McNabb creates a magical masterpiece

And now there is a No. 1-A.

The highlight will live for as long as there is digital storage capability, and as long as there is football in Philadelphia. Given the shortened attention spans of the day, they might have to edit it, or fast-motion it, to make it more palatable. But that would be a shame. They should slow it down and set it to music, transforming every twist and turn into the ballet that it was.

Because the score sheet says, "D. McNabb pass to F. Mitchell to DAL 15 for 60 yards. " And never did a sentence cry out so loudly for a few adjectives.

Because this was the escape of all escapes, Houdini somehow raised to a higher power (and wearing shoulder pads). This was McNabb doing what few people in the world other than McNabb can do, eluding the pressure of the Dallas Cowboys' pass rush and buying time, and then more time, and then more time - eat a sandwich time; answer an e-mail time - before throwing a 60-yard rainbow to Mitchell.

When Freddie caught it, ending a recent drought for him, he did the Freddie pantomime, buckling the championship belt for the first time in weeks. Few Cowboys fans saw it, though.

Most of them were open-mouthed, stunned, looking at the person next to them.

"With McNabb, the play is never over," Mitchell said, after the Eagles' 49-21 hammering of the Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium. " . . . It was forever. It was killing me. It felt like it was forever . . . I really needed some oxygen. "

On a night of outrageous offensive plays, this pass in the second quarter is the one you will remember. Terrell Owens caught three touchdown passes, and engineered three touchdown celebrations, and did whatever he could to rightly claim the spotlight once again.

But this was different.

This one was for history.

"It was like a video game out there," McNabb said. "Everybody was moving around. I got great blocks from the offensive line. I just saw Freddie, and I had a chance to make a play . . .

"The object is to get the ball out of your hands. There were a couple of guys coming back to the ball, but I looked down and saw Freddie with a lot of green. I just had to put it out there and he made a great play. "

It took forever to play out, 14.1 seconds (as timed by the good folks at ABC). From the time of the snap until the time he let go of the pass, McNabb traveled a route behind the line of scrimmage - backing up and turning and ducking and twisting and searching and sprinting and waiting and looking and, finally, firing - that would look on paper like the scribblings of a sugared-up 3-year-old.

"You kind of know where he is," said Jon Runyan, the Eagles' right tackle, one of the guys trying to figure out where McNabb would go next. " . . . Mostly, what you're trying to do is pick guys off when they're not looking at you. "

It was a vintage McNabb moment. You wonder who else in the National Football League might have been able to pull it off.

It was Fran Tarkenton from way-back-when, in color instead of black-and-white. It was Cunningham; remember that day in Buffalo in 1990 when he shucked Bruce Smith and hit Fred Barnett with that 95-yard touchdown? It was Steve Young, maybe. It was Mike Vick in his dreams.

Anybody else? Anybody?

Because it wasn't merely an athletic play. This was a great, thinking football play. This is what McNabb does best now, despite the people who want to see him scramble more. This is what he does best, using his mobility to buy time to hit the big one downfield.

This wasn't just about survival. This was about thriving, despite the odds. It is McNabb's defining skill right now, and he shows it off every week, and he does it multiple times every week: escaping and scheming and turning garbage into gold.

Still, this one was special. It is the rare athlete, after all, who can make 64,190 people shake their heads at the same time.