This is Not Going to End Well

Bobby Abreu. Allen Iverson. Donovan McNabb. What do they all have in common? No, it isn't a ridiculous beard. That's just McNabb, who has clearly been hanging around Koy Detmer way too often. Iverson, Abreu and Mcnabb are all the best players of my lifetime for each of the three major sports teams in Philadelphia. (Hockey stopped being a major sport when it took a team out of Winnipeg to put in in Phoenix. Also, I understand it's likely that Ryan Howard and Chase Utley will have better careers than Abreu, but as of now, it's too early to declare them better players than Abreu ever was.)

It appears these three men will soon have another thing in common as well: a departure from Philly that neither the athletes nor the fans deserved. Abreu was shipped off because the Phillies did not want to pay him. Iverson was jettisoned because the Sixers had given up on building a team around him. Donovan may be gone for both reasons. And so, before that happens, I have a request: please Donovan, don't go down that road.

I'm different from most Philadelphia sports fans. For starters, my education extends past 7th grade. Also, I'm a bigger Phillies fan than anything else, a rarity in an Eagle-first town. Also - and this might be directly related to trait number one - I don't boo my own players at the first sign of struggle. Don't get me wrong, I will boo when necessary. Give up 4 home runs in a game? I'm booing. Throw that 3rd pick? I'm booing. Wear a jersey that says "Eaton"? You better fucking believe I'm booing. It's just that if a guy is in a slump, we tend to berate him instead of supporting him, and I have trouble believing that helps.

The Philadelphia sports media, which consists of a bunch of blowhards calling themselves fans - I'm looking at you Cataldi - also tends to be overly negative and hypocritical. They made fans believe Abreu was the reason the Phillies weren't playing well and that the attitude change after he left last season was why they had such a good record after the break. I tend to think that Rollins and Howard hitting a combined 843 home runs in August and September along with a pitching staff hitting its stride was the more likely cause. But hey, what do I know? All I did was watch every game. I do know this though - if Bobby is a Phillie for the entire 2006 season, they make the playoffs.

As for Iverson, who was never exactly a media darling, well, he probably did need to go. (I, along with every other fan, loved him, but they weren't going any further with him as the centerpiece of the team.) But had Billy King pulled the trigger last summer the Sixers could have swung Carlos Boozer and the 7th pick in the 2006 draft, which ended up being Randy Foye. Add those two guys to Iguodala, Willie Green, Korver and Dalembert and that is a nucleus with which you can work. Instead they waited till midway through this season and got 30 cents on the dollar for him. Yes, the two 1st round picks will be nice, but Billy King, idiot that he is, is in charge of using them. Confident I am not.

And then there's Donovan. Sweet, sensitive Donovan. With apologies to Randall Cunningham, Jim McMahon, Ron Jaworski, Ty Detmer, Koy Detmer, Rodney Peete, Bobby Hoying, Doug Pederson and Jeff Blake, McNabb is the best quarterback in Eagle history. And now the media is going apeshit over the Eagles using their first pick - which was NOT A FIRST ROUND PICK - on a quarterback. Do I agree with the pick? Not this second. But if Kevin Kolb is a stud five years from now I'll be fine with it.

Look, McNabb has been hurt recently. He isn't getting any younger. Football is a business. You have to plan for the future. And that's fine. You do not, however, need to make a giant fucking deal out of the Eagles planning for the future. Andy, you don't need to have a conference with Donovan. Donovan, you don't need to say that you're "shocked" with the pick. And everyone else, you don't need to make it seem like there is any question McNabb might not be the starter if fully healthy. He is an elite NFL quarterback. Do you really think Jeff Garcia would be gone if the Eagles had short term worries about Donovan?

Everyone else, though, Donovan and his fat-mouthed and even fatter-assed mother included, is not as smart as I am. Everyone else feels the need to give this way too much attention, making a would-be non-issue into a potentially hazardous real issue. (T.O. anyone?) Just let it go. There's no way of knowing if Kolb was a good draft pick, and there is no way of speeding up that judgment. We all (myself included) booed Donovan when he was drafted. I have learned from such a mistake. I will save my boos for more deserving athletes. In the meantime, everyone just chill out and hope Donovan isn't tearing up the league for some other team much like Bobby and Allen have done. If that happens, then I'll be booing.