Full slate of pressers on Friday, with Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, and Brian Dawkins joining Friday regular Andy Reid at the podium.  With, ahem, a lack of fresh material for another full round of interviews, the topic of conversation kept to turning to the players and coaches’ relationship with the media and the fans, specifically what it will take for the city of Philadelphia to finally hug Andy Reid’s fat belly.

Showing the form that’s made them the scourge of the local press detachment, Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb had little to offer on the topic of Reid “being embraced” by the media and fans.  From Reid,

On what it takes to be completely embraced by this town and how he and Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel are “text” buddies: “Honestly, I don’t think about all that.  That’s for you guys to take care of.  Charlie’s (Manuel) a heck of a guy and a great manager and I just think he did a tremendous job.  We were supporting him 110 percent, our football team, and their baseball team has been great.  Our players are close and Charlie and I communicate and he did a great job.  I’m not going to get into all the comparisons and embrace myself.”

And then McNabb:

On what it will take for head coach Andy Reid to be fully embraced by Philadelphia: “That’s a question that I need to ask you. If we had the answer, then it wouldn’t be a problem. But, you know what? The thing about it is winning cures everything. When you’re winning, nobody digs deeper into finding much of what’s going on. I can personally tell you that we don’t get affected by what people may say on the outside too much. You use whatever you want as motivation and you move on. You can’t impress everyone. Not everyone is going to like you, but you just go out and you do your job and you enjoy doing it. That’s something that I can definitely say that hasn’t wavered by any means from Andy and it trickles down to the rest of us. You can’t let what people may say on the outside become a distraction of what you do here at your job.”

Right right.  These guys pay attention to their media training, so you can’t expect much more than that.  But maybe we’ll get something more interesting from Brian Dawkins, right?

On what he thinks it will take for head coach Andy Reid to be completely embraced by the city of Philadelphia: “You have to understand where we are. Here in Philadelphia they love you to death but they are still going to criticize you. They are still going to get on you. They are still going to ask questions. You have to have thick skin to play here, to coach here. Everybody can’t coach, everybody can’t play here. So obviously Andy is doing something that a lot of coaches could not succeed in by having thick skin, holding fast to what he believes in, and continue to move on. They are still going to question you regardless of success. As soon as you have a string of failure they are still going to question you, so you understand that. You just go out and do what you do and that’s what Andy has done; he has stayed the course in what he believes.”

Nope.  Maybe Brian Westbrook?:

On what it will take for head coach Andy Reid to be completely embraced by the city of Philadelphia: “I think everybody knows that Coach is a good coach. He’s done a great job here and in his ten years I want to say he’s one of the top two or three winningest coaches in that tenure. He’s done a great job for this team, and I also feel that he’s been great to the players here as well. Different people are always going to have something negative to say, but I think his players respect him and the people that know football respect him around the NFL and as a coach. I think that’s all you really can ask for. I think the fans are going to go up and down sometimes with the wins and losses. But, the true mark is how do you follow up those losses, and he’s done a great job of bringing this team back this year and now we’re playing for the NFC Championship and a lot has to do because of him.”

Though, in Westbrook’s defense, he did let down the guard a bit when they asked him the meta-question about how it feels to answer questions about his knee every week:

On whether he gets tired of answering the same questions every week: “It gets a little repetitive. I appreciate you bringing that up. It definitely gets a little repetitive, but my knee’s fine. I think, it hasn’t been said, but a lot of times, throughout games when you have injuries, you’re going to tweak your injury no matter what injury it is. This wasn’t the only game that I tweaked my knee, but it happens throughout football games.”

To summarize, no one can really say why the public doesn’t “embrace” Andy Reid (perhaps it’s because we all know that our arms would never make it all the way around his generous mid-section?), but Brian Westbrook is just as sick of answering the same questions as the press are of asking them.

A week ago I made some snazzy charts to show that maybe everyone should be a bit nicer to young Tavaris Jackson, who, despite a very strong December, fizzled and failed in a playoff loss to the Eagles.

Well, I’ve now updated the chart to reflect this past weekend’s game.  Guess who actually had a worse passer rating than young Tavaris?  Why…it’s Elisha!

So while Tavaris is possibly going to lose his job, Manning is getting the benefit of the doubt and a $100-million contract (he was the winning quarterback in the Super Bowl, after all).  Still, I really don’t think that Tavaris should feel too terrible — at least he didn’t get stuffed on fourth down.

It’s also worth emphasizing that the Eagles haven’t surrendered a passing touchdown in more than a month.  Given the quality of the Cardinals’ passing game, it would be remarkable if the Eagles were able to continue that streak on Sunday.  Still, we certainly have no need to panic regarding the prospect of facing Fitzgerald and Boldin; if there’s any team whose pass defense is up to this task, it’s the Birds.

