Mcnabb Benched. Yeah! or What the hell?

Yeah, he stuck the joint up. But to get benched for Grossman?

What the hell was Shanny thinking?

I heard on NFL network it was Kyle's idea because "Grossman could handle the 2 minute offense better". Yeah.. a QB that hasn't taken a snap all season?

Just when I thought we were done with the stupid coaching decisions, this pops up. Can't say I agree with it in any way. Getting the man an O-line that can block would be more helpful.

That one baffled the hell out of me also. With two minutes left you're going to bench your QB? What for? Was possibly an effort to "inspire" or "encourage" or "build-a-fire-under-an-a**" or something less noble like "Hey, I'm pissed at how poorly you're playing and I'm gonna stick you in the time-out corner?"

I personally fail to see why Shanahan did that-but not knowing or having access to the interaction going on between him and McNabb during the game there's nothing to go on other than speculation like I just did and I don't like to do that much-it carries way to much of a risk of being dead wrong.

I must admit to being baffled though.

Well, it's too soon to say definitively that Shanahan's lost his mind, so here's one alternate theory (and I'm not sayin' that it's a good one, just that it is one):

Shanahan knows that, on this particular day, neither McNabb nor Grossman gives us anything better than a long shot to win the game. As long as some poor sucker is doomed to line up behind that nest of arthritic old hens that is our offensive line, this game is all but lost.

So Shanahan's next priority might be: going into the bye week, how do we best position ourselves to win the next game?

We've already seen that Shanahan likes to keep his players from getting too comfortable. Maybe he thinks that he needs to shake up his QB - and by extension, the rest of the team.

We know Shanahan likes to study. Maybe he's aware of how McNabb responded in 2008, after Andy Reid benched him at halftime in a very poor showing against the Ravens.

Don't remember this? Against Baltimore, "McNabb was 8-for-18 for 59 yards and two interceptions and a fumble -- a miserable 13.2 quarterback rating."

So Reid benched McNabb for the entire second half, and took considerable heat for his decision. But remember how McNabb played the next week? "McNabb was 27-for-39 for 260 yards and four touchdowns..." - brilliantly. And suddenly Reid comes out smelling like a rose, instead of like a guy who's dripped a half-pint of pancake syrup down the front of his sweat-stained shirt.

So maybe Shanahan knows this. Maybe he's been pondering it since the very day the front office signed McNabb for the 2010 season. Maybe he's gambling that McNabb stews over his ignominy for the next 14 days, then comes out on Monday night at home and takes his frustrations out on, of all teams, the Eagles.

Or maybe our head coach has lost his mind.

The only way I can possibly accept what the coachs did here, is if they had admitted defeat and wanted to demonstrate to the line that they suck and their jobs are on the line. I hated the signing of Grossman. When they signed him I expected exactly what we got in his first snap, he needs to be in a Utopia to be effective in the NFL.

So if he was putting the line on alert, then ok. The BS about Grossman being good at is something I wont buy.

Maybe they were tired of seeing open receivers all day, that McNabb wasn't.

On a nostalgic note, it was cool to see the 85 Bears defense again.

Or was it the Zorn offense.

Really couldn't tell.

I still can't believe the move. Heard Chris Carter blow the 'Grossman knows offense better' theory out the water.

Carter said if you can't get the QB you traded for in April ready to run two minutes offense by middle of season, then you've done a poor job of coaching.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like another head game being played by Shanahan, with one of his players.

I can't believe the negative media hype Shanahan is getting over this decision, and nothing is being mentioned about that INT he threw with 4min's to go that cost us the game. I applaud Shanahan for what he did. If nothing else, i hope Shanahan is conveying the message stupid mistakes like that will not be tolerated, which i believe he was doing when he pulled McNabb.

