Sorry Kevin, McNabb is still the man in Philadelphia.


This Eagles team is staring a major transition right in the face. In 2010, the contracts of Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Andy Reid, and Kevin Kolb all run out. This means that President Joe Banner, GM Tom Heckert, and of course owner Jeff Lurie all have some vital decisions to make.

More than likely, Westbrook will not be retained. Whether that's by allowing him to walk, or seeing if someone will trade for him, he has a slim chance of being an Eagle past 2010. He has shown that even though he's a phenomenal player, he is injury-prone and his successor, LeSean McCoy, appears ready to take some snaps from him already this year.

Donovan McNabb, however, will be a much more difficult decision. While he has had to sit the last two games, it's really no fault of his own. Were it not for an obviously late hit, he'd still be playing, so it's difficult to hold it against him.

For those who would point to the fact that he's only played four 16-game seasons, let's remember that he has already played one more full season that the great Steve Young.

He is a top five quarterback, top 10 for even his harshest critics, so it would certainly be a difficult decision to let him walk. However, with Kolb performing very well over the past two weeks, management may be tempted to go with the younger, and cheaper, quarterback.

That brings us to Kevin Kolb.

His contract also runs out 2010, so if he's going to be re-signed, it will probably be during this offseason. He's shown that he's a more than capable backup, so he may get a new contract anyway simply because they don't want to let him walk, and McNabb is getting older.

But again the odds are that Kolb won't get much of a chance to showcase himself to the team over the next two years because McNabb will be the starter. And let's make that perfectly clear right now, Donovan McNabb will remain the starter of this team through 2010.

If he wins a Super Bowl, do the Eagles say "Thanks, we've got our Super Bowl, now we can try to win one while building around the kid," or do they reward McNabb with a contract extension?

My gut feeling is that McNabb and Kolb will both be retained, but Kolb will be retained as the backup making about $2-3 million per year and waiting in the wings if the worst were to happen to McNabb or to be dangled as trade bait for a team in desperate need of a starting quarterback.

And even though Kolb has looked good (only quarterback in NFL history to throw for 300+ yards in his first two games as a starter), he's still no McNabb. No. 5 is a potential Hall of Fame quarterback, and almost a shoe-in if he wins a Super Bowl, so I don't believe Lurie could go out on a limb and get rid of McNabb simply because of the price tag.

Kolb doesn't have to re-sign, and he may test the market to see if there's a starting opportunity somewhere else, but it may just be too good of an opportunity to pass up being able to learn under a potential Hall of Fame quarterback and head coach and eventually become the starter for one of the best teams this decade.

If McNabb isn't the quarterback of this team, it will be because he's retired or suffered an injury that would sideline him for the entire final year of his contract, and Kolb knows that.

And the reason Reid hasn't been addressed here is because I feel like as long as the Eagles don't suffer an absolute colapse of Raider-like proportions over the past two years, he'll get an extension in this upcoming offseason. Just one more reason I feel as though McNabb isn't going anywhere. Reid is married to McNabb, and so far has been very loyal.

The wild card in all of this is Michael Vick. His contract is also up in 2010, but I don't know that the Eagles will want to pick up his $5 million option for 2010, so 2009 could be his last year as an Eagle.

While he's not ready to play quarterback just yet, he may be ready towards the end of the season, and he may not even want to return in 2010. My feeling on Vick is that he will be dangled in a trade before the 2010 season, he'll thank the Eagles for the opportunity, and will head off to be a starter again somewhere else.