Oh man.  Talk about the last guy we needed to hear from amidst all the Eagles goodness this week.  Bob Grotz checks in with a Lito Sheppard update, in which Lito congratulates himself for not causing a problem in the locker room in the middle of a great run from the Birds:

To his credit, Sheppard hasn’t made the scene that lesser men could have and probably would have.

“If I hadn’t been around these guys as long as I have been,” Sheppard said of his teammates, “things would probably be a little bit different. Not to say (Brian Dawkins) is the reason why I’m handling it the way I’m handling it, but when you think about the team, and you think about what’s important, Dawk does creep into your mind. He’s one of those guys that make you think, ‘Maybe I will chill out.’

“And it’s not that I’m going to get in trouble with anybody on the team. It’s just one of those things where I can’t change the situation right now, so why make it worse?”

To his credit?  Huh?  He should be lauded for not whinging?  The results are fantastic since he’s been removed from the lineup — the Eagles have given up 1 TD pass since the Cardinals game, versus 18 up to that point.  Whether that’s a result of Sheppard’s absence (and Hanson’s presence) is something for smarter football people to evaluate, but the last time he was out there (the Cardinals game), it sure looked like the guy he was covering scored more than once.  Also note the opening play in the Seattle game that was all his fault.

To summarize, recently ineffective player is removed from lineup, team succeeds, and ineffective player is worthy of praise for not complaining more.

Got it.

What’s that?  The Cowboys have decided that a certain wide receiver might be more trouble than he’s worth?  You don’t say:

“I think we all know that chemistry is the problem with this team more than the schemes or anything else,” a Cowboys source said. “Are we going to continue to allow talent to outweigh everything else in the decisions we make with players and putting the roster together? We’re like the Redskins used to be when they signed every player they wanted. There’s more to it than talent. It has to be more about the team.

“The big one [Owens] didn’t get discussed yet, but I’m sure it will and real hard.”

If that isn’t enough, perhaps some discussion of Eli Manning becoming a member of the $100-million club, then?  And Giants fans aren’t universally thrilled?

“You see $120 million and it just seems like too much money,” said Nizam Abdul, 40, of Ozone Park, holding a copy of the Daily News with Manning on the front page.

“Besides, he lost the game,” said Abdul, still stinging from Sunday’s 23-11 loss to the Eagles. “Everyone is still upset about it.”

Yes yes, I’m serving heavy doses of Haterade.  It’s not very nice.  I know.

Defensive coordinator Jim Johnson was omitted from both Andy Reid’s Wednesday press conference and the team’s official injury report:

Injury Report: “(RT Jon) Runyan and (RB Brian) Westbrook will not practice today. (WR Jason) Avant will do some things. (Avant) went through the walkthrough. Basically, they all went through the walkthrough. Avant will go through the practice.”

But what of Jim Johnson’s balky back and cane requirements?  Surely this merits mention, no?  Especially with a five-hour flight to Arizona looming?  That can’t do wonders for a 67-year-old guy with back issues.

Luckily for Jim Johnson, there are no known performance-enhancing drug restrictions for the coaching staff.  So shoot that old guy full of happy juice and send him to Arizona!  We’re going to need him at the top of his game!

(Other fun facts about Jim Johnson that I picked up when reviewing his bio on PE.com: he was a college quarterback at Missouri (huh), and played tight end for two seasons in the pros (with Buffalo).  Wouldn’t have guessed that he’d played offense.)

In an act of extreme patience and restraint, the media assembled for today’s round of Eagles pressers managed to not mention Donovan McNabb’s Benching Against Baltimore, as has been their recent custom.

I suppose they got just as tired of asking as we did of reading.

So today they tried another angle.  It wasn’t the benching that was the turning point — the benching was just a result of McNabb’s anxiety about his wife’s pregnancy.  A ha!  Perhaps this would work — I mean, it wouldn’t be showing weakness to admit that maybe one was a bit preoccupied by an extremely complicated pregnancy, right?

Try.  Again.

On whether there was a point, during his wife’s pregnancy with twins, that he thought about stepping back from football: “No. Family is family and football is another issue. It was tough, but we all have been through difficult situations, whether it deals with family or football.”

Of course, as Lew Bowen has some aptly pointed out, McNabb’s media training is such that he’s unlikely to agree that the sun rises most mornings without first offering a “Not at all.”  So you can’t think you were going to get an easy win out of Donovan.

So why not try the more reasonable — and less skittish around the press, for good reason — Brian Dawkins?

On whether it was difficult for QB Donovan McNabb to concentrate on football due to concern for his wife and expected children during the delivery process: “I would say yes. I’m not in his shoes obviously, but I just know where I was as my wife was going through the ordeal with our babies. Had that been during the season, it would have been very, very tough to focus.”

Voila!  Hit up the guy whose wife ALSO had a complicated pregnancy and ask him the hypothetical!  Without speaking for Dunavin directly, Dawk’ll give you what you wanted.  There you go — now you’ve got copy for a sensitive piece that probes the quarterback’s complex psyche for Thursday morning.