I'm noticing a constant trend with McNabb and it's not pretty. The guy is not a smart player at all and throws nothing but rocket balls and is unable to put any touch on his passes. I don't know how many times i've screamed for him to get rid of the ball with people wide open in the flats(his check down). The play he made earlier this year where we were up, with little time left in the game, and he ran for the first down, pretty much sealing the game, but then ran out of bounds and stopped the clock was another mind numbing experience.

I've also noticed he does not seem like a firey competitor. He seems to keep this half grin on is face no matter what the situation is. As was shown yesterday, we're last in 3rd down conversions and imo this is another reflection of McNabb. Good QB's convert on third down and can keep the chains moving. He hasn't done this all year outside a few times early on.

I've heard Philly fans claim he is a choker and i see now exactly where they're coming from. Proof of this was they way they were blitzing him yesterday. A good NFL QB will kill the blitz, something that McNabb doesn't seem capeable of doing.

Now, with all that said, he's leaps and bounds better than anything we've had in years, including Grossman and he does throw a good deep ball. The O line hasn't been much help either many times this year and i partially blame the playcalling for making him be under center on obvious passing downs when we're obviously having problems in our protection.

I believe McNabb is a talented QB, but he's just not a leader at the QB position and he's not a guy who is going to win games by himself. I wasn't crazy about the guy when we played against him and i truly believe he's been playing over his head and the worse is yet to come. He gotten lucky on some int's that have been dropped and yesterday i couldn't stop from thinking please don't throw a int, especially on that last TD inside the 5 that we ran in, but sure enough, he did it anyway, thowing into double, which some might consider tripple coverage, when that ball should've been in the stands.

McNabb had a bad game...But he was getting swamped in the pocket. That definitely affected his decision making thoughout the proceeding.

But replacing him makes no f'ing sense when there is no protection, and Grossman proved that. He was cold, got whacked, and immediately lost the ball.

McNabb's history should be enough to have left him in to keep trying.

Terrible decision on multiple levels.

And how zeroing in on that which makes the RB/QB play look bad...Hmmm? How about trying someone else at center. Rabach can make the calls, but he can't block worth ****. HELLOOOO! Put Dockery there, Lichtensteiger there, pull Cook of the PS and put him there.. THAT IS THE WEAK SPOT... NOT QB.

The benching doesn't bother me nearly as much as the questions it raises in my mind.

Will McNabb ever get "it" in the Shanahan system? Did we burn two high draft picks for a guy who might not even be on the roster when Philly uses the second of those picks in the spring? Do we now have a huge hole under Center to go with the hole we have at Center?

Let's face it . . . McNabb didn't just have a single bad game. In fact, one can argue pretty convincingly that he has only had a single GOOD game this year. Campbell, the guy we could only get a 6th rounder for, is statistically ahead of the guy we gave up a 2nd and a conditional 3rd/4th for.

Boggles the mind.

Nice 1st post "Go Deep", welcome to the board. I have to agree with your observations on McNabb. I was a fan of bringing McNabb in from the start and I’m not going to jump off that wagon quite yet but there is definitely a pattern emerging here. He’s made a lot of poor passes this year and while it’s true he hasn’t been given time on many occasions even when he has had time the passes just aren’t where they should be.

I have a couple thoughts regarding this season so far:

- We need to draft our future starter at QB asap. Not some undrafted project guy either. I'm talking about a guy who will be starting within a year or so.

- Second, I'm starting to question Kyle Shanahan. If you take away McNabb’s run Sunday we rushed for 35 yards and 1 TD. That’s not just bad, it’s embarrassing. I know the Lions have a good front four, but they aren’t THAT good. We rank 27th in the league in attempts per game at 23 per game, yet we have a 4.1 per carry average which puts us right in the middle of the pack at 17th overall. What that tells me is the running game will work if given the chance. Conversely we are averaging almost 36 pass attempts per game. Are we a 36 pass per game team? I don’t think so, at least not with this offensive line, these receivers and this QB in the NFC East no less. That's bad coaching. He did the same thing in Houston last year and put up great offensive passing numbers (with Schaub and Johnson) but his team finished 30th in rushing.

