Publicly, McNabb handled things very well. On the field, though, he continued to struggle. He wasn't terrible but he wasn't himself. And that year, Eagles coach Andy
Reid made a decision that he had never made before and has never made since. He made the decision - never announcing it or even acknowledging it, by the way - to take some of the pressure off McNabb by running the ball more often. You know, like a normal team.
Thus the three-headed monster was born. The Eagles rode it through a great second-half run, and all the way to another NFC Championship Game loss - this time to Carolina. The receivers were manhandled so badly in that game that two things happened: 1) The NFL changed the rules about how much contact was allowed by defensive backs and, 2) The Eagles went out and got T.O. That's when the monster died.
Five years later, though, you wonder. Could the personnel be in place for its return? Could the wideout aches and injuries - Reggie Brown, hamstring ache; Kevin Curtis, sports hernia injury - maybe convince Reid that this is the year to bring it back?
Questions like this are way above the pay grade of Lorenzo Booker, the running back acquired from Miami who joins Westbrook and Buckhalter in this season's backfield. But it is his presence that prompts the questions. And it is the show-nothing philosophy of the Eagles (and all NFL teams) during the exhibition season that permits a person's mind to wander.
"You're not going to come out in preseason and start showing all the things you're going to do in the regular season," Booker said. "I'm a competitor. We're all competitors. You want to go out there and you really want to put your foot on somebody's throat. At the same time, that's not what you're doing in the preseason. You're not going to show your hand."
