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Eagles Rethink McNabb's First-Half Gaffe: QB's Half-Ending Call Was the Wrong Decision, Say Coaches and McNabb.

Posted on: Friday, 27 October 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Larry O'Rourke

A day after Donovan McNabb said "maybe it'll work next time," one of the Philadelphia Eagles' offensive decision makers said there won't be a next time for the play that left the Eagles scoreless exiting the first half of Sunday's 23-21 loss at Tampa Bay.

Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said the Eagles will not be instructing McNabb to call the play that resulted in tight end L.J. Smith being tackled at the 2-yard line as time expired.

"The play call was a good play call," Mornhinweg said Thursday in his weekly press briefing. "And that's an excellent play for that situation. It wasn't a good play for Donovan, so we'll do a couple of other things.

"It was a fine play to call in that situation. Now, for Donovan, it's not. We'll do a couple of different things there."

It took a while for the Eagles' brain trust to reach that conclusion.

It was the fourth time in his last 16 games McNabb has seen other receivers covered in the end zone, opted to throw to a receiver short of the goal line, and come away without points to end a first half.

The first time was in an NFC playoff victory over Minnesota on Jan. 16, 2005.

Last season, the passes came in a victory over the Oakland Raiders and a loss to the Washington Redskins. And then Sunday at Tampa Bay.

In the latest case, the Eagles lined up for second-and-goal at the 6 with 0:09 on the clock following a time-stopping spike and then a timeout by a Tampa Bay defense concerned that it did not have the proper personnel on the field to defend against Philadelphia's initial personnel grouping.

Wideouts Reggie Brown and Hank Baskett ran their routes into the end zone, and Smith dragged across the middle as a decoy.

McNabb was supposed to have two choices:

A. Brown or Baskett.

B. Throw the ball away to leave time for a 24-yard field goal attempt.

"It has to go to the end zone or you throw it away," Mornhinweg said. "It's that simple."

But McNabb chose C, the option not supposed to be in the equation: pass to Smith.

"Reggie was not open. Hank wasn't open, either," McNabb said Wednesday. "It was a situation where I should have just thrown the ball out of bounds. But I had the confidence, just looking at the particular coverage and the way it opened up that L.J. was just going to catch it and slide right into the end zone.

"L.J. had run past the linebacker, so there was nothing but pretty much him and Ronde [Barber], who was supposed to be guarding Hank Baskett on the corner route. [Barber] made a great play and they were able to converge on L.J.

"Looking back on it, I should have just thrown the ball out of bounds."

To that point in his weekly Wednesday press briefing, McNabb seemed to have finally settled on the A (pass into end zone) or B (throw it away) option in similar situations in the future.

But what undoubtedly caught the attention of Mornhinweg and coach Andy Reid was this additional comment from McNabb: "You have to have the confidence in your guys to be able to make that play to get into the end zone. It just didn't work, but maybe it'll work next time."

An alarm may as well have sounded in the Eagles' South Philly headquarters/pratice facility.

"Here's the thing: Donovan is so competitive that he wants points and that's the great thing about Donovan," Mornhinweg said. "And so, we'll do better the next time on that. That's my responsibility. I take that responsibility seriously and we'll do better."

larry.orourke@mcall.com

610-820-6779

Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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