First of all, I commend Donovan McNabb for standing up for Jeremiah Trotter but I think he put it on kind of strong.. I wouldn't advise you taking all that talk so seriously. Remember it was McNabb who also offered support of Michael Vick and I don't think he knows Vick very well.
Donovan has a habit of saying what he thinks he's supposed to say. I saw McNabb and the team having a bunch of laughs out on the field on the day Trot was released. The whole image that some have tried to paint of a team in mourning isn't true. In the NFL things happen so fast that you don't have time to get into all the drama. Right now the Eagles players are thinking about what they've got to do to prepare for the Steelers. Donovan had better be ready for Pittsburgh's defense. Did he miss the way Jason Campbell was hit on his knee after a Steeler blitz? All that nonsense about "it taking the team weeks to get over the Eagles cutting Trotter" is nothing but garbage. If they screw up a few weeks, the season could be over.
McNabb did the right thing but the media folks took it way too seriously. Donovan surely wasn't going to be foolish enough to go in and start pointing out how the organization has been right nearly all the time, when making decisions on older players. He wasn't going to go into the film room and point out the one-on-one drills where Trot failed to cover one receiver all training camp long. He wasn't going to show footage of Jeremiah laboring in the 2nd practices looking like an old man. He said the right thing and amazingly I see it endearing hm to the local media. To me, all this kind of political type stuff is phoney. I don't think you really get to know people when they're up on the podium in front of the media.
Neither McNabb nor Westbrook were spending much of their time watching Jeremiah during the Eagles practices and meetings during the training camp. They don't know how much his legs are ailing, they were supporting a teammate because it's the right thing to do. Emotional ties will have peoople saying things that might not be the total truth.
I also don't buy all this leadership talk. It's somewhat a media creation. If leadership was so important then why with both Trotter and Dawkins on the field and in the huddle, has the defense failed to come up with a big play with the game on the line and stunk up the joint the last two years. Playmaking is a lot more important that leadership. For years I've heard guys yell and make noise in the huddle but fail to make plays. Dawk did a great job of leading last year because he made all those big plays down the stretch to win those games. Trot made an iimpression with his teammates by knocking people out and running down backs. If he's out there getting beat, he can't really lead. Plus you can talk too much and the guys will tune you out. Bottomline, players listen to teammates who are making plays.
