Should McNabb Stay?

It's things like this that make me so appreciate all the comments and emails I get from people pointing out stories I might have missed.  I hadn't seen that piece and may not have for a few days, since I have a tendency to "batch process" FO's content, rather than reading it as they post it.

Now that even the diehards realize (reluctantly) that Andy Reid isn't going anywhere, the future of Donovan McNabb is easily the most important discussion taking place at the NovaCare fortress these days.  That article linked to above is as good a place to start as any:

After his benching at halftime of a 36-7 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 12, it seemed like Donovan McNabb's ticket out of Philadelphia this offseason was punched. However, two interception-free wins and five touchdowns later, some of that talk has subsided. But the fact that Eagles head coach Andy Reid would even consider removing his first-ever selection from the lineup is a sign that McNabb's future in Philadelphia is tenuous at best.

Or ...... is it? 

This is the same conclusion I came to after the Ravens game.  Since it was obvious -- after the fact -- that McNabb gave the team the best chance to win that game, the only reason for Reid to make that switch is if he's got a clock ticking in his head and it's time to start finding out what Kolb has for the future.

Except that isn't what happened.  With the exception of one drive -- when the coaches called a rapid succession of three-step, one-read, throw-it-to-DeSean plays -- Kolb looked terrible, Reid went right back to McNabb the next day, and no one said anything about next year.  Then I had to go and apologize for thinking Reid had a plan and wasn't just throwing QBs against the wall to see who stuck.

The 12-year, $108 million contract McNabb signed after the 2002 season is no longer an impediment to his departure. If he leaves in the upcoming offseason, the team would realize over $9 million in cap savings, with McNabb only costing the team around $1.2 million in "dead money."

It's worth noting that it's not really an impediment to his staying, either.  This isn't the NBA where an "expiring contract" could buy us the cap room only a couple other teams have.  With the way the cap has blown up the past few years, most teams can afford to hang on to their best players, unless there's a fundamental disagreement as to their value (see: Samuel, Asante).  I'd have to look at the free agent landscape a little more closely, but on the face of it, I don't think that $10 million McNabb is getting next year would really be all that useful elsewhere.

The obvious complaint from Eagles fans is that McNabb's performance isn't commensurate to his salary. Our advanced statistics don't see an appreciable difference between the performance McNabb has displayed over his career and how he's played this season.

McNabb ranks in the top 10 of the league in DYAR, our metric that adds (and subtracts) the cumulative value of how well McNabb has performed on a play-by-play basis after comparing each play to how an average quarterback would do after adjusting for down, distance, game situation, and the quality of the opposing defense. This season resembles how McNabb's performed over the past five seasons, with the added benefit that he's stayed healthy for the entire campaign.

Ok, so that's all good.  But it's time for a quick commercial break here.  Follow the article link right now and check out McNabb's career as defined by FO's stats.  Then come back here and tell me how much better he was back in his days as a scrambler than he has been in the second phase of his career as a passer. 

I'm telling you, he's better now than he used to be.  Those stats agree.

Ok, /commercial.

Getting rid of a quarterback who's performing at this level wouldn't be unprecedented, but it would be pretty close. In the 13 years for which Football Outsiders has compiled its advanced statistics, only four quarterbacks left their teams the offseason after they finished in the top 10 in DYAR. The most recent was Brett Favre last year. Before him, Drew Brees departed San Diego for New Orleans in 2006, Elvis Grbac left the Chiefs for the Super Bowl champion Ravens in 2001, and Jeff George went from the Vikings to the Redskins a year earlier.

Interestingly enough, two of those quarterbacks' replacements made the Pro Bowl the next year, Philip Rivers in San Diego and Daunte Culpepper in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Trent Green ended up having a very successful run in Kansas City, and it appears that Aaron Rodgers will end up being a quality quarterback in Green Bay. None of the teams really had a fiasco of a quarterback situation for years after the star left.

This is all a little "no duh."  Teams don't generally ship out successful QBs.  And they're really unlikely to trade a guy if they don't have a back-up plan they feel pretty confident about.

