Two years after Andy Reid convinced the Redskins to give him a pair of draft picks for Donovan McNabb, the Eagles’ head coach is still telling other teams they ought to take McNabb -- even if Philadelphia won’t get anything out of it.
Reid told NFL Network that he urges other coaches around the NFL to take a chance on signing McNabb, who has been an unrestricted free agent since the Vikings waived him and no team claimed him late last season.
“I tell them to take him,” Reid said in an interview set to air on Monday evening’s NFL Total Access. “I still think he can play. I think the world of him, and we had some great years together here. I’m always wishing him the best and a fan of his. I got a chance to see him at Brian Dawkins’ retirement [ceremony]. He looks good. He looks physically good. He looks like he could go out and play tomorrow. I would highly recommend [him].”
Reid may be right that McNabb looks physically good (even though he still looked a little chubby in the ESPN segment about his weight loss), but the bigger problem is that McNabb still thinks he’s good enough to start. No team is going to take Reid’s advice until that team is convinced that McNabb can be a good teammate and strong locker room presence as a No. 2 quarterback.
As the first of three coaches in the last two years to discover that McNabb wasn’t good enough to start for his team, Reid can’t be too surprised that the NFL’s other 29 coaches don’t think McNabb is good enough to start for their teams, either. And no matter what Reid may say about thinking highly of McNabb, I have a feeling that if McNabb ever does accept that he has to be a backup, the quarterbacks Reid would really like to see McNabb back up are Tony Romo or Eli Manning.
