Sometimes sports aren't fair. No matter what a guy does through the years of his career, he is often judged by one single play or one last little drive late in a game.
That's where Donovan McNabb found himself on Sunday with a little less than three minutes to go in Sunday's NFC Championship game in Arizona. It's a tough spot to be sure, but make no mistake about it, McNabb's career could very well be defined by his performance in those last few plays in the desert.
Tough spot.
But this time there was no fourth-and-26 miracle. No sudden death catches or runs with the game in the balance. No glory, no cheers and no stunning turn of events.
Instead, McNabb's final pass rolled harmlessly away on the desert grass as receiver Kevin Curtis lay face down and screaming for justice.
No flags, no hope, no second chance.
And no glory.
It ended like it had three times before with McNabb and his teammates watching another team celebrate beneath a cloud of confetti.
Yes, stopped short in the big game once again.
“It was perfect for us. We just weren’t able to pull it through,” McNabb said.
Perhaps McNabb is just one of those guys destined to get close, but always fall a little short. Actually, sports is littered with guys like that – guys who come close year in and year out, but when the career comes to an end there are no rings for the fingers.
Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Dan Marino, Ted Williams are just a quick list of all-time greats that completed long, record-breaking careers without much of a sniff at a championship.
That’s not totally the case with McNabb, who has gotten a pretty big whiff in his decade with the Eagles. Five times he’s been to the NFC Championship game and just one time he made it to the Super Bowl.
Even that one ended with a dry heave in the middle of the field, remnants of yet another failed final drive.
“It’s always tough when you get this close,” McNabb said after the 32-25 loss to the Cardinals in championship loss No. 4. “We were one game away from our goal and we were a couple of minutes away from getting to the Super Bowl and continuing on…”
McNabb’s voice trailed off at that point. Oh sure, he kept talking, but it was nothing more than a mash-up of clichés delivered without feeling. Certainly McNabb knew what this one meant. There are no guarantees that he will ever get another shot at championship game No. 6. That’s especially the case after the unconventional run the Eagles took this time to get to the showdown in the desert.
After all, the Eagles are a pretty much a finished product. Yeah, there are pieces to add – a receiver here, a lineman there, veterans to deal with – but with McNabb, what you see is what you get. He’s not going to suddenly regain his rushing prowess or develop an extra deftness on his passes.
As they say, it is what it is.
“I guess I’ve been building for 10 years so I can’t sit and say about the building aspect of things,” McNabb said. “I think each year is an opportunity for you to add more weapons and add more guys that can contribute heavily and play a major part in what you want to do.”
So that’s what the Eagles will do once again. Stopped short before the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five tries over eight years, the Eagles have a lot of big questions to answer before they go to training camp in Bethlehem, Pa. in the heat of the summer.
Some of those questions concern whether coach Andy Reid, safety Brian Dawkins and/or McNabb will return for another run to finish the job. Another shot at defining his legacy.
“I don't know,” McNabb said when asked about his future with the Eagles. “We'll see what happens.”
Understandably, the Eagles’ brass will comb over the details. Though this has been a wildly successful era in the team’s history, maybe even the most successful time since the back-to-back NFL Championships in 1948 and 1949, team president Joe Banner says some soul searching is coming.
Maybe even some sleepless nights, too.
“If you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, you’re fooling yourself,” Banner told Comcast SportsNet’s Derrick Gunn. “Not to devalue five trips to the championship game, but we will evaluate what we need to do.”
Fairly or unfairly, that’s all they can do.