Staff Blog
Could McNabb Have Been Lying About Not Knowing the Rules?
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During a day spent mulling over the Birds 13-13 embarrassment a thought crossed my mind that I’m not willing to give up on: Could Donovan McNabb been lying about not knowing the rules to an NFL overtime?
Think about it: The last tie occurred in 2002, McNabb was in the NFL. In fact, the Birds played Atlanta, one of the teams involved in that tie, in the postseason. A game that McNabb played and played well in. For all of his faults, no one criticizes McNabb for being ill-prepared - you don’t throw as few INTs as he has over the course of a career without watching serious game tape, the chances that he hadn’t seen the tie during that week is actually quite low.
The question then, would be, why? He’s catching heat from local and national media - Rick Chandler has gone as to suggest that this is going to be McNabb’s legacy - why would he bring that type of attention onto himself?
Several reasons.
The Eagles are in serious trouble, and they are in no small part because McNabb had played the worst game of his professional career. He’s very conscious of what the team/town thinks of him and the team, He considers himself a leader, and He’s a company man.
He also knows that changing the focus on the focus of the media isn’t going to hurt the team as they prepare to move forward next week. In the same way that Ozzie Guillen makes the story about him when his team is playing poorly, maybe 5 wanted the attention away from the game itself. There may be some “The Eagles’ are done’ headlines out there today, but they’re more-or-less lost in the ‘McNabb doesn’t know the rules’ conversations.
Is it possible that Birds’ QB1, knowing that the town was about to turn on the team hard, bluffed about not knowing how OT worked? I think odds are probably not, but after having a night to sit back and look at the situation objectively I’m not willing to fully discount the possibility.
If he was bluffing the team would know and respect him for it - it might have just been a pretty classy move.
Or maybe he’s just a moron.
Thoughts?
