It's Westbrook's Team Now

The local papers spent the day trying to drum up the whole "Is McNabb a leader" thing again today.  One of the stories might have gone so far as to call McNabb a "jerk," although I'll be honest, you start using adverbs as nouns and you kind of lose me.

On the issue itself, I couldn't care less.  The Eagles have plenty of leaders and if the team plays well they'll all look like mini-Pattons out there.  If they stink, it won't matter how awe-inspiring Dawkins is to his teammates, they'll still stink.

What I do find interesting is that one piece of the organization has clearly moved on from McNabb.  According to these folks, Westbrook is now the man.

I'm talking, of course, about the cheerleaders.

Follow that link to the listing of this year's squad and you'll see each one has a personal bio with many of the same questions.  Of the 36 cheerleaders, 27 chose not to duck the "favorite Eagle" question.  Of that group, fully 15 named Westbrook as their favorite player.  McNabb and Akers both got three votes.  No one else got more than one.  (Although kudos for the Reggie White shoutout by one of them.)

Contrast that to last year's squad, which you can access by using the Internet wayback machine.  On the 2006 squad, seven women picked McNabb, six picked Akers and only five picked Westbrook.  And yes, both Dhani Jones and Todd Pinkston picked up votes.

The Akers thing is kind of intriguing.  Maybe they like him because he spends as much time posing on the sideline as they do.  That or Mrs. David Akers needs to keep a closer eye on him.

But it's clear from this poll -- and this is the kind of hard-hitting research you've come to expect from the IgglesBlog -- that the ladies have spoken and McNabb is no longer the top dog.  It's Westbrook's team now.