Donovan McNabb traded to Washington

Disclaimer: Usually journalist and especially good journalist don’t usually use “I” in articles and recently I’ve been trying to improve on that and just stick with reporting. However I’ve decided to try a little experiment and create a new series of articles titled “In my opinion” which will include players, coaches and other aspects of the NFL an give my opinion on those topics. So articles titled “In my opinion” will be the only time I use “I” in an article, but when it comes to reporting on the Seahawks and the draft, “I” won’t be included. Just needed to clear that with this disclaimer. Even though my typical “in my opinion” slogan isn’t in the title this is still apart of my series.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reported that the Philadelphia Eagles have agreed to trade quarterback Donovan McNabb to the Washington Redskins in exchange for their second-round pick (No. 37 overall) and either a third or fourth-round selection in the 2011 draft depending on McNabb’s performance.

Right off the top the first three things that come into my mind are one, was there really nothing better in terms of compinsation for Donovan that the Eagles could have gotten? Two, why trade Donovan inside the division? Third, who was the final person in the Eagles front office that pushed this trade through.

I had a feeling that Donovan wouldn’t be apart of the Eagles franchise past the draft and it was only a matter of weeks that he would have been traded. The fact that McNabb was traded was the least surprising part of this entire fiasco.

The most surprising part was the fact that McNabb, the Eagles best quarterback in franchise history was traded within the division, and above all the Washington Redskins.

Throughout the off-season the biggest move the Redskins had made was to bring in former Broncos’ head coach Mike Shanahan as the teams new head coach and executive vice president. Other than Shanahan being tabbed as the head coach both Washington and Dallas, the two teams expected to be big spenders in this uncapped year have seemingly been dead in terms of player movement.

Today the Redskins came out of the shell in grand fashion by trading for the 33-year-old quarterback McNabb.

Not only does this trade effect the Redskins and Eagles but it also shakes up the upcoming 2010 NFL draft and more importantly the top 10 picks.

Over the last few weeks the Redskins had growing interest in the top two quarterbacks in this years class, Sam Bradford from Oklahoma and Jimmy Clausen from Notre Dame.

Most recently the Redskins brought in Clausen for a two-day workout and visit with Redskins brass but now with the acquisition of McNabb the move allows them to turn away from Clausen and move to their second biggest need of the off-season, left tackle.

Russell Okung, Trent Williams and Bryan Bulaga are all now stand atop the Redskins draft board and all could have their names called by Roger Goodell come April 22nd when the Redskins pick at fourth overall.

For the Eagles it turns the page on the storybook career of Donovan McNabb to second-year quarterback Kevin Kolb, who the Eagles selected in the second-round of the 2008 NFL draft.

With the Eagles arming themselves with another second-round draft pick it allows them to look around and pick and chose if they want to move up in the draft OR make a move for Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha should they decided they want to.

Either way you look at it the Eagles now have one first-round pick (No. 24 overall), two second-round picks (No. 37, 55 overall), two third-round picks (No. 70, 87 overall) two fourth-round picks (No. 105, 121 overall), and four picks from rounds five through seven.

Fair to say the Eagles could be looking to rebuild around Kolb or move to acquire help around Kolb. I don’t see anything bad coming from this trade for both the Eagles and Redskins.

In the end in my opinion the Eagles will come out the winners of this blockbuster trade for three reasons.

One, Kevin Kolb while mostly untested gets to become the full-time starting quarterback in Philadelphia with a world of talented players around him. Receivers DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and Brent Celek coulped with running backs LeSean McCoy and Leonard Weaver.

Looking at the moves the Eagles have made this off-season it’s clear that head coach Andy Reid wants to get a lot younger on offense and move on from the “McNabb/Westbrook era”.

Two, it allows the Eagles to continue to revamp the team roster from last season with the addition of another second-round pick that could net safety Taylor Mays, Eric Berry (it’s possible if they want to move way up to get him) as well as a few other possibilities.

Three, they finally turn the page on Donovan McNabb to Kevin Kolb. Plain and simple the Eagles could not move forward with McNabb as the teams starting quarterback and that became very clear after Reid announced at the NFL meetings a few weeks ago that the Eagles “were willing to listen to offers for McNabb, Kolb and Vick”.

Now for the Washington Redskins they can’t really go wrong with McNabb as their starting quarterback because no doubt he’s the better quarterback over Jason Campbell and can make them a more competitive team next year than both Campbell and Clausen/Bradford.

The only question coming from Redskins fans will be who was really behind this. It has the looks of a typical Dan Snyder move, bring in the biggest name you can to drive up premium ticket prices.

If you go back to last off-season the Skins’ were linked to anyone not named Jason Campbell that could throw.

Jay Cuter (now in Chicago), Mark Sanchez (now in New York), Brett Favre (now in Minnesota) as well as numerous other “franchise” quarterbacks who could replace Jason Campbell.

So as I stated before, in my opinion the Eagles will come out the winners of this shocking blockbuster trade that will see long-time Eagles starting quarterback Donovan McNabb head to Washington D.C for two draft picks.

NOTE:

One other side note that I would like to point out and as I touched on above is how this trade effects the upcoming draft.

All indications show that Sam Bradford will be heading through the arch in St. Louis and become the first overall pick of the 2010 draft.

However the second best quarterback in the draft, Jimmy Clausen, had been highly touted to Washington but with the acquisition of Donvoan McNabb the Redskins no longer become a team interested in Clausen’s services allowing him to slide down the draft board a bit.

The Seattle Seahawks become the next team inline for Clausen’s services now that Washington has passed on him for the veteran McNabb.

As I spoke about in my last article “Why Jimmy Clausen is still an option for the Seahawks” the possiblity becomes even greater with the Skins’ bowing out.

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