Sam Donnellon: Birds would be wise to listen to McNabb

'HOW AND where do you see your future?'' Donovan McNabb was asked again on ESPN last night, and again he answered as always.

"Well, I see it in Philadelphia,'' he said at the Super Bowl in Arizona. "And continue to finish it out there. And it's going to be a great year for us, I think, next year and I look forward to getting it started.''

Donovan has learned well. He has played here since 1999, played here since Curt Schilling and Scott Rolen graced the cover of the Phillies media guide, played here during the whole Eric Lindros fiasco. He has seen how quickly and easily a franchise player can become a jettisoned one, how quickly a request to improve the chances of a championship can be turned into a request for a trade. Isn't that what Schilling wanted at first, a chance to win a championship? Wasn't that what Rolen asked for at first, a payroll number, in writing?

So Donovan asks not to be sent elsewhere, but for help to come from elsewhere. He chooses his headlines wisely, positioning his stand as if it were a party platform. He wants to stay, wants to win a championship here and finish his career here - no matter how unfair he thinks we have been toward him.

Does he really feel that way? Who knows, but his stand is unlikely to change regardless of what the Eagles do or don't do between now and training camp.

Because he's learned this game well. The ownership and coach of the Eagles would like us to believe that the difference between the success of the New England Patriots and their success is a game here, a big game there. Their quarterback, once a house organ, has come to see it differently. He now believes those big games are not a matter of a couple of plays, but a couple of players. When he got just one big one, it produced his only trip to a Super Bowl - as well as a lifetime's supply of angina. If he has changed at all this season, it is in the acceptance that he may have even more angina in his future if he is ever to return to that big game in an Eagles uniform.

It's the million-dollar question that has been obscured by the latest cold war between the franchise quarterback and the organization he spent much of his career parroting. Namely, does his request for impact players extend to those who might bring disharmony as part of the package?

And does that even matter anymore, given what we saw in New England with Randy Moss this season?