What We Learned Yesterday

Donovan McNabb Trade Rumors Philadelphia Eagles Rams Bills Raiders Jaguars

So yesterday was rather hectic. You can see the bizarre up and down nature of the day, rife with Andy’s reveal, very specific trade rumors, and more at yesterday’s updated thread.

But now that we’ve moved on from thinking the McNabb trade is immediately imminent, what have we learned?

  • Don’t believe every rumor you hear over the next few days and weeks. The Rams rumor sounded nice and the whole web got caught up in it, but sometimes where there is smoke there is no fire at all.
  • With that said, you can now safely assume that McNabb will not be in Midnight Green next year. It’s nice to look at Andy’s words and see that he never rules out that possibility, but you have to consider his words before yesterday. All Andy had said was that he was happy with his quarterbacks and that he wasn’t looking to trade any of them. After probably weeks of limited interest, the Eagles front office decided to kick trade talks up a notch — by going public with their interest. There’s no way they do that if they aren’t set on trading McNabb.
  • It sounds like someone close to the Eagles might have unleashed the 33rd pick and FS OJ Atogwe rumor to drive up McNabb’s price. Whether or not the Rams are actually involved in talks (and I never thought they were a likely candidate), clearly there are now trade conversations going on with multiple teams. The Rams rumor and Andy’s announcement that the Eagles were open for offers has worked — at least to some degree — to drive up immediate interest.
  • Tommy Lawlor says the Bills, Raiders, and Jaguars have “all made serious inquiries into trading McNabb.” According to Lawlor’s sources the teams “have shown some willingness to deal their 1st round pick” but the Eagles are also “exploring scenarios where a lesser pick and veteran player would be the compensation.” If true, the Eagles have finally gotten multiple teams to bite. That’s what they’ve needed all along — a little bidding war. We’ll keep track of this.
  • It seems like the Eagles are getting desperate enough that they won’t be trading McNabb to a playoff contender. One would have thought that Reid would try to accomodate his best and closest player, but with serious rumors about Oakland, that’s tough to do. I still have to ask: where is San Francisco?
  • I think the more you hear about the specifics of a particular offer, the more likely it is that that offer is not true. Any actual trade, if talks are progressing well, will take place entirely behind closed doors. It’s in neither team’s best interests to publicize details and risk talks collapsing. We’ll probably get rumors about who’s talking to whom constantly now, but the actual announcement will come out of the blue.

Keep checking back for more updates, news, and analysis. The blog may not be much longer for this world…