A Funny Little Feeling

Since the day Donovan McNabb was traded to the Washington Redskins, I looked forward to the day that he would make his return to Philly. Even more so, I hoped and rooted for a huge Redskins victory and a career day from McNabb. I even secretly wished he would give the middle finger to the crowd, just as a final thank you for all the loving support they've shown since the day he was drafted.

Donovan McNabb is gone and 

I don't know how to feel.

I really was prepared to do the unthinkable: hope for a bone crushing Eagles loss.

I spent almost the whole summer getting ready for it: preparing my Andy Reid lard in the brain jokes, calling Joe Banner a cheapskate, making apparently racist (really?) Corn on the Kolb quips and throwing in gratuitous shots at Jason Peters for good measure.

Things were going swimmingly too. Corn on the Kolb was terrible in preseason, Andy Reid kept the hard sell through training camp and the first half against Green Bay made me think “When did we trade for Alex Smith?”

Then Reid did something I never thought I would see him do: fold to the outside pressure and start Mike Vick.

My fandom of Mike Vick has been well documented in the brief existence of The People Say Booyah. I felt he was wrongly treated by the media who wanted to crucify him like he was the second incarnation of Timothy McVeigh, which is why I firmly stood in his corner (which is why a small part of me is happy that the three PETA protesters outside of every Eagles home game take crap like they were wearing Tony Romo jerseys).

This turn of events threw a complete monkey wrench into my treasonous plans to root against my beloved team. I was completely prepared to sit on my high horse and as the great Jason Whitlock says cackle and roll a blunt as Reid’s handpicked successor, Corn on the Kolb, struggled even though he had really not shown anything that he had the ability to succeed the greatest quarterback the franchise has ever seen (and please, for the life of me, do not bring up those two games from last season. It makes me want to throw things. He threw three picks against New Orleans and embarrassed a Kansas City defense that noted terrible quarterback David Garrard played well against. So that’s that).

But with Vick at the helm, the story completely changes. I don’t want Vick to fail like I wanted Corn on the Kolb to fail (though wanting Corn on the Kolb to fail has everything to do with the misguided decision by the front office and wanting to see it explode in their faces and not reflective of my opinion of Corn on the Kolb). Instead, I want Vick to do very well.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

There are conflicted feelings everywhere: on one hand, I want everything about this Eagles season to fail, just so Reid and the entire front office eat crow about the McNabb trade (though with Coach Reid, it’s probably already been eaten). Then on the other hand, I want Vick to be successful so all the fanatical animal-rights activists can have their heads explode (though most of them are caring, reasonable people, Jen Utley notwithstanding). But on my third hand, I want McNabb to rub his junk in the face of the hateful fan majority (though there has been some revisionist history that most people in Philadelphia liked McNabb. If you think that’s true, Bernie Madoff has stock to sell you). Then on my fourth hand, there’s always that little bit of unchecked optimism that this could be the year: a true year of destiny, a resurrection of the city and a quarterback once thought to be no more of a gimmick. So if you’re counting at home, I look like Goro from Mortal Kombat.

And when it comes down to it, there’s only one spot I can put my cheering alliance. As much as I liked McNabb, he: 1.) isn’t my favorite Philadelphia athlete ever (it’s still Iverson, though the longer the end of his career goes like this, it might have to be reconsidered) and 2.) he can’t supercede the team if he didn’t virtually singlehandedly drive a team to a championship in a Drew Brees/D.Wade circa 2006 way. It also doesn’t help that he’s coming off his annual “bad loss vs. inferior team on the road game” against St. Louis last week.

But that also doesn’t mean that I won’t give McNabb the biggest ovation from my dorm room that I’ve ever given or that I’m rooting for him to have an amazing game, because I most certainly will be.

But when the game starts, everything could change. I could realize that I’m not ready to break up with Donovan. I really don’t know. All I know is he’s coming home and I don’t know how to feel about it.