Rising Through Adversity

Kevin Kolb anyone? I don't think so.

Donovan McNabb, the man who received so much criticism all week, came out and threw for 4 touchdowns, completed 71.4% of his passes (20 of 28) and also rushed for 37 yards. This performance at least will shut everyone up for one week, but if the stones are still being thrown at Donovan it doesn't seem to matter anyway, he always shines when faced with adversity.

Nothing was perfect, fumbling in the 4th quarter is unacceptable, especially for a veteran like McNabb. At this point something like ball security shouldn't even be an issue and considering this is his 6th fumble of the season (has lost 4) and he began the Dallas game last week with a fumble, it needs to be addressed.

Quite often when an issue like this arises it will only be addressed if it leads to losing the game. Thankfully it didn't pan out that way this time, but McNabb needs to focus on keeping that ball tucked away. From the standpoint of our defense it had to be severely frustrating because we had struggled with forcing turnovers all season, but the one time that we finally force Ladell Betts to fumble, the offense comes out and on the first play hands the ball right back to the Redskins.

When turnovers are few and far between to begin with, there is an urgency to capitalise on them no matter what. So far, we haven't given McNabb many opportunities to put points on the board after a turnover, considering we haven't had many, but when those chances to come around, we need to take advantage.

In opposition to the constant questions regarding McNabb's recovery from his knee injury, he was even able to get outside of the pocket yesterday and run to pick up some yards. Now Jason Campbell is not seen as a running Quarterback but he is prone to use his legs to pick up some yards every once in awhile so it was just interesting to see that Donovan McNabb, the 30 year old veteran returning from a torn ACL, actually rushed for more yards than the 3rd year Campbell.

Now there were blown chances in this game too, an overthrown pass to an open tight end was one, a few near interceptions by the Redskins, but when it all came down to it McNabb prevailed. The accuracy wasn't perfect, it never seems to be, and I'm not trying to ever make a case that McNabb is Peyton Manning but he is hands down the best we have, the best we'll have for at least another 5 years, and a very good Quarterback at that.