Benevolent Conspiracy Theory?

You don't think the Eagles would milk a little Donovan McNabb shoulder tenderness for a few weeks as a way to get Kevin Kolb a lot more first-team reps without having everyone think there's some kind of quarterback controversy, do you?

It was impossible not to notice these things yesterday: Kevin Kolb was once again getting the majority of snaps with the first-team offense...

Kolb ran the first-team offense because starting quarterback Donovan McNabb continues to nurse a sore right shoulder. It is a subject McNabb tried to avoid with the same determination with which he typically sidesteps defensive ends.

As we all know, not everything is always so straightforward with NFL organizations:

Yesterday, suddenly, Dan Klecko's wariness with reporters on Friday made perfect sense.

When workouts resumed at NovaCare, Klecko was no longer a fullback, having been moved to defensive tackle, where he has spent much of his 5-year NFL career. Klecko, an occasional fullback for the Patriots and the Colts, traded in his No. 48 jersey for No. 68, after the Birds traded for Colts fullback Luke Lawton, who became No. 45.

"I wasn't mad about [Lawton's acquisition] Friday," Klecko said. "I didn't know how much I could say, so I just tried to get out of here."

A Possible Injury Connection?

Not looking to be totally irresponsible with this item, but hey, I'm a blogger and I need to hit my wildass speculation quota for the week.

Consider this:

McNabb said he hired a new trainer in Arizona, where he lives in the offseason, and has incorporated more baseball-like activities into his workout routine to emphasize balance and getting the most out of his lower-body strength.

"I felt early on [last season] I used a lot of upper-body strength instead of using my legs," he said. "And not to say that I didn't have confidence in the legs, but now knowing how the whole body feels is like coming off the [pitcher's] mound.

"The guy that I train with [Brett Fisher] works with pitchers like Randy Johnson and Kerry Wood and a lot of other guys, as well. He's [Johnson] still throwing 90-something mph at 40-something years old. So, clearly something is working."

And this:

"He's looking good," wide receiver Kevin Curtis said after practice Wednesday. "But I think he has a little bit of a sore shoulder."

McNabb had a very un-McNabb like practice Tuesday. More often than not his throws were off-target.

Apparently it's not rust.

At the mandatory minicamp the Eagles shut McNabb down basically for the last two practices.

Afterward Andy Reid denied McNabb's arm or shoulder were sore or injured, explaining that the quarterback was removed from practice because he'd reached the "pitch count" the Eagles had set for him.

McNabb, however, was seen rubbing the arm and houlder as if it was hurt. He appeared to do the same thing Wednesday only with the shoulder.

A Tale of Two Seasons?

One of the things every Eagles fan knows is that Donovan McNabb struggled mightily in the first half of last season, but rebounded nicely in the second half after he had some time to better recover from the catastrophic knee injury of 2006 (not to be confused with the catastrophic sports hernia of 2005 or the semi-catastrophic broken ankle of 2002). 

Just check out the per-game stats (Miami removed because of the injury):

Pretty black and white, right? 

Nah.  Never that easy. 

Here's the problem:

McNabb actually played a great game in week nine against the Washington Redskins.  It's the inclusion of those results that so dramatically skews the first half / second half results.  Here's that chart from above if you count weeks 1-9 and then 13-16:

Certainly some improvement, right?  But not the massive performance increase everyone keeps talking about.

And I would argue that this way of breaking down the season makes far more sense.  If you want to split it after week eight and use the "injury comeback" explanation, you have to explain how McNabb magically healed so much between Dallas and Washington that he was able to drop four TDs and a 138.5 passer rating on a decent pass defense.

I'm open to suggestions, but that's not going to be an easy story to tell.

Now I guarantee at least some people right now are saying to themselves: "Yeah, but if you took out the Detroit game, that wouldn't look so good."  And that's certainly true.  But why is it only the Detroit game that doesn't count?  Shouldn't we be just as ready to strip out the season-ender against Buffalo?  After all, it was a meaningless game between two non-playoff teams.  Most guys were planning their vacations by that point.

Here's another thing to consider.  Check out a graph that matches McNabb's passer rating (red line, left axis) with the rank of the pass defense he was facing (blue bars, right axis):

He should have looked good those last two weeks -- he was facing two of the worst pass defenses in the league.

Now I'm not trying to argue that McNabb didn't get better as the season progressed.  He absolutely did.  But he wasn't all that bad in the first half of the year either.

I think people feel like McNabb made a big jump in the second half for three reasons: 

1. He ran more.
2. No one sacked him 12 times.
3. The Eagles won four of the five games he started and finished.

But those last two reasons have as much to do with the rest of the team as they do with him.  After all, if Kevin Curtis hadn't busted his butt downfield to recover McNabb's fumble in the first quarter against the Saints, we might not be talking about "just" an 8-8 team.

