PHILADELPHIA -- He came to the podium with a smile on his face, but a few minutes into his postgame meeting with the media Sunday night you could tell Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb came with something else as well.
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| 'I just continue to keep my chin high,' Donovan McNabb says. (AP) |
Who could blame him?
This is a man who has been roasted in this city as much as any athlete in its history, which is saying something considering the Philly fans have attitudes that can be flat out cruel to anyone who gets paid to play sports for a living.
This season has been especially tough on McNabb, who many in Philadelphia view as an aging star past his prime, nothing but a cruel reminder of the failed seasons when the Eagles came so close to winning a title earlier this decade.
So moments after the Eagles blew out the Dallas Cowboys 44-6 at Lincoln Financial Field to earn an improbable playoff spot, McNabb had every right to be defiant, and you almost got the feeling that if he wouldn't have faced a fine, he would have stood up and shot the entire room a big fat bird. And, no, I don't mean an Eagle.
In a five-week span, McNabb has gone from being benched to being a playoff quarterback.
Of course he was bitter.
It's like reading your name in the obituaries and screaming loudly that you are far from dead -- yet nobody believes it.
"They've (critics) thrown me out, they ran me over, spit on me, but you know what, I just continue to prevail," McNabb said. "I just continue to keep my chin high."
Were it not for a strange and amazing turn of events Sunday, the Eagles would be heading to the offseason still being questioned, McNabb the leader of all of that. The Eagles needed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to lose to the Oakland Raiders at home and the Chicago Bears to lose to the Houston Texans to have a chance to make the playoffs.
When they both happened before kickoff of the Eagles-Cowboys game, the Eagles took the field and played with a fury to earn their way into the postseason tournament. As the sixth seed, they will play the Minnesota Vikings next Sunday in Minneapolis.
"I'm going to A.C. (Atlantic City) to put a lot of money on black," guard Todd Herremans said. "The stars are aligned."
