As he giggled his way through pregame warm-ups on Sunday, it was unclear how ready Donovan McNabb felt for the season opener.
It is no coincidence that the Eagles’ first regular season game would take place on Grandparents’ Day, a day on which we honor the aged and infirm. As if to indicate how it would go, McNabb asked Green Bay players before kickoff to sign his knee brace; however, they reminded Number 5 that you can’t write on metal, to which he replied, “Of course, you can. It’s bionic.” He then did a little robot jig and trotted back to the Eagles sideline where his mother waited with a high five and a warm, wet blanket.
Wilma McNabb is said to have worked diligently with team trainers since Baby Pudge went down last year, which is the nickname she has given one of the league’s most bankable superstars. “You don’t know Baby Pudge,” she scolded reporters when they demanded answers to her son’s status. “You leave Baby alone so he can sleep.”
From her lips to Reid’s ear, the recovery regimen was set and implemented by the time Jeff Garcia began resurrecting the team’s hopes last season. Wilma didn’t do anything differently before the game on Sunday, kissing the veteran’s knee in between sauna treatments, pouring soup on it, and blowing softly so he could experience that cool refreshing sensation. “You’ve never seen a mother love someone like this,” Jon Runyan observed. “I wish she would kiss my knee.”
Such sweetness from warriors like Runyan is rare and, as if it were too good to be true, the feeling evaporated early in the game when people in the crowd spotted a flicker of pink beneath Donovan’s white and green jersey. Trouble brewed at field-level as well. In the huddle, Donovan kept grabbing his stomach and asking right guard Shawn Andrews, “Do I look heavier to you?” Andrews, the Big Boy and jokester in his own right replied that he thought he saw cement blocks tied to Donovan’s ankles. “Yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk,” said Donovan, but he was clearly bothered. He failed to keep his eyes downfield after that, missing receivers and throwing passes into the turf.
The kind of playing that followed is difficult to explain, other than by saying that Roger Goodell needs at least one close game ending with a good laugh on Sundays (which is not aired on CBS with its Atari graphics and commentators afflicted with narcolepsy).
After the 16 to 13 loss, Eagles coaches met in private. An anonymous source within the organization confirmed that tests of McNabb’s cleats had indeed turned up traces of cement. They quickly announced that the McDonald’s franchise quarterback was working hard on his Jimmy Hoffa impression for a children’s party this coming Saturday, but “hadn’t quite got it right yet.” Marty Mornhinweg defended McNabb when he reminded the media it was Grandparents’ Day and that next Monday was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan, so it would be good to just “leave Agile McFragile alone during this sensitive time.” They made an adjustment at halftime though, if you had any doubts about the coaches’ flexibility.
Plan B, explained It-Starts-With-Me Reid, was for his two-time Pro Ball QB to come out of the tunnel as the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man at the start of the second half and float in between the Packers’ max-contain while blowing up balloon animals from the hose that Eagles equipment specialists had snaked up through his pads. They stumbled upon this tactic after the incisive and always-honest, tell-it-like-they-want-me-to Dave Spadaro said Blah Blah Blah, who along with a knack for guerilla journalism, also carries a pair of big red shoes should McNabb need a little extra something to get the crowd all silly and in the mood for football.
“Dave’s my secret weapon,” a tired McNabb said after 3 minutes and 30 seconds of gameplay in the 1st quarter. “No need to worry if I don’t make a second read,” he said, “Who needs a second read?” Flipping up his oxygen mask, McNabb went on to say, “Jon Dorenbos has a new card trick he wants to show us at the half. I love when he puts on a magic show. It makes me think of how much I have to learn about magic.”
The eagerness for the spotlight has not eluded some familiar names on the Eagles roster. Greg Lewis was the first to raise his hand when special teams coach Rory Segrest put out a feeler in the locker room before the game and asked who could juggle. Lewis, who had spent a year as a New Orleans street performer before entering the league, had no idea that his unwitting response had won him the starting job as punt returner for the 2007-2008 season, just minutes before opening kickoff.
Lewis said he heard carousel music in his head while the ball sailed down toward him and wondered why everyone was trying to be mean and hit him after he didn’t signal for a fair catch. The resulting fumble and run-in for a touchdown gave the Packers an early lead. “It was like I was at Nagasaki or something . . . when all that bad stuff happened at Nagasaki,” Lewis said. “Damn.” A reporter asked if Lewis knew where Nagasaki was. “It’s in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Western Pennsylvania.”
At the post-game interview podium, a reporter asked coach Segrest if he had considered any alternatives to a 64th-ranked receiver who had never returned a punt before and J.R. Reed, to which he responded, “We brought in a plumber in the off-season. He had 15 years experience. Unfortunately, we had to cut him after the fourth preseason game.”
It is clear that, to this special teams unit, football is a game of inches and illusions. The last minute of the game bore that out. The coaches decided to call on Mr. Bean for coverage. Miming a professional football team isn’t easy, and you can’t expect perfection. But who would have thought that this highwire act behind laminated play call posterboards would reach a crescendo on one of the most fundamental parts of the game.
It was like a Roman-version of a Sportsnet Eagles digest buffet, where everyone eats all the positive expectations they can fit in their stomach and at the last possible moment, that one little mint tips the scales and everyone rushes for the vomitorium. On the other hand, what happened could also be described an act of transcendence. With one minute to go in regulation, the game tied, after a heroic defensive stand forced Green Bay to punt, the Lambeau faithful witnessed a miracle.
In a flash of divine inspiration and clarity, J. R. Reed left his physical body and tried to fly home like Rosie Perez wearing nothing but a diamond necklace, flapping his little nervous chicken wing arms and launching his small body forward, wrapping his elbows firmly around the football. “It was white, with red stitching,” Reed said later, describing what he saw when looking up. “I thought I was Whoopi Goldberg in the body of Pat Burrell. I thought I could fly. So I dove for the baseball . . .” And as Little Miss Sunshine (Number 5) watched smiling, Reed caught it, wondering why the other outfielders were crowding him. “It was Aaron Rowand’s and Chris Roberson’s fault— they should have given me room.”
What it was, was the last minute of regulation, with Reed in mushroom land seeing red pinstripes and Green Bay with the ball at the Eagles’ 35. If this game didn’t give you the feeling of being a kid all over again, at a party hosted by drunken pedophiles, there isn’t a game left on the schedule that will. Come next Monday, we will all know two things. The first is that Jerry Lewis won’t be returning punts. And the second will be the answer to “Who Shot J. R.?” Someone might want to talk to Andy Reid’s sons.