In the end, team wins and losses dramatically skew our perceptions of individual performances.  Heck, all anyone wants to talk about these days is the emergence of Eli Manning, like last year was the season he finally put everything together.  Well, the guy's season-long passer rating was 73.9.

Or more than 12 points worse than McNabb's "crummy" first eight weeks.

How Did I Miss This?

Yes, this is a commercial.  And yes, it's much cooler if you mentally substitute "2008" for "2007."

With that said, this actually kind of got me in the mood for football season.  (Yeah, I'm a little sick.  So are you, most likely, since you're reading this blog in April).

There's also a higher-quality version here.  Much thanks to reader Coray S. for sending this link along. 

Not A Second Round Pick

While I'm not willing to make any kind of firm prediction -- because soap operas are well-known for their twists and turns -- I don't think Donovan McNabb is going anywhere this offseason.  The reason is simple:  the Eagles organization (unlike many fans, broadcasters and writers) understands that quarterbacks with his skills don't just grow on trees. 

I will guarantee, however, that if Donovan McNabb gets traded, it won't be for this supposed market price:

Reports recently circulated that an unnamed team learned before the 2007 trade deadline that Philly wanted a whopping three first-round picks for the No. 2 overall pick in the 1999 draft.

Though that very well might have been a deliberate effort by Philly to get more than the second-round pick that the market might otherwise dictate...

Not to pick on PFT twice in one week, but this is maybe the fifth time I've heard someone suggest McNabb could be had for a #2.

That's mind-bogglingly stupid.

Pretend for just a moment that you were a poor unfortunate sap who happened to be a Chicago Bears fan.  If you learned that your team could have McNabb for the next few years for the PIDDLING price of just a second-round pick, how quickly would you jump on that deal?  Faster than Rex Grossman could throw his next interception, I bet.

I realize those #2 picks are valuable (after all, it's not every day you can get a Matt McCoy, Quintin Caver or Todd Pinkston...), but c'mon.  It's Donnie Freaking McNabb.  Even if you think he's nothing more than the 12th-best QB in the league these days, that's still a ridiculous price.  You'd be furious if the Bears passed that up.

And if you think it's an injury issue, remember that Javon Walker was much closer to his ACL reconstruction surgery when the Broncos traded a second-rounder for him -- with only one year left on his deal.

If the Eagles trade McNabb this year, it's going to be because some other team offered a franchise-changing deal.  We're talking multiple draft picks, with at least one being high up in the first round.  There will be no fire sale as long as Reid and Banner are in charge.

This Pam Oliver Thing

Everything McNabb says or does that is the least bit controversial (pointing his arms to the sky?) turns into a big deal, but I have a bad feeling this whole Pam Oliver thing is primed to go to the next level, for a number of reasons:

• Oliver's defense is very convincing.  I read it and I bought it. 
• The Eagles' playoff hopes have now been officially dashed, which is going to make everyone awfully grumpy and free up lots of media space for Yet Another McNabb Controversy.
• Pam Oliver is both female and African American.  Even (especially?) McNabb's own parents aren't going to like the visual of their son basically calling Oliver a liar.
• This latest controversy changes the whole McNabb "stand-up guy" storyline.  It's hard to hold the moral high ground when you're the stabber, not the stabbee. 
• Everyone knows McNabb isn't happy with what's happened in Philly in the past 13 months.  Whether or not he said exactly what Oliver claims he said, McNabb clearly let fly to some extent regarding his feelings about Philadelphia.  A lot of people -- who have to this point defended McNabb -- are going to feel like, "Hey, if you don't like it here, screw you and enjoy your time with whatever hellhole franchise will give us a couple of draft picks."

The next question will be how McNabb responds.  I think Gabe is probably right that we're looking at a clean-up post on Don's ridiculous blog.  But I don't see how that's enough.  If he backtracks at all, that's just going to invite high-stakes questioning the next time McNabb appears before a media horde looking to close up ranks around an unfairly-maligned colleague.  And if he stands by his story, it's going to look like he doesn't have the guts to do so in a venue he doesn't completely control.  Not to mention it doesn't solve the issue he has with Oliver.

