? What then?

Because there is nothing more wrenching for an NFL franchise than replacing a long-term incumbent quarterback. Even when it is easy, it isn't. And when it isn't easy, it is the kind of thing that completely dominates every second of a team's existence until it is over - and you often cannot even predict when it will be over.

So laugh at the Packers' predicament if you will. Just remember who warned you.

Now, the details will be different. This is The Almighty Favre we are talking about, after all, and his retiring/not retiring antics are unique in their ability to create an almighty ruckus. The McNabb thing could never reach such a level, no matter how it were to play out.

But do not kid yourself that we are safe, or that we are immune. This is McNabb's 10th season coming up, which means there has been a considerable accumulation of baggage and history and memories and emotions. These are human beings with human feelings. When the time comes, however it comes, it will likely be untidy.

Old hard feelings, papered over for years, turn into grudges. Old loyalties, thought to be forever, suddenly seem to have expiration dates. People knew where they stood for year after year and now everybody sits around in isolation trying to figure out everybody else's true motives.

And when that happens, you quickly have the kind of thing the Packers have, with the player texting the general manager rather than talking to him, and the general manager hiding his indecision behind the fact that he was on vacation, and the leaks beginning to fill the void for a voracious media, and then the news conferences that raise as many questions as they answer.

It happens. The position is that important in the NFL, that visible, unlike almost any position in any other sport. The position is that big and football's pull on the public attention is that strong and the number of guys who start for a decade in any city is that small that the combination is combustible.

When the time comes for McNabb, as early as the end of this season, sides will be chosen, arguments will be rendered, logic will be bent hideously to support those arguments. Feelings will be hurt. Distractions will last longer than anyone might have predicted, and will hold back the franchise until they are gone.

So, from a distance, we all watch the Favre thing play out. We all have opinions. It is impossible to see him carrying a clipboard on the Packers' sideline this season as the backup to Aaron Rodgers. Other than that, it is anyone's guess. The only certainty is that the convulsion for that franchise is just beginning.

And if you think this city is going to escape the convulsion, you are kidding yourself. *

Send e-mail to hofmanr@phillynews.com.

For recent columns, go to

http://go.philly.com/hofmann.