As I watched Philadelphia beat the surprisingly competitive Giants the other night, I started to wonder whether there might be a quarterback controversy in Philadelphia next year.  Donovan McNabb has been the heart and soul of the Eagles for years, and it was expected that the Eagles were done once he was lost for the season.  Not only weren’t they done, but they may be the hottest team going into the post season.  Jeff Garcia has been resurrected under his old coordinator Marty Morningweg.   Without McNabb, the Eagles were forced to run, and have discovered that their star RB, Bryant Westbrook, can do more than catch the ball out of the backfield.  Garcia, who was a star in San Francisco before his exile in Cleveland and Detroit, has rediscovered his Mojo.  Next to Drew Brees, he is the best quarterback remaining in the NFC playoffs, and may just lead the Eagles to the promised land.  Wally Pipp, according to legend, was a pretty good baseball player for the Yankees, but was held out one game due to a headache.  His backup, a guy named Lou Gehrig, played the next 2130 games in his stead.  I wonder if this could happen to McNabb.  The Eagles seem to be more of a complete team under Garcia, and with McNabb coming off a major knee injury; Andy Reid may just decide he’s better off hitching his wagon to Garcia.  I started thinking about other Wally Pipps in the NFL the past few years.

Tom Brady:   A relatively unknown 6th round pick until Drew Bledsoe went down with a serious injury early in the 2001 season.  Belichick should be sending Champagne to Mo Lewis every year for taking out Bledsoe in that game because I doubt that he would have had the cajones to replace him with Brady otherwise.  Bledsoe at the time was considered one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and replacing him with Brady would have been a much more risky move than replacing a washed up Bledsoe with Romo as Parcells did this year.  The rest is history of course.  Tom Brady has become the best quarterback in the league and has not missed a start due to injury since that game.

Ben Roethlisberger:  He was the future for the Steelers when drafted 11th overall in 2004, and was destined to carry a clipboard his entire first season, but when Gary Baxter took out two ligaments in Tommy Maddox’s right elbow in the second game, Big Ben stepped in and won the next 15 games before losing to Brady in the AFC championship game that year.  Of course he led the Steelers to the Super Bowl championship last year, then suffered his sophomore slump a year late this year.

Kurt Warner:  Before he was a washed up backup in Arizona and New York, Warner was flinging passes in the Arena league until Dick Vermeil gave him a job as a backup for the Rams.  In the beginning of the 1999 season, the Rams were their usual joke, and had just lost their designated starting quarterback, Trent Green who had just been acquired in a trade from Washington, to a season ending knee injury.  Kurt Warner stepped up and led the “Greatest Show on Turf” offense to a win over the Titans in the Super Bowl.  He also won the league MVP award two years later.  Ironically, he was also “Wally Pipped” when due to multiple concussions and the resulting poor performances; he was replaced by Marc Bulger who may now be the best quarterback in the NFC.

Jeff Hostetler:  He stepped in for an injured Phil Simms during the 1990 season and led the Giants to the improbable victory of the Bills when Scott Norwood went wide right.  He started the next year, then left via free agency to the Raiders where he played well enough to make the pro bowl in 1994.  He then finished his career with the Redskins.

Philip Rivers:  He probably would have started eventually anyway, but Drew Brees’ shoulder injury last year caused San Diego to choose not to resign him paving the way for the Rivers era in San Diego.  Brees went on to become the NFC offensive player of the year in New Orleans, so this was a win/win for both players.  Interestingly the team that was hurt the most by Brees’ injury was Miami.  They had their choice of Daunte Culpepper or Brees, but in the immortal words of that knight who guarded the Holy Grail in the last Indiana Jones movie, Nick Saban “chose poorly.”

Willie Parker:  FWP (Fast Willie Parker) was an undrafted free agent out of North Carolina who didn’t even start for the Tarheels.  He made the Steelers as a backup in 2004, but got a chance to start the 2005 season when Duce Staley who was to be the starter went down in the preseason.  FWP had 1100 yards his first year as a starter, had the longest run in super bowl history, then gained another 1300 yards this year.  He will be the Steelers’ tailback for years to come.

Hold That Anointing Oil.
Bill Parcells wisely said that to the media as they were calling Tony Romo the next Troy Aikman.  This based primarily on a 5 touchdown performance seen by the entire nation on Thanksgiving.  Apparently they forgot that the Cowboys were playing the lowly Buccaneers that game.  This performance earned Romo a pro bowl berth and a sniff of Jessica Simpson’s panties.  History has shown that the media was a bit premature.  I mention this because the current media darlings are the Patriots.  Prior to the playoffs, they were mentioned as someone who shouldn’t be written off due to their postseason history, but most did not think they’d make it to the Super Bowl.  After they beat the Jets last weekend, the media is out again saying this is the team that noone wants to play, but if you look closer, this may also be premature.  The Jets game was much closer than the score indicated.  The Patriots piled it on towards the end.  In my opinion, the Jets never should have been in the playoffs in the first place.  They did not beat one team in the regular season that had a winning record, except New England.  To be fair, they did beat the Patriots in Foxboro, but so did Denver and Indianapolis.  In addition, Mangini, another of the prematurely anointed, coached that defense the year before, so knew how to attack it.  The Patriots, for all their legendary postseason success, beat only one elite team this year, and that was a very suspect Bears team, who possess probably the worst starting quarterback in postseason history.  I already documented how I think Tom Brady is the best player in the league, his 11-1 postseason record is the best ever, but most of those wins were not played on hostile fields.  Three came in the Super Bowl, basically a neutral field, only two came in the field of the opponent, both in Pittsburgh.  The first after the 2001 season when he didn’t finish the game, and the Pats won due to Pittsburgh’s atrocious special teams.  The second when Roethlisberger imploded as a rookie in the AFC championship.  To be fair, I doubt that the Steelers could have stopped Brady that day anyway, but they may have had a chance had Roethlisberger played like he did the rest of the season.  Brady lost his only postseason game last year in Denver.  This year, the Patriots are better on the road than at home, but again lost to the only two really good teams they’ve played, and both at home.  This weekend, they’ll face the Chargers in San Diego in what may be the best game of the postseason.  If the Patriots win, I’ll have to come up with another excuse next week. 

How bad is the NFC when their top seed, the Bears will probably change quarterbacks before or sometime during their first playoff game.  Grossman, the model of inconsistency this year, was actually stupid enough to blame his poor performance in the last game of the year, on New Years Eve partying the night before the game.  The second seed, New Orleans Saints, lost to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams in the AFC North this year.  Seattle only beat a bad Cowboys team on a muffed chip shot field goal. The hottest team, the Eagles, were almost taken to overtime by a bad Giants team.  The AFC championship game will be the actual Super Bowl again this year.

It should be a heck of a game in Baltimore this week.  The Ravens come in as probably the hottest team in the NFL with a truly scary defense and an efficient offense.   Peyton Manning did not play particularly well against the Chiefs, but the defense stepped up.  The Ravens have a similar power running game, but Jamal Lewis is not as good as Larry Johnson, so the Colts may be able to stop him too.  I don’t think the gambling defense of the Ravens will be as dominant against Manning.  He finds his targets too quickly, so their blitzes will probably not reach him.  The question mark is Steve McNair.  He was very good in two wins against Pittsburgh this year, but he has always been good against Pittsburgh.  The past few years as a Titan, he has not had success against the Colts.  My heart says go with Indy, but my brain says Baltimore.  In my nightmare scenario, Bill Belichick meets Brian Billick for the AFC crown.  At least it would be fun to see the Baltimore defense beat up on Brady.