Les Bowen: This won't end well for Eagles if reports on McNabb are true

MY KNEE-JERK reaction? This will not end well.

That is, assuming Michael Smith's ESPN.com report is accurate, that Donovan McNabb "may hold off on further extension talks until he sees how the Eagles improve themselves in the offseason via free agency and/or trades."

What extension talks? Why, the ones that Smith asserts began a week ago today, citing a "source,'' who identifies that as the day McNabb and agent Fletcher Smith held McNabb's long-awaited sitdown with Eagles coach Andy Reid and president Joe Banner.

That's a puzzling revelation, right off the bat, given that last Thursday, 2 days after this would have happened, McNabb's agent, Fletcher Smith, flat-out denied any talks or any sort of meeting had taken place. Smith spoke 1 day after another source close to McNabb asserted the quarterback might be willing to travel to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis to make such a meeting occur. Then on Friday, Reid told Inquirer and Daily News reporters that though he talks to McNabb "every day," and that McNabb "knows where he stands," no big, contract-related sitdown involving the other people McNabb had said he wanted present - Banner and team chairman Jeffrey Lurie - had occurred.

One possibility is that Michael Smith somehow got this all wrong, which is unlikely. He tends to be plugged into Fletcher Smith (no relation) and reasonably plugged into McNabb. If there had been some sort of misunderstanding, it would have been quickly addressed, one would think, within a few hours of the lateafternoon appearance of the report. Instead, Fletcher Smith did not answer his phone last night or return Daily News calls or e-mails. The Eagles said they had no comment.

Why on earth would either side lie about a meeting everyone in the region was waiting to hear had taken place?

Here's a shot at an answer, not at all sourced, just from my gut: Because it didn't go all that well. This ESPN report, which does not read like something leaked by the Eagles, would seem to be the next volley.

Here is the gist of what Michael Smith wrote:

"The source said the sides cleared the air once and for all on Reid's Week 12 benching of McNabb in Baltimore. They also held preliminary, informal discussions about a contract extension, the source said. The source said the parties had preferred to keep the meeting confidential as they work through various issues beyond the benching.