McNabb “Disrespected” By Demotion

As if staging a historic comeback and watching their team win on a walkoff punt return TD on Sunday weren’t enough, Eagles fans also get to spend this week delighting in Donovan McNabb finally hitting rock bottom with the Redskins. The former Eagles franchise QB was demoted to third string on Friday (despite still being a team captain and going out for the coin toss – AWKWARD), and yesterday finally expressed his mild discontent (but in a totally classy way, I’m told) with how the situation was handled. From the AP wire:

 

"Everything was handled awkwardly," McNabb said Tuesday on his weekly radio show on ESPN980, "somewhat to a disrespect to me and to the team…. I'm hearing everything through the media.

"You could have told me earlier or at least prepared me for it. ... The term I did use was professional. You would like to hear it early, and if you hear it late, it kind of throws off the preparation for a lot of guys…"



Now, before you go on a three-day laughing jag, McNabb does have something of a point. There are people like Mike Wilbon and Keyshawn Johnson who think it’s disrespectful just to bench McNabb, which is idiotic given how bad McNabb played this season. But what McNabb is complaining about is that the team didn’t bother to tell him of the official demotion before announcing it to the media. I suppose his beef there is legit. Although he had been splitting practice reps with Rex Grossman for the past two weeks and had already been benched once this season. Did it really catch him that off guard?

 

McNabb was asked if he felt demeaned by serving as the third-string quarterback.

"Yeah, I don't think too many guys go from 1 to 3," he answered. "That's an unfortunate situation that I guess I'm one of a few to be a part of."



Actually, that happens more often than you think. Once a team decides its old QB isn’t gonna work out, they usually demote him to the third QB because there’s no point in seeing any more from him. Mike Shanahan said as much in his press conference on Friday.

McNabb said he wanted to return to Washington next year, which means he’s either being naïve or completely disingenuous. That’s always been the question surrounding McNabb anywhere he goes. Is he an innocent little fawn who’s been victimized by all these other bad people? Or is he a canny media manipulator who always manages to score himself sympathetic coverage?

I don’t know. But I’m sure you Philly fans are just happy you don’t have to worry about it anymore. VICK VICK VICK VICK VICK!!!!! WOOHOOOOOOOO!!!

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