This week it was announced that the Eagles and Donovan McNabb had restructured the last two years on his existing contract. Donovan was due to make $19.2 Million over the next two years, but with the restructured deal, he will now receive $24.5 Million over those same two years plus another possible $1 Million in incentives.At first, I found this curious as the Eagles gave him a pay raise without McNabb agreeing to an extension. At this point, I could bore you all with a long explanation of how legally this may mean that the contract is invalid since there was no new consideration, but I’ll resist that temptation. I’ll take both sides at what they say when they said the reason the contract was not extended beyond 2010 has to do with the upcoming labor uncertainty in the NFL. The current NFL collective bargaining agreement between the union and the league expires at the end of the 2010-11 season. In fact, there is the possibility that there would be a year without a salary cap if a new collective bargaining agreement is not reached, which is why a player of Donovan’s caliber would resist signing a long term deal when it is unknown what the future of the salary cap will be.
Certainly, from Donovan’s perspective, the new contract without an extension makes perfect sense. However, this begs the question, why would the Eagles agree to it? The easy answer is that they want a happy quarterback and Donovan thought he was being underpaid. While $19.2 Million over two years may sound like a lot to you and me, for a star quarterback in the NFL, it is on the low side. In the past, the Eagles have been content to tell their other players that were being underpaid that they need to live with the contract they signed (i.e. T.O.), but this goes to show what exceptions teams will make for a premier quarterback.
The other thing that not doing an extension does for the Eagles is that it gives them time. Time to see what happens with the collective bargaining agreement, as well as time to see how Kevin Kolb continues in his development and time to see how Donovan’s health holds up. Once the next two seasons play out, the Eagles will be in a much better position to determine what they should do for the next few years at the quarterback position. In fact, the only down side to the Eagles restructuring this deal without an extension is the problem it might cause with some other players - players like Sheldon Brown, who want a new contract, but are being told to live up to the terms of their current deal, even if they are unhappy. However, that just proves the point of how important quarterbacks are in the NFL and that the Eagles are willing to make exceptions for their franchise quarterback.
I know that there are a lot of Philly fans that think McNabb is a choke artist and that he can’t win the big game, but if you look at the possible alternatives, it is pretty clear that he is one of the best in the game right now. All you have to do is watch the NFL throughout the season and look at the quality of starting quarterbacks across the league. In my opinion, he is clearly in the top ten among NFL quarterbacks and arguably could be in the top five. Wherever you rank him, having a franchise quarterback who consistently gets a team to the playoffs is a rarity these days and Donovan is in that category. As for winning big games, Philly fans unfortunately only remember the losses like the Superbowl or the NFC Championship Games. They forget all the other playoff games that he has won, along with several big regular season games. In fact, McNabb actually has a winning record in playoff games – he is 9-6. While he has yet to get us that elusive championship, Donovan has proven to be one of the best (if not the best) quarterback in franchise history and he understands that he still has another goal to meet. In fact, according to ESPN.com, he mentioned Superbowl five times during his 14 minute press conference, including saying “With the type of team that we have, I think it's important that we focus in on what we have to do in order to achieve that common goal, and that's obviously to win a Super Bowl.” For that reason, I believe that giving him the raise was the smart thing to do for the Eagles as he represents the best chance we have at getting that Superbowl title.