First of all, great posts in this thread (may be the first time we've had to posts 'blogged' in the same thread). Nice Sam Hill and Go Deep!).

I think there's a distinct possibility we're missing in this decision.

McNabb pissed Shanahan the hell off

We had this game won and McNabb puts up a terrible pass and essentially gave the game to the Lions. That is the most inexcusable crime you can commit as a supposed 'veteran' QB. The more I think about it, I think Shanahan was so steamed, he wouldn't have had the presence of mind to formulate a plan to send McNabb a message or motivate him for the 2nd half of the season. I think he was pissed beyond belief and did the only thing within his power he could to express it.

Was it a dumb move? Yeah - I think so. We were 1 point down. And poor performance or not, anyone with a light bulb burning in their skull probably would say we've got a better chance of pulling it out with a flawed McNabb than an inspired Grossman. But did McNabb deserve it? Yeah - I think so.

I don't think the drama and distraction the decision Shanahan made was worth the short-term satisfaction it provided though. That's the last thing this team needed was more drama. Figures we finally get Fat Al back on the reservation and we will now contend with this for two weeks or more.

Neophyte said:

Let's face it . . . McNabb didn't just have a single bad game. In fact, one can argue pretty convincingly that he has only had a single GOOD game this year. Campbell, the guy we could only get a 6th rounder for, is statistically ahead of the guy we gave up a 2nd and a conditional 3rd/4th for.

Boggles the mind.

Click to expand...

Neo, I'm not going to try to excuse all of McNabb's problems by referring to our OL.

However, JC has more protection in Oakland than he did here. NFL stats is now recording offensive line stats and one of them is number of QB hits allowed. So far this season, Oakland has allowed 34 QB hits-that's good for a ranking of 16th.

In case your curious, we're tied for 31st with the 49ers with 50 QB hits-the only team with more is Chicago with 53.

Last season the Redskins allowed 97 QB hits for the season-which is pretty close to the pace we seem to be at the midpoint right now. During McNabbs 2009 season with Philly their OL was ranked 12th allowing 67 total QB hits during the regular season.

A side note on a related issue: So far this season, the only team we've lost to that's allowed as many as 35 hits has been Detroit-all the other teams we've lost to have allowed less than 35 QB hits so far this season. Green Bay has allowed 35 hits also-the lowest total of any of the teams we've beaten-the rest have more than 35 QB hits.

Only caveat to those stats serv is that they don't take into account QB decision-making. I agree, McNabb (particularly yesterday, as pointed out by brother Om) is getting shelled at times. But he's also holding onto the ball far too long in many instances when there simply isn't anything there. He's taken an inordinate amount of sacks and 'hits' because he simply refused to throw the ball away.

Poor protection or not, he's not showing much 'veteran savvy' out there so far. Despite the poor protection yesterday, it was McNabb's poor decision-making, not our inept OL play that gave the game away.

Of course, Boone. That's why I included the disclaimer about not using the OL as the sole reason but my intention was in using it as a contributing factor. Granted McNabb's problems are numerous, including questionable decision making, the possibility of his still struggling with assimilating the offensive system, his historical problem with consistent accuracy, all of which is exacerbated, I think, by an uncommon level of pressure due to lack of protection.

Addendum: Additionally, my post was in reference to Neo's comparison of Campbell's stats in Oakland being better than McNabb's.

I think the announcers said it too. But nobody was going to succeed behind that Oline, against that Dline, on that day. They came to play and out played the skins OLine. That said, I hope Heyer is out next year.

King's take

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...an-mcnabb-mail/index.html?xid=cnnbin&hpt=Sbin

If you're interested in a stark and somewhat brutal perspective on this you may check out this piece by Les Carpenter at Yahoo Sports.

It's not a terribly pleasant read-I'll tell you that-but I'm starting to think that parts of it might turn out to be uncomfortably close to reality.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=lc-mcnabbshanahan110210