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Taking a Break From Filling Him Up Right

Philadelphia right now is experiencing something even worse than a quarterback controversy: a quarterback's mom controversy.

Donovan McNabb's mother, Wilma, who is known for her appearances in her son's Chunky Soup commercials, drew some fire this week for a blog post on McNabb's website, when she shared her feelings on her son's current predicament, which has him sitting injured while Jeff Garcia leads the team to the playoffs. Wilma writes:

Yes, now we have solidly beat the Cowboys with my son and without him. But I can hear you asking, mama McNabb what are you really thinking? Well here it is, the real deal. It's kind of bitter sweet for me as my son, the quarterback sits out on injured reserved watching the game during his rehab. I polled my family too and they feel the same. We want our team to win and even go to the Superbowl and win it in Miami especially if they continue to play as they have. But oh oh, if they win the Superbowl without my son, what would be the real outcome with the fans? Will they crucify him? Maybe, then the trade talks would begin. Off season madness, worse than last year's fiasco.

Yes, I know this sounds bad, and it plays into every stereotype the McNabb haters have about him being a mama's boy. But the fact is, this reaction is the only natural one that you could expect anyone to have- of course he's happy that the team's winning, and of course he'd prefer to be playing himself.

Eagles fans should be happy that they've won four in a row with Garcia, and that they're headed to the playoffs and possibly a division title. Of all the horrible things players have done off the field in the NFL this year, McNabb's mom writing a blog post is pretty tame.

UPDATE: Garry Cobb, the Eagles player-turned-local talk show host, has some interesting thoughts on the matter:

McNabb has one of the highest winning percentages of any quarterback in NFL history, yet if you were to listen to much of local talk radio you would think he was a bust. McNabb has won more playoff games than any signal caller in team history and it's not even close. This is the quandary of his predicament. I've come to the realization that it's not really about football it's about personality, this city doesn't like Donovan McNabb and will never like Donovan McNabb even if he wins a Super Bowl. It was that way with Mike Schmidt and it's that way with McNabb. Although Pete Rose was not truly a Philadelphian and he's really a scumbag with no moral compass, Philly prefers Rose over Schmidt, any day of the week. That's just the truth.

And that's the problem: As long as Philly fans reject every star athlete who isn't a "Philly guy," the teams here are going to have a hard time ever winning.

Posted by Stephen Silver at December 29, 2006 03:33 PM