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**RoyWilliams** · 08-23-2007, 08:24 PM

Stunned McNabb seeking answers about Trotter | Inquirer | 08/23/2007

Quote:

Answers. The quarterback wanted answers.

The ones Donovan McNabb got were unsatisfying and unsatisfactory.

Just why did the Eagles shed one of their veteran leaders, Jeremiah Trotter, on Tuesday morning, mere weeks before the season begins? Why was the four-time Pro Bowler, and one of the only linebackers on the roster with meaningful starting experience, cut when the Eagles supposedly are trying to make a Super Bowl run? Why couldn't some sort of arrangement - a pay cut, a backup role, something - have been negotiated?

"I'm shocked," McNabb said. "I'm truly shocked."

Answers. McNabb wanted, and as the leader of this team deserved, answers. And what did he get after talking with coach Andy Reid? Answers that left him scratching his bald head.

"I don't know why," McNabb said yesterday.

A day after the Eagles cut one of the most popular players on the team, questions remained, both inside the locker room and out. The shock may have subsided, but the sadness had not. It could take days, even weeks, McNabb said, for the team to recover from the loss of Trotter, and that was certainly no understatement.

What the Eagles are left with is just one linebacker - Takeo Spikes - with any significant experience. Two of the starting linebackers, Chris Gocong and Omar Gaither, have never played their projected positions. Gocong, a defensive end at California Polytechnic Institute, will open this season as the Eagles' starting strong-side linebacker. Gaither was a strong-side linebacker during his college career at Tennessee, played weakside here as a rookie last season, and now is Trotter's replacement in the middle.

By cutting Trotter, the Eagles lost size, knowledge and leadership. They lost a teacher, a confidante, a mentor. And the players lost a little something else, something harder to pinpoint: trust in the brain trust.

"Every year, it's a surprise" when a veteran gets cut, McNabb said before the Eagles practiced outside yesterday afternoon. "In this game that we play, things happen, and you always ask the question, 'Why?' and you never seem to get a correct answer. It's something I've kind of, sort of grown accustomed to in my nine years now. You know, you just hope that it never happens, but it does."

There will probably be a time, McNabb continued, "when my name will be called, and they'll be saying the same thing."

A correct answer?

"You get answers," McNabb said. "I mean, you're going to get answers, but it's all in the answers you accept. I mean, what's really the true answer? You know, you talk to players that kind of go through it, and they move on to given teams. You know, you ask questions of some people around the organization, but as a player, and knowing that a player has just been released, and you're still trying to find out why, you never really get a full answer of why."

Reid certainly wasn't giving the media many answers yesterday.

Asked specifically why Trotter was cut, Reid said: "I'm not going to get into all that. It's done, and I'm not going to do that."

Asked if alternatives were considered, Reid said: "No, I'm not going to get into all the reasons."

Then, Reid explained that getting into specifics - like the whys, and why nots, of the decision - wouldn't be "fair" to Trotter in the event that Trotter "does choose to hook on with another team," Reid said.

Asked whether he considered keeping Trotter on the team as a backup to and resource for the young Gaither, Reid said: "He's a proud guy. For him to be a second-team player, I don't think is right for him. There's a lot of team leaders, and that's not a position that you put him in."

Like McNabb, Brian Westbrook made his first public comments yesterday about the Trotter cut. Like McNabb, Westbrook said he saw nothing that indicated Trotter would be ineffective this season. It is players' nature to stick up for one of their own, and Westbrook and McNabb certainly did that yesterday.

"He still looked like he could play the game," Westbrook said of Trotter. "He was still making plays, causing disruptions, calling out all our plays on the defense. He still looked very good."

The only things McNabb knew for sure yesterday were that the Eagles will need to support the younger linebackers, and that his time, too, will come. He has watched the Eagles cut, trade or, most typically, decline to re-sign key veterans before, players such as Troy Vincent, Bobby Taylor, Duce Staley and Corey Simon, just to name a few.

McNabb will be 31 in November. He is about two months older than Trotter. And he has battled injuries the last couple of seasons. McNabb knows he very well could be next.

"That's my point," he said. "That's my point. I mean, you know, if it's age, whatever it may be, you just don't get any younger in this game. You have questions and you ask them. You want nothing but the best, and you just try to put everything on your shoulders and move on."

For Eagles players yesterday, that was easier said than done.

**bigboy** · 08-23-2007, 08:31 PM

They (and McNabb) will get over it. Fromw Reid's quote it is almost sure fire that it is his knees that why he doesnt want to ruin it for another team IMO.

**BeastJacobs** · 08-23-2007, 08:32 PM

I was surprised too at the release of such a guy who was so huge in their defense. I'm right there with ya Mcnabb.

**BU54** · 08-23-2007, 08:33 PM

Sounds like a reporter making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Well maybe not quite that much.....

**bigboy** · 08-23-2007, 08:33 PM

That same quote has just about been uttered every year here. They are right more then wrong so I have to think they saw something.

**bigboy** · 08-23-2007, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BU54

Sounds like a reporter making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Well maybe not quite that much.....

Their just looking for a story, there's nothing in that article...

**BU54** · 08-23-2007, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigboy10182000

Their just looking for a story, there's nothing in that article...

Yes, the true definition of "media hores":angry-smiley-055:

**ball in the baskett** · 08-23-2007, 09:28 PM

i got over it in a day as long as omar gaither plays like he did last year we will be fine and i think it was the whole knee situation and loseing a step that got him cut

**Professor** · 08-23-2007, 11:58 PM

McNabb says this every time someone gets cut, I was waiting for it, LOL

DawkinsINT · 08-24-2007, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BU54

Sounds like a reporter making a mountain out of a mole hill.

It's very surprising too, because the Philly media rarely does such a thing. Every time 5 speaks I cringe a little knowing that there will be a story to come out of.

I don't think McNabb truly believes some of the things he said. He just wanted to show support of a friend.

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