By Ashley Fox The Philadelphia Inquirer ASHBURN, Va. -- In front of Donovan McNabb's locker, near three pairs of cleats and four empty plastic food containers, sat two boxes, one on top of the other, with stickers warning this in big, bold letters: "GLASS Please handle with care." That is anything but the way coach Mike Shanahan has handled...
By Ashley Fox
The Philadelphia Inquirer
ASHBURN, Va. -- In front of Donovan McNabb's locker, near three pairs of cleats and four empty plastic food containers, sat two boxes, one on top of the other, with stickers warning this in big, bold letters:
"GLASS Please handle with care."
That is anything but the way coach Mike Shanahan has handled the franchise quarterback he hand-picked to run the Redskins' offense in his first season in Washington. During the past two weeks, Shanahan hasn't been gentle. He's been blunt, outspoken and all over the map with his reasons for benching McNabb in the final two minutes of a game against Detroit on Oct. 31.
Shanahan's answers have been so far-reaching that John Feinstein, a best-selling author who writes for the Washington Post, said on the radio this week in Washington that Shanahan used racial coding to defend benching McNabb, and he called that a firable offense.
"It's been quite entertaining," McNabb said before practice Thursday.
That's one way to look at it. Another is that the Redskins' franchise quarterback might not be the franchise quarterback much longer and that the contract extension McNabb said he wanted probably will not happen. When the book is closed on 2010, it very well could prove to be a one-year stay in Washington for McNabb. Unless he and the Redskins vastly improve, free agency appears upon him.
In the meantime, the Redskins and McNabb are 4-4 and preparing to host the 5-3 Eagles on Monday night at FedEx Field in a rematch of a game this season that Washington won after its defense knocked out the Eagles' starting quarterback, Michael Vick.
As he did that day, McNabb will start this game. He has no assurances that he will finish it.
"This is football. We've talked about the whole issues," McNabb said, referring to Shanahan. "We've hashed out a lot of things. . . . I've been in this situation before. The whole deal about it is I'm going to treat it as such and focus on my job and do it at a high level."
That has been part of the problem. The Redskins have a bunch of issues on offense. Their line has struggled in protection. Their running backs have been banged up. The receiver corps is not great.
For Washington to have success, McNabb has had to play exceptionally well. Instead, he has struggled in a new system with weapons at his disposal.
In eight games, McNabb has completed 57.4 percent of his passes. He has thrown seven touchdowns, but eight interceptions, too. With a 76.0 passer rating, he is below 24 other quarterbacks, including Michael Vick (who ranks first with a 105.3 rating), Kevin Kolb (85.3), and the man he replaced in Washington, Jason Campbell (81.3).
McNabb's rating drops in the fourth quarter to 64.4, a partial reflection of four fourth-quarter picks and just two touchdowns. In another revealing statistic, third-down passer rating, McNabb's rating drops even more, to 62.8.
He has taken a beating, too. Green Bay sacked him five times. Detroit sacked him six.
That, Shanahan at one point said, was part of the impetus for benching McNabb with 1 minute, 45 seconds to play against Detroit and the team trailing by six points. Another, Shanahan said after the game, was that backup quarterback Rex Grossman was with Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, Mike Shanahan's son, last year in Houston and has a firmer grip on Washington's two-minute offense.
On Grossman's first play under center, the Lions sacked him, stripped the ball and scored a touchdown. Game over.
The next day, Shanahan said that McNabb had been dealing with multiple injuries, including problems with both hamstrings.
ESPN "Monday Night Football" analyst Ron Jaworski has studied every game McNabb has played, dating from his college days at Syracuse. Jaworski said Thursday that during his career, McNabb has been "inconsistent" running the two-minute offense, but nevertheless he deemed Shanahan's decision to yank McNabb at a crucial part of a game with an opportunity to improve to 5-3 "a head-scratcher."