It must be bad if the home team is up 21 points and the fans in the stadium are still booing the starting quarterback. McNabb is a tough guy: he’s heard the boo-birds often enough in Philadelphia, but it must be hard to cope with this level of rejection at this stage of his career. Bernard Berrian was benched for this game and his replacement does more than enough to make a case for being his permanent replacement. Will this be the week that the team parts company with their under-productive number 1 receiver?
The Vikings raced to a 28-0 lead in the first 12½ minutes on Sunday in spite of McNabb, not because of him. They held on despite a remarkable series of misfires that drew boos and chants of “WE WANT PONDER!” from the first quarter to the fourth.
“I can’t worry about that,” McNabb said. “I don’t worry about it at all, because at the end of the day, they look up and they see a win.”
This win was all about a defense that was opportunistic and unrelenting, sacking Kevin Kolb four times and forcing four turnovers on a day top cornerback Antoine Winfield was sidelined with a neck strain.
The offense fizzled after first-quarter touchdown drives of 18, 24 and 25 yards set up by defense and special teams, plus a 73-yarder keyed by Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson’s 36-yard pass interference penalty. McNabb completed only 10 of 21 passes, nearly was intercepted twice and threw a handful of others into the ground.
