It’s 100 hours before kickoff and Donovan McNabb already is thinking about calming down.
“You get into situations like this sometimes and you get overly excited,” McNabb said. “You just have to step back and take a deep breath. I’ve done it before.”
No he hasn’t, not like this. McNabb’s Philadelphia Eagles made the divisional round of the playoffs and lost to the New York Giants last year. Come Saturday he’ll return to his hometown to play against his old favorite Chicago Bears at Soldier Field, where he played as a kid for Mt. Carmel against Bogan High School and dreamed of “putting the blue and orange on.”
“It’s going to be exciting,” McNabb said.
McNabb used the word “exciting” so many times Tuesday for Philadelphia and Chicago reporters he sounded as if he were hawking tickets instead of having to buy a few dozen for friends and relatives from Dolton.
McNabb arrives not only as the Eagles’ best hope to advance beyond last year, he survives as the only No. 1 draft choice quarterback starter left in the NFL playoffs. That means he carries expectations as well as hope.
He comes back to Chicago on the same day Michael Jordan returns, sharing the city’s biggest sports stage in years.
“I wish he played on Friday. I definitely will be watching that at the hotel,” McNabb said. “I’ve met him a couple of times. I’m with the Jordan brand of shoes.”
What excites McNabb the most is the feast his mother Wilma and friends plan for the team hotel on Friday night.
“We have requests from players and she’ll cater it with other players’ moms,” he said. “Red beans and rice, peach cobbler, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, turkey, greens, mashed potatoes, nice corn bread with extra butter. Am I making you hungry?”
This is a heady weekend for the third-year pro, the most successful of the 1999 quarterback class. Booed on draft day by harsh Philly fans for not being Ricky Williams, McNabb finished second last year to Marshall Faulk in league MVP voting after leading the Eagles in rushing as well as passing.
This year, he was criticized during a 10-6 season for being “indecisive” and “inaccurate.” His last two games have been his best–beating the Giants for the NFC East title and eliminating Tampa Bay and whetting the appetite of the City of Brotherly Love If You Win.
“Anybody who doesn’t see he’s their whole team is blind,” Tampa Bay’s Warren Sapp said.
But if the Eagles’ season ends in Chicago, the progress meter will have stopped at zero, a burden McNabb chooses to ignore.
“I don’t think about that. I’m trying to keep a positive attitude,” McNabb said. “It wouldn’t be disappointing because we’ve played hard all year. If we go out and do what we’re supposed to do, we’ll be excited this time next week.”
McNabb acknowledged this is new territory, and the old surroundings, including a possible final game in “legendary Soldier Field,” as he called it, will stir his emotions.
As a rookie in a regular-season visit to Soldier Field, McNabb got in for one play in a 20-16 Eagles’ win, replacing starter Doug Pederson for an option from the 4-yard line. He was dropped for a 4-yard loss. Coach Andy Reid recalled McNabb was huddled up in his overcoat just before the “fiasco.” McNabb prefers to remember it as a play “that helped us win.”
This time, if the Bears assign linebacker Brian Urlacher to shadow him, McNabb said it would open up things for teammates.
“If they decide to do that, I definitely will be excited about that,” McNabb said. “That presents a challenge to me as well as to our team.”
Like his coach, McNabb has perfected the art of revealing as little as possible about anything, delivering platitudes with a smile. But it’s hard for him to remain his usual unflappable self this week.
“You can’t ask for anything more,” he said. “To go back home, to compete in the second round of the playoffs for a spot in the conference final, you can’t paint a better picture.
“To have family and friends around, it’s just overwhelming right now.”
As the second pick in the draft, McNabb arrived in the NFL as a star, same as the Bears’ No. 1 pick Cade McNown. It’s almost as if there is nowhere to go but down for players like McNabb. Unheralded Bears counterpart Jim Miller already has exceeded expectations.
McNabb vs. the Bears is a more accurate description for Saturday’s game than Miller vs. the Eagles.
“I don’t pay attention to expectations,” McNabb said. “I only have my own goals. For what other people say, I pay no attention. When you have a year like me last year, of course you have high expectations. But anytime you get caught up in that, it sort of brings you down. I just stay focused on my job and try to uplift some of the guys around me.”
McNabb may have observed such an attitude from Jordan.
“I watched a lot of things he did off the court, with his mom running his foundation trying to help kids,” McNabb said. “He was big on helping kids who were less fortunate.”
McNabb dressed up as Santa Claus at Temple University Children’s Medical Center last month in an appearance set up by his mother, a former pediatric nurse who heads the Donovan McNabb Foundation.
She said when she used to give neighbor kids gifts from Santa, her son would inform the kids there was no Santa.
So this was payback. A command performance in a red suit. McNabb will dress up in white and green Saturday for another command performance minus the gifts, he hopes, and including the ho-ho-ho.
“I’ll be cracking jokes,” McNabb said. “But this game is a big game. It’s not about Donovan coming home or about what my mom is cooking.”
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Donovan McNabb career statistics
PASSING (REGULAR SEASON)
YEAR, TEAM G GS COMP ATT PCT YDS TD INT RATE
1999, Philadelphia 12 6 106 216 49.1 948 8 7 60.1
2000, Philadelphia 16 16 330 569 58.0 3365 21 13 77.8
2001, Philadelphia 16 16 285 493 57.8 3233 25 12 84.3
TOTAL 44 38 721 1278 56.4 7546 54 32 77.4
RUSHING (REGULAR SEASON)
YEAR, TEAM G GS ATT YDS AVG TD
1999, Philadelphia 12 6 47 313 6.7 0
2000, Philadelphia 16 16 86 629 7.3 6
2001, Philadelphia 16 16 82 482 5.9 2
TOTAL 44 38 215 1424 6.6 8
McNabb game-by-game
OPPONENT RESULT COM ATT YDS TD INT SCK RAT RUN YDS AVG TD
St. Louis L 20-17 (OT) 32 48 312 2 1 5 89.9 9 48 5.3 0
At Seattle W 27-3 24 37 283 2 0 5 106.0 5 16 3.2 1
Dallas W 40-18 14 28 162 3 0 2 103.6 4 19 4.8 0
Arizona L 21-20 19 29 280 2 1 2 105.5 3 24 8.0 0
At NY Giants W 10-9 15 26 154 1 1 4 71.6 6 35 5.8 0
Oakland L 20-10 12 27 133 0 0 4 59.6 6 30 5.0 0
At Arizona W 21-7 19 33 238 2 1 3 87.7 4 26 6.5 0
Minnesota W 48-17 19 29 223 3 0 1 123.2 3 37 12.3 1
At Dallas W 36-3 16 32 129 1 1 0 57.9 4 24 6.0 0
Washington L 13-3 15 27 92 0 0 0 62.6 3 39 13.0 0
At Kansas City W 23-10 18 26 269 2 1 2 112.5 9 41 4.6 0
San Diego W 24-14 22 44 221 2 1 2 70.4 7 39 5.6 0
At Washington W 20-6 16 34 235 2 3 2 52.9 7 25 3.6 0
At San Fran. L 13-3 23 34 232 0 1 3 74.6 5 31 6.2 0
NY Giants W 24-21 21 39 270 3 1 4 90.8 7 48 6.9 0
Totals 285 493 3233 25 12 39 84.3 82 482 5.9 2
TB (playoffs) W 31-9 16 25 194 2 1 3 97.7 4 57 14.3 0
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