FRANKLY, THE last time Donovan McNabb looked this bad at the start of the season was in 2003 - when, coincidentally, he was coming off a serious injury that cost him significant playing time the year before.
But in the first two games of the 2003 season, the Eagles played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots, the teams that had won the previous two Super Bowls.
Through 2 weeks in '03, McNabb completed 37 of 82 passes for 334 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions.
In reality, McNabb's poor play continued for five more games, but the Eagles managed to recover from a 0-2 start and win four of their first seven games.
Despite McNabb having his worst season as a starter, 16 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and a passer rating of 79.6, the Birds still won 12 games and advanced to their third straight NFC Championship Game.
This doesn't have that kind of feel.
For starters, the Green Bay Packers, who beat the Eagles in Week 1, and the Washington Redskins, who took out the Birds, 20-12, last night at Lincoln Financial Field, aren't considered Super Bowl contenders much less champions.
More relevant, McNabb is now a 30-year-old quarterback with 8 years of NFL pounding on his body, and instead of coming back from his first serious injury, he is coming back from his third in the past five seasons.
It's not time to panic, but it is time to be concerned.
"I'm always hard on myself," McNabb said after he had a pedestrian performance for a second straight week. "We didn't win, and so I didn't play well.
"If I'm out there I have to make plays. There were plays to be made and plays I should have made."
On one hand, this just could be the anticipated slow start of a guy who is recovering from a major knee injury that limited him to 10 games last season.
Ten months probably isn't enough time to get back to 100 percent.
But there is a scarier alternative.
Daunte Culpepper, who like McNabb was drafted in 1999, was coming off a career season with the Minnesota Vikings when he shredded his knee seven games into the 2005 season.
Two years later, the quarterback of the Oakland Raiders is officially an NFL journeyman.
Obviously, it's way too soon to say that McNabb is headed down the same path, but the Eagles were concerned enough about McNabb's future that they ignored many other needs and used their first pick in the 2007 draft to select University of Houston quarterback Kevin Kolb.