No, if McNabb really wants to fix this, he needs to do three things:

1. Call Oliver and apologize to her directly for what he said "in the heat of the moment after a big win against the Cowboys."  Mostly so that he can say that he's done this, but also because it's the right thing to do.
2. Explain at his next press sit-down what, in fact, he did say.  The cat's pretty much out of the bag on the whole ripping-the-organization thing, so McNabb probably needs to admit that he did express some frustration with how the season has progressed, but make it quite clear that what he's "most concerned about is how we as a team and me individually didn't get the job done this year."  He could even throw in an: "I'm a competitor and it burns me up that we didn't have a successful season and that's what I'm really most frustrated about."  It doesn't really matter what he says, though, because the most important point will be...   
3. Blaming the media.  Embrace the fans, dance around the organization issue and make it very clear that it's the negativity in the local media -- especially those sports radio people the print reporters like to look down upon anyway -- that he was really lashing out about.  Try the old, "There are 53 guys in this locker room who are busting their butts out there every week trying to get a win and all we ever hear about is how much we suck.  THAT's what I was trying to say last week."

And then the obvious Q&A:

Ink-Stained Wretch:  "But Donovan, Oliver claims you very clearly said that you felt the organization was distancing itself from you.  Can you explain what you meant?"

Quarterback happy he has his mobility back to dance around these questions:  "Look, I've known Pam for many years.  She's a fine reporter and I want to make it very clear I'm not suggesting she fabricated any statements or made anything up.  But the truth is you're talking about a quick, off-the-cuff conversation before the game when all I was really trying to do was get ready to face the Cowboys.  I'm sure I didn't say things as precisely as I should have.  What I meant was [and then segue into #2 or #3 above depending upon need]."

It still won't be enough for everyone.  But the longer this festers, the worse I think it's going to be.

This Is What I Mean

When I say people's perceptions are overly influenced by the result on the scoreboard, this is what I mean:

Credit to McNabb
His final numbers were okay at best. Not poor, but not much to cheer about either. However, we saw McNabb manage the game in a way he hasn't all year. He didn't take bad sacks, he threw balls away when nothing was there, and he did a fine job using his legs to avoid pressue and even make one big play. He still checked down a ton, he still threw a ton of incompletions, he was off target at times... but the fact is when you play smart and manage the game well you can still win despite those things. I really liked his mentality today.

That was Jason's assessment of McNabb's performance today on Bleeding Green Nation. 

Now here's what he thought about last week:

The offensive problem
The problem was Donovan McNabb was not seeing any open receivers. Whether he was not seeing them because none were open or whether he just wasn't finding the open guys I do not know. A few times FOX showed replays where they showed one or two guys covered but we never actually saw. Maybe if someone was at the game they could give us their thoughts on that. The one thing I do wonder though is how there were open receivers the last two weeks but none this week. The Giants were without both starting safeties and most Giant fans will tell you it's not as if they have shutdown corners anyway. Someone needs to answer the question why the QB was looking downfield and not seeing anything. It's the most important question facing this offense and maybe this team headed into this offseason.

And here's a statistical comparison of the past two weeks:

I'm not intending to criticize Jason for what he wrote.  I think most people would agree -- broadly speaking -- with most of what he said.  And this will not be the most egregious example of this phenomenon once everything's said and done.  Jason's just good at getting his posts up fast.

It's just interesting that when the offense scores 13 points and they lose, McNabb's a goat.  When they score 10 and win, he's one of the heroes.  Even if the stats suggest he played better the first week.   

More Irrational McNabb Love

McNabb ranked number nine by Scouts Inc., those lousy Eagles apologists.

With That Said...

Look, big picture I think everyone needs to take a deep breath, let McNabb prepare with his first healthy offseason in three years, and give him a chance to show what he can do next year.  However, this is just more statistical sleight-of-hand designed to defend the indefensible:

The chic new theory to explain why the offense has sputtered suggests that it is McNabb's refusal to throw the ball deep that has grounded the passing game...

The numbers really don't suggest that McNabb has been overly-conservative this season. In fact, they suggest that he really hasn't thrown downfield all that much less than he has throughout the rest of his career.

In the 11 games in which he has played this season, McNabb has attempted 38 throws that traveled 20 yards or more in the air. That means that on the average Sunday, he throws 3.5 deep balls.

Since 2000, McNabb averages 4.2 throws of over 20 yards per game – a difference of less than one full attempt.

In fact, following the 2000 season, McNabb finished as the runner up to Marshall Faulk in the league MVP voting, and that season he had attempted only 3.9 passes of 20 yards or more per game. In 2001, he attempted only 3.5.

There are multiple problems with this argument.  The first and most important is that you can't compare McNabb's current pace to his career numbers and call it a day, because this didn't used to be a big play offense.  In fact, back in McNabb's early days the common criticism of the Andy Reid offense was that it was too "dink and dunk" with no big play threat whatsoever.  It wasn't until the jerk arrived in 2004 that we saw the truth -- Reid's offense was bomb-happy when he had the personnel to run it. 