I'd also mention that the Browns' Derek Anderson was FO's 10th-rated passer last year, and he absolutely should be somewhere else this season. 

With that said, you can't argue that the Chargers made the right choice with Brees.  Rivers has been good, but Brees has been better and the Chargers let him get away for nothing.

If the Eagles were to get rid of McNabb in the offseason, they would most likely turn the position over to 2007 second-round pick Kevin Kolb...

In looking at the performance of college quarterbacks taken in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft, Lewin found that only two college factors bore any correlation to NFL success: Games started and completion percentage. Kolb has both in spades: He started 50 games in college and completed 62 percent of his passes. Lewin projects Kolb to be a top-five quarterback at his peak, with a performance level below only Philip Rivers among recent quarterbacks selected in the first two rounds.

So there you go.  We should have no concerns about Kolb because a "see what sticks" correlational analysis found that he was really good at things that sort of make sense as markers of future success but maybe not as much as some other things.  Also, you can read Lewin's take on Matt Ryan here (scroll, um, pretty far down).

(I kid, I kid because I love, guys).

Anyway, just note that there's a big difference between top-five quarterback "at his peak" and "in his first year as a starter."  It works for some guys, not for others.  Who knows which one Kolb will be.

So a statistical analysis of the Eagles' quarterback situation finds that the team appears to be in a win-win situation; McNabb's play has been better than it was at its nadir, while Kolb has the pedigree of an elite quarterback in the making. For a team that covets cap space and flexibility, getting rid of McNabb and potentially acquiring a high draft pick in the process seems like the most beneficial course of action. It would also free up cap space for the team to re-sign starting offensive tackles Jon Runyan and Tra Thomas, both of whom are unrestricted free agents after the season. If they leave and the Eagles aren't able to replace them, it might not matter who the quarterback is.

Leaving aside the Runyan and Thomas thing (since if the Eagles want to re-sign them, they have the room to do so), you still have the other questions to answer:

Where do you see this team being in its player development lifecycle?  Personally, I see it as a two-peaker.  They're not quite there right now, but with one more offseason of additions, they could legitimately be one of the elite teams next year.  After that, you're on borrowed time with Brian Westbrook (even if he's still around, in three years he's more likely to be "Brian Westbrook") and you're going to be building this team around a mature Kolb, DeSean Jackson, Unnamed Player #1, etc.

So if the priority is to win it all next year, and even if Kolb ends up being better at his peak (and that's a big if), will he be better than McNabb in 2009?  There's no reason to say he couldn't be.  He'll have had two years of watching and learning and maybe he'll be one of those guys who stars immediately.  The odds are against this however.

If the priority is to win it all next year, why not keep two top-level QBs on the roster in case of injury?  I don't think Feeley is winning it all here.  Although if he did, it would make the outpouring of affection for Pat Burrell we just witnessed seem like a fleeting second-grade crush.

What draft picks will you actually get for McNabb?  I tend to think a) McNabb has a lot of value and b) the Eagles are stubborn as hell and won't be willing to let him go for less than he's worth.  With that said, however, you have to think maximum value is only going to come from a deal like the one brokered for Brett Favre:

The [fourth-round] draft pick traded for Favre turns into a third-round selection if he plays in 50 percent of the plays this season, a second-rounder if he plays in 70 percent of the plays and the Jets qualify for the playoffs, and a first-round pick if he plays in 80 percent of the plays and Jets make it to the Super Bowl.

Obviously the Favre trade was a one-of-a-kind situation, but the core point is that once you start getting into conditional draft picks, you're looking at the 2010 draft, not 2009.  That's a lot of delayed gratification.

How much does the cap space buy you?  As mentioned above, I'm not sure it's much.  I could be wrong on this, however.

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Two final notes.  First, this equation all changes if McNabb gets hurt in the next two (plus?) weeks.  He's one and done here on any more serious injuries and I think he's known that all year.

Secondly, I know we're still looking at potential playoff match-ups.  I have my eye on that ball too.  But we have a tendency to only debate these "who should go" questions in the aftermaths of really bad losses.  Those maybe aren't the best times for reasoned analysis.