Two years of quarterback certainty

I’m sure everyone was as shocked as I was to hear that the Eagles essentially gave away more than $5 million to a player already under contract, without gaining any extra years of commitment.

After an offseason of begging and pleading with the Eagles to find him legitimate weapons on offense, Donovan McNabb now has a little more security and peace of mind about his final two years under contract with the Eagles.

A few months ago, the Phillies essentially made the same goodwill gesture to Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard, locking in those two superstars for the remainder of their arbitration years. The Phillies just wanted to be done with the annual monetary battle that they would have with Hamels and Howard.

In the Eagles’ case, they bring McNabb into the upper echelon of quarterbacks in terms of annual salary, and they no longer have to answer the question of who will be under center until 2011 at the earliest. When 2011 comes around, if McNabb is still among the top quarterbacks in the league, the front office could always slap the franchise tag on him or work on a contract extension to keep him in Eagle-green for the rest of his career.

When news of this extension came out, I was quite surprised to hear the reactions from a lot of the “talk radio” fans.

From what I observed, there wasn’t a lot of anger toward it like we would have seen two years ago, or even in November. Maybe this is a sign that McNabb might finally be appreciated for carrying this team for the last decade. Or maybe it is a sign that the die-hard fans are not looking forward to the Kevin Kolb era, as he has thrown two touchdown passes in his career, and neither player – Ed Reed and Brandon McDonald – was wearing green at the time.

Honestly, I would probably only take a healthy Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, and Drew Brees over McNabb for one season. Granted, I would take young guys like Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, or Jay Cutler in a straight-up trade for McNabb to help secure the future of the quarterback position on the Eagles, but in 2009, McNabb is one of only a handful of quarterbacks who could give any team a legitimate chance to win the Super Bowl.

I know that I am in the minority on this, but I wouldn’t trade McNabb for Peyton Manning taking into account how many times Manning has choked in the playoffs, despite having more talent on offense than McNabb ever has had.

My second thought when I heard about this reworked deal was that the Eagles know that McNabb has a lot left in the tank, because they are very quick and deliberate in letting go of players who are past their prime. And, most importantly, the Eagles are almost always right in this regard. Fans may not like who the Eagles bring in, but there are rarely regrets after sending someone packing.

Thinking back over the Andy Reid era, the only starter that was let go by the Eagles who went on to play at a high level was defensive end Derrick Burgess, who has registered 38.5 sacks in the four seasons since signing with the Oakland Raiders. The other star players – Troy Vincent, Duce Staley, Bobby Taylor, Hugh Douglas (twice), Jeremiah Trotter (twice) – did almost nothing in the NFL after being told they were too old to be on the Eagles.

To me, this means that the Birds have faith in McNabb to put up big numbers on a team that has two new offensive tackles, a new speedy wide receiver and two new compliments to Brian Westbrook in the backfield.In an offseason where several aging veterans – Brian Dawkins, Tra Thomas and Jon Runyan – were sent packing, the Eagles made sure that the last of their leaders from the start of the Andy Reid era has their full support. With the potential salary cap consequences of cutting McNabb at any point in the next two seasons, the Eagles are essentially putting their money where their mouth is when they say how important McNabb is to the Eagles’ success.

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