Donovan Mcnabb

Hank Baskett showed up at the Eagles training camp yesterday with new digits on his jersey. But as long as he has a number, Baskett is a man with no complaints. Switching from No. 80 to 84, after fellow receiver Jabar Gaffney claimed his original number, the undrafted free agent was a happy - and, more importantly, still employed - man yesterday at the Lehigh camp, where he worked with the first team at times. "As long as I've got a jersey," said Baskett, a 6-foot-4, 220-pounder from the University of New Mexico.

If somehow this is the Eagles' season that finally has a happy ending, one of the main story lines afterward will be the tale of the two quarterbacks. The main story, of course, would be how Donovan McNabb removed the 500-pound gorilla from his back by winning a Super Bowl. If that doesn't seem plausible, you haven't been paying attention to the Eagles' offense recently. The secondary story would be about Michael Vick and how he has evolved from a sideline wallflower to a valuable part of the Eagles' offense in the latter part of the season.

Add Maryann Cottrell to the list of foes who have brought down Eagles stars Donovan McNabb and Jeremiah Trotter. Cottrell, the 5-foot-1 mother of a handicapped woman, tackled the two football players yesterday in a South Jersey courtroom by producing photographs she took of their trucks illegally parked last year in spaces reserved for the disabled in Glassboro. Although McNabb and Trotter said they were not the ones who had parked the vehicles, Municipal Judge Charles Sprigman found both liable.

It takes moxie and confidence for a man to wear a black suit with a hot pink pinstripe, but no one ever said Donovan McNabb lacked either. Last night, after his Eagles topped the Dallas Cowboys by the convincing score of 36-10, the quarterback left Lincoln Financial Field nattily clad, down to the matching pink dress shirt and pink-tinted sunglasses. Question the man's decisions? Now? Not likely. As it has turned out, and despite how crazy a statement it seemed at the time, McNabb was correct when, some eight weeks ago, he said the road to the NFC East title runs through Philly.

The starting quarterback coming out of the visitors' tunnel tonight at Lincoln Financial Field has a pretty good idea of what Donovan McNabb is feeling right now, and there's a chance he might even offer some words of encouragement for his beleaguered peer. Kurt Warner, a Super Bowl champion and two-time NFL MVP, knows what it's like to be benched in the middle of a game. He knows what it's like when people don't think you can play the game any more at a high level. And now he knows how good it feels to be considered among the elite again.

Koy Detmer gets it. He will start at quarterback for the Eagles in tomorrow night's preseason finale against the New York Jets. And then, if all goes well, he will virtually disappear for the rest of the season. It's OK, really. He understands that the team's hopes ride on the man in front of him, Donovan McNabb. "I'm happy to back him up," Detmer said. "Donovan has done such a great job here. He's taken us to the next level. You know he's the guy. It's clear-cut that he's the guy, and that's how it should be. " Detmer has been with the Eagles long enough to know the difference.

Even as things change for the Eagles, the players are working to make sure the atmosphere doesn't. "We're a family," quarterback Donovan McNabb said after working out yesterday at the team's training complex. "That's the most important thing about playing in the NFL, being part of a family atmosphere. I've been fortunate enough to be a part of that, and we're going to continue to grow. " Such is the case, he said, even if some members of the family are known to be unhappy.

Brian Dawkins and Donovan McNabb were among the Eagles who showed up for practice yesterday at the NovaCare Complex without the proper amount of sleep as they prepared for the biggest game of the season, Sunday night's clash with the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. Perfectly understandable. History was being made late Tuesday night, and it was intensely personal to both of them. Barack Obama had just become the first African American to be elected president, and there was no time to doze off. "I just thought I'd never be alive to see that," said Dawkins, 35. "I really did not. So it's emotional for me to say that this is the America we live in today.

When the call came, it caught Charles Johnson completely by surprise. "I think if I'd seen it coming, it would have been a little easier," Johnson said. "It's hard when something catches you off guard like that. " The Eagles released Johnson last April, two years after signing him to a five-year, $13 million contract. He was one of the team's starting wide receivers during Andy Reid's first two years as head coach. The other starter, Torrance Small, had been released almost immediately after the season.

"Philadelphia is the only city where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day. " - Mike Schmidt Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb can relate, and on a much more grand and grinding scale than the Phillies' Hall of Fame third baseman. No, the Eagles didn't win their first trip to the Super Bowl in 24 years, but they did have one of the most successful seasons in franchise history, setting a record with 13 regular-season victories and reaching the Super Bowl for the first time in 24 years.