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the same stats the guys who work for PE.com do, so I'll have to make do with the public numbers.  Here's a table with big plays of 20+ / 40+ yard plays as a percentage of total attempts:

As you can see, there's a clear difference between McNabb's early and later years.  (And it's truly a measure of just how sputtering the offense has been at times this year that McNabb is on course to post the second-lowest big-play percentage of his career.)  And while we can't say for sure that there's a tight relationship between long attempts and long completions, thanks to that article we know that McNabb attempted 3.9 "deep balls" per game in 2000 and 3.5 in 2001 -- both of which are lower than his 4.3 career mark. 

It's also worth nothing that 2000 was the year McNabb attempted 569 passes, a figure he's never come close to reaching again.  The difference between 3.9 and 3.5 can be almost entirely attributed to the fact that McNabb simply threw fewer passes in 2001.  This is why deep pass per attempt would be a much better number to use.

The second problem with the argument is that it's only given us one piece of information.  Even if it were true that McNabb was trying almost as many passes over 20 yards, I'm willing to bet that his percentage of passes that travel at least 10 or 15 yards in the air would also be lower than in years past.  Maybe I'm wrong, but the six-yard checkdown seems to be a larger part of the offense than it has been the last few years. 

In fact, if you really want to make the case that McNabb's not just checking the ball down all the time ... why don't you give us the percentage of passes that travel fewer than 10 yards in the air?  Let's compare that to previous years and see where things stand.  (And since we're making requests, please control for the frequency of called screen passes, which seems to have declined this year as opponents started game planning to take away this important part of the offense.)

The last bit of evidence we have comes from this fantastic statistical website I linked to a couple weeks ago.  He has access to Yardage-After-Catch (YAC) numbers that allow him to back out what he calls "air yards" for every quarterback in the league.  If you compare his numbers through week 12 of this season to the numbers for last year you can see that McNabb's average completion is traveling only about six yards through the air this season.  Last year the number was almost seven.  That's a difference of about 15 slots in the QB rankings for that stat. 

The other reason things seem so much tougher this year?  McNabb averaged 7.8 yards of YAC per completion last season, by far the highest number in the league.  This year (through 12 games) the figure is about 5.9 and the difference doesn't seem to be related to any dropoff in the receiving production of Brian Westbrook, the human YAC machine who is on pace to catch even more balls this year than last.

Right now this is a station-to-station offense, with no home run threat and too few base stealers.  It does no good to pretend otherwise.

How Quickly People Forget

The folks who don't like McNabb generally fall into one of two categories.  The first is the group that argues McNabb has always been overrated, he's never run the offense well and the Eagles have mostly won in spite of him.  These are generally the same people who think the Eagles are "cheap."  There's little point in arguing with these individuals, since they're not operating in the realm of reason when it comes to these matters.

However, there is another, saner group that concedes McNabb once was good, but now they feel he no longer is and its time to move on.  (Depending upon how you define the parameters of this group, its membership could be pretty large.)  The stronger version of this side's argument is that McNabb was very good in 2004, but since then he's had three bad years, so clearly he's finished and it's time for the Kolb era to begin.

The problem is that -- factually -- this isn't true.  Yes, McNabb has had injury issues the past three years that have seriously diminished his performance.  And yes, I think everyone would concede that for whatever reason he just doesn't look "right" out there these days.

But as I wrote just a couple of days ago, the evidence is clear that while McNabb isn't having the kind of season we're used to, his performance this year is (just) above average for the league.  More importantly, what people seem to be forgetting is just how well McNabb was playing last season before he got hurt. 

For purposes of comparison, I've taken every quarterback in the league this season and extrapolated their stats as if they played a full 16-game schedule.  I did the same thing with McNabb's 2006 and 2004 seasons, and then compared his "healthy" stats with the league leaders across six important quarterback categories:

(I don't know why typepad keeps screwing up my pictures when I upload them, by the way.  It's annoying.)

If you look at the numbers, you'll see that McNabb -- assuming a 16-game season for him last year -- would have been among the league leaders across the board.  This is emphatically NOT the picture of a guy who wasn't any good.

In fact, if you plot out the guys who appear in the top 10 for at least four of those six categories, you find it's a pretty exclusive list AND that McNabb is settled in nicely upon it (this one's big so click for the full-size image):

This is why, for all the frustration of this year, I'm not ready to give up on McNabb.  He was this good last year.  Are you willing to argue -- do you honestly believe -- that the odds of Kevin Kolb making that list next year are better than McNabb's?