Snyder's Madden-ness Strikes Again

On Sunday night, either a victim of Xtreme food poisoning or the flu, my body became a high-speed, two-way food evacuation system--almost simultaneously. So, on Monday morning, cold and shivering, I thought I was merely delusional when I heard that the Redskins traded for Philadelphia Eagle, future hall-of-fame quarterback, Donovan McNabb. Now, with a few days to recover and regain my sanity, I'm wondering who was the delusional party when the Eagles gave McNabb up for a couple of draft picks.

Personally, I'm not much of a McNabb fan. {whisper: I actually think he's a 'roider.} But I've never understood the antipathy that so many Eagles' fans have had for McNabb all these years. Season after season the man has done nothing but win for that organization. For most of those seasons, it has been a smothering Eagles' D and McNabb all by himself on offense that got them into the playoffs and the inevitable loss in the NFC Championship game.

The failings of McNabb to get them into the Super Bowl was really the failure of the organization in providing him with a reliable wide receiver option. For years, it was so obvious that Philly would be playing for the Lombardi trophy if only someone could catch the ball, and yet they refused to accommodate the man. And the year they finally did and got T.O., they went to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, they ran smack up against those damned dynastic Patriots (we Steeler fans can tell you all about those videotaping bastards).

But now that the Eagles finally have a fully-functioning, though really young, offense with LeSean McCoy taking over for Brian Westbrook and two nice receivers in DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin, they're giving the old guy up?

Yes, I understand that Donovan's best days are pretty much behind him. And that amazing D that Philly has enjoyed the past decade is gone and needs rebuilding. But McNabb's not that old. I was picturing these next couple of seasons like the last few Elway had once he finally got a running back and the Super Bowl rings he deserved.

To this armchair GM it seemed like a perfect fit, the grizzled, old veteran leading the young talented corps to the Promised Land. Instead, you've got a young, inexperienced quarterback, Dennis Kolb, with no veterans to instruct him on what to do (since the Birds are trying to trade Michael Vick, as well). Instead of a playoff team challenging for the title, the Eagles have decided to scrap the whole thing and start all over again.

I guess there's a certain logic in that, but it's hard to understand why Danielle Snyder opened up the purse strings to snag McNabb for a one-year deal. They started dumping players left and right in the beginning of the off-season. They swept the locker room clean of the Jim Zorn regime. It looked like Snyder might finally be shedding his old ways and may try to start building the organization up again from scratch.

But he hasn't. The Napoleon of the Potomac only knows one game. And that's EA Sports' Madden franchise. Whenever you look at the moves the little man makes, they only make sense when you realize that Snyder loooooves that great video game, and he loves it sooooooo much that he holds onto old versions of it long after the new season-by-season updates have arrived on and been cleared from the shelves.

That's why he always gets aging veterans like Deion Sanders, Jeff George, and Bruce Smith decades after their primes. He was playing old versions of the game when they still had 95+ Player Ratings. Last year, he actually did play Madden '09 before making his free agent moves. That's why he broke the bank signing Albert Haynesworth, not realizing that Asshole Factor actually isn't a Madden stat that could affect a real player's efforts on the field.

This year, he went vintage Madden--I'm guessing, '00--to get his coach, Mike Shanahan. His Coaching stats were through the roof that year. So, Snyder probably thought he was really getting a bargain when he signed Shanahan. Of course, Danny Boy forgot to look at the man's Without Elway stats, which are really in the crapper.

Larry Johnson was a 99, the perfect running back, power and speed with a wicked stiff-arm and could really chew up ground. Snyder probably went through the roof when he realized he could get Johnson for a song this offseason. Of course, he would've understood why if he'd only looked at the packaging. He was playing Madden '04.

And, when you team '05 Johnson with '06 "Fast" Willie Parker (who I was actually hoping the Steelers would've re-signed), you've got the best "Thunder-and-Lightning" running back duo in NFL history. What the Steelers and the rest of the league has realized, though, is that Parker had broken his leg in the '06 season, has been plagued by injuries ever since, and ain't so "Fast," anymore.

But that damned game has blurred Snyder's vision. He sees things in players that no one else does--highly-pixelated, two-dimensional images that look amazingly life-like with spin moves that just leave you dazzled.

So now, Snyder has the dream offensive team with the '00 offensive "genius," Mike Shanahan at the helm, his '08 Chris Cooley, '06 Santana Moss, '05 Larry Johnson, '06 Willie Parker, and an '05 Donovan McNabb under center. With such impressive weaponry available on his Playstation 4, you can understand how Danielle Snyder is once again salivating (as he does every April) over his veeeeerrrrryyyyy realistic chances of winning the Super Bowl this season.