Donovan McNabb, this week, has taken to backing away from a comment he made after the Eagles' ugly, 24-0 loss to Dallas on Sunday afternoon, one which may have ruffled some youthful feathers around the locker room. McNabb, who is 33-years-old, said after the game "[We] showed our youth."
The comments, as of Monday, were a hot topic among the Philadelphia press and, perhaps, the Eagles locker room. DeSean Jackson, after listening to the comment, said, "If you played that through the locker room, that's not something nobody wants to hear."
Nor does nobody want to hear about distractions in the week leading into a playoff game, however, which is why the Eagles as a whole have attempted to douse this mini-controversy with comments suggestive of a big happy family in the days since.
This started with the elder McNabb distancing himself from the initial remarks. "What I meant is we have a young team and a lot of things that we were doing just looked very uncharacteristic of what we did throughout the year," McNabb said. "I wasn't blaming it on anyone by any means."
Perhaps not, but McNabb can hardly be described as "youthful" these days, at least not in the context of professional football; meaning, probably, that someone showed their youth, just not McNabb, as he has no (relative) youth to show. Jackson said on Tuesday that they had talked, seemingly suggesting that there was some tension in the wake of the initial statement.
"He made a comment - whatever his comment was about, I didn't hear the question he was asked - but we talked, and it's nothing big," Jackson said. "We have to just keep it in house and stick together as a team and don't let things like that break us up. We talked about it and cleared it up."
McNabb still swears he meant nothing incendiary by the remarks, and places much of the blame for Sunday's loss on himself.
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"I think, at times, too many people focus on just little things, and they aren't focusing on what the whole question or the whole answer is," McNabb said in the Philadelphia Inquirer. "I've never attempted . . . or will ever throw anyone under the bus. That's just not me. I don't do that.
"These young guys are part of the reason why we are in the position that we are. They have made a lot of plays for us all throughout the year, and they will continue to make plays for us."