We won’t comment on whom we expect to write tomorrow’s pregnancy story.

Throughout the year, we made light of the Football Outsiders rankings’ seemingly misguided impression that the Eagles were one of the top teams in the NFL.  While we generally think the world of DVOA and the Football Outsiders thing, we were alternately flattered and horrified by the the rankings’ fascination with the Birds, even as they continued to falter in the stat that matters most (those pesky Ws), and even conjured up elaborate hypotheses in re: how this could be possible.

It’s worth noting the the Football Outsiders team was equally horrified — they didn’t really know what to make of it either.  As Aaron Schatz put it (in ALL CAPS): “THE EAGLES ARE TRYING TO KILL ME.”

Well well well.  Guess who gets to beat their chest a bit heading into Championship Weekend?  That would be those very same Football Outsiders, whose final rankings had the Eagles, Ravens, and Steelers placed #1, #2, and #4, respectively (the Giants were #3).  It’s going to be very difficult not to take these guys — and DVOA — very very seriously after that.

(Of course, the haters amongst us could point to the part where they had the Cardinals at #20, or that it took a 13.5-favorite losing at home to even get the #1 team into the playoffs, but we’ll instead use those as confidence- and-karma-builders, respectively, for the Birds heading into the NFC Championship Game.)

In the interests of fairness and accountability, please see below for an excerpt from my post following the Ravens game:

It’s done.  This group of guys is finally done.  The three fraudulent wins tacked on the end of last season’s 5-8 effort snookered us into thinking these guys might have one more go in them.  Nope.  Today was their last chance to convince me that I could get excited about the 2008 season, and they blew it in the most spectacular way possible.  The Emperor weighs close to 400 pounds, and he is nekkid as the day he was born.

(In my head, I envisioned a close win against Baltimore, then a short week with an opponent who had to handle a cross-country flight then some extra time off before the Giants — yup, I’m a sucker.)

Whew.  We don’t have to worry about this season or this team anymore.  The fraud is over.  Now we can discuss ENDGAME.

I’m definitely in the blame-Andy camp, though I acknowledge that Donovan McNabb is done in Philly (he’ll be a much happier person for it).  The thing that distresses me (mostly because it’s what’s going to happen), is that they’ll rationalize this season as being somehow about Dunavin and a hurt Westbrook and insist that they were just a little bit off.  They’ll fire Mornhinweg and Heckert and Andy Reid will be back leading the circus next summer, pretending the poor roster design and game planning isn’t his fault.

It’s 2008.  I’m ready for change.  Seems to be the thing these days.

Yup.  As noted, I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.  Guilty as charged.

(And I really couldn’t be any happier about being wrong.)

Don’t pretend you haven’t looked.  I don’t want to hear it.  You’ve looked.

The best case is the Ravens.  The worst case is the Stillers, if only because their annoyingly devoted fans will sell a kidney to make it to the Super Bowl and wave their freakin’ towels.  That is, demand looks different (and formidable) if it’s a Keystone State Super Bowl.

Either way, this will cost the BountyBowls about four grand (plus flights and hotel!): game tickets are starting at $2,000.

Inhale.

(Yes yes, feel free to curse me for looking past the Cardinals.  Whatever.)

Forgive me as I borrow liberally from BountyBowl fave Peter King (Quintin Mikell, still misspelled), but I’m going to treat myself to a couple Eagles-related travel notes from Sunday evening:

1.  I enjoyed a couple post-game celebration cocktails with some friends before I headed to the airport Sunday night (much deserved), and also shed a few layers of cold-weather Eagles gear (equally deserved).  So by the time I got to security at EWR, I didn’t have the Trent Cole shirt on, but still had the “Winning is for the Birds” t-shirt rolling, and may have been looking a bit haggard after a day spent outside in the cold.

So I walk up to the metal detector in the remnants of my Eagles gear and step through.  No alarm is triggered, per lo usual, and I show the TSA guard my boarding pass.  SHOCKINGLY, I was selected for a random search that evening!  The guy wearing the Eagles gear at Newark Liberty International airport!  You don’t say!  Note that I fly A TON (~100K miles last year), with 95 percent of those flights through EWR, and I have never been selected for a random search like that.  Never.  Whatever, though.  I took my patdown with a smile.

2.  Mercifully, I had an upgrade for the flight (which was shockingly empty — this is not a positive economic indicator).  I made the prudent decision to stop celebrating for the remainder of the evening.  So the flight attendant comes over and asks me what I’d like to drink.  “Water.”  And then another.  And another.  And another.  I think I got at least seven (7) glasses down.  Finally it’s last call on the flight, we’re about to land, and she asks me if I’d like another drink:

“One more water, please.”

“Really?”

“Yes, please.”

At which point the flight attendant may have crossed a line by observing, “But you haven’t gone to the bathroom once!”  (Seriously, it was weird that she was keeping score, no?)

My reply: “Yeah, well, I’m really dehydrated.”

Go Birds.