Before Dec. 28 - when a stunning series of events qualified the Eagles for the playoffs - Reid and McNabb's resumes were starting to yellow a bit. The 2004 season, when the Eagles were the class of the NFC and advanced to the Super Bowl, was receding behind a mounting pile of injuries, slumps, mystifying coaching and personnel decisions. It really was fair and reasonable to wonder if this coach/quarterback tandem had seen its best days.
Things have changed, and playoff victories in Minneapolis and East Rutherford changed them.
Reid and McNabb can be judged now, not just for having put together a solid run from 2000 to 2004, but for picking up that thread after years of disappointment and adversity. They earned the right to be evaluated for their entire body of work, not just for a 9-6-1 season in which each man appeared to have lost his grip at times.
After Sunday's game at the Meadowlands, arguably the most impressive playoff win of Reid's tenure here, McNabb alluded to the "trust and the coaching that we have with Andy."
Yesterday, Reid returned the favor.
"Donovan keeps getting better and better with age here," Reid said. "He's really doing a nice job. . . . He's upped his game, which you normally don't see this late in a player's career."
It's tempting to say that Reid and McNabb have bounced back in spite of their troubles during the regular season. But the reality is that they seem to have found this new level of rapport because of those troubles. There is something to the idea that McNabb has reacted to his Nov. 23 benching by playing with a renewed sense that he has something to prove.
