The Sacks' sign caught McNabb's eye as he walked onto the practice field at Redskins Park for the team's 2 1/2-hour morning training camp session. He smiled and gave them a thumbs up.
"Hey, that sounds good," he said of the sign later in a lunchtime interview with the Daily News. "Neither one of us wanted to leave."
The 33-year-old quarterback is happy to be a Redskin. But that doesn't mean he's happy to be an ex-Eagle. The April 4 trade wasn't his idea, it was the team's. And while he's looking forward to a new NFL adventure in D.C. with the Redskins, he would have been perfectly content to finish out his career in Philadelphia.
"I had already said I wanted to stay there," McNabb said. "Andy said, 'You're going to be my guy. Don't worry about it.' But I've seen it happen through the years with other guys like Troy [Vincent] and Bobby [Taylor] and even Dawk [Brian Dawkins]. They communicate back and forth and it's, 'Yeah, you're our guy.' But then you're not.
"It's a breath of fresh air [to be with the Redskins]. Especially with everything that happened over the last 3 years with, 'Will he be here? Will he be gone? Is this it? Do we move on now?' When it finally happened, it was like, OK, now I can finally just play football. I can start over and hit this thing running."
He waved goodbye to a team he helped guide to eight playoff appearances and five NFC Championship Game berths in the last 10 years, and said hello to one that is coming off a four-win season and has been to the postseason just twice in this millennium.
But he is looking forward to the challenge of trying to help turn around the Redskins. He likened it to the anticipation he felt in 1999 when he was selected by the Eagles with the second pick in the draft.
