Rich Hofmann: Eagles QB McNabb calls for must win vs. Bears

DONOVAN McNabb played the "must-win" card yesterday. Fascinating, that is. He talks a lot these days about how young this Eagles team is, about how veteran leadership is lacking, and now a quarterback whose tendency is to say nothing (in as many words as possible) has chosen this moment to draw a bright line in the shifting sands. To repeat, fascinating.

Because, for better or worse, McNabb has now officially put his teammates on notice. He has challenged them. Must win.

The Eagles are 5-4 with seven games to play, starting Sunday night in Chicago against the 4-5 Bears. The Eagles are favored by a field goal. They are a team whose offense is in flux and whose defense is in traction - yet McNabb has chosen now for the time to do something he pretty much has never done before.

In 2001, he waited until Week 16 to declare a game against the Giants as "pretty much do-or-die," making sure to give himself the out of "pretty much." In early November last year, McNabb said, "It's a must-win situation for us every week." He wasn't talking about a specific game but more about the tendency for the NFC East to be tightly bunched.

This was different.

This:

"I've been in the league for a while now, 11 years, and at this particular point in my career, as well as this point in the season, this is a must win for us and that's the way that we have to approach it. I wouldn't care if it's at Soldier Field, I wouldn't care if it's playing in Champaign, Illinois, or we can play in Oklahoma, it doesn't matter. This is a game that we need to win. That's the way I'm approaching it and that's the way the other guys are approaching it as well."

If this game goes badly, the fallout will be significant. If this game goes badly and McNabb plays poorly, the fallout will be cataclysmic. McNabb must know this. He has spent a professional lifetime avoiding these kinds of statements for that very reason. But he has obviously made a calculation here - that this is the moment, as he said, in both his career and in this particular season. This is the point upon which everything will pivot.

It is all out there, then. Must win. But can the rest of them follow?