McNabb talks the talk

Can the oft-injured QB lead team to the playoffs?

By Larry O'Rourke | Of The Morning Call

July 23, 2008

At 31, Donovan McNabb has membership in Andy Reid's newly established ''30-plus club'' for veteran players, making him eligible to take every third morning off from practice during training camp.

And McNabb plans to exercise that right.

''I could [say no],'' McNabb said. ''Will I say that? I don't think so.''

But everything else McNabb did and said during Tuesday's opening day of workouts for rookies and selected veterans at Lehigh University indicated that all is well with his health -- despite a balky shoulder that forced him to stop throwing during the team's last offseason workouts in June.

''I feel fine,'' McNabb said. ''I haven't had any reoccurrence. It's fine, and I don't expect any reoccurrence.''

McNabb likened the battle to one a baseball pitcher would with ''rest and stretching,'' the initial antidotes. And he went out of his way to characterize the injury ''as tightness,'' not ''slight tendinitis'' as Reid described the malady in June.

After that period of rest, ''It's just repetition and continuing to throw the routes and getting that velocity back that you would throw in game speed,'' McNabb said. ''It's very similar to a pitcher. If you're throwing 25, 30 pitches, and all of a sudden you're throwing 85, 90 pitches, you see so many pitchers go through tightness. Tightness, which is what I said, not tendinitis. It's just rest, and continuing to stay on it.''

McNabb will have plenty of help in trying to head off a possible reoccurrence.

''We'll monitor it,'' Reid said. ''He has been throwing out in Arizona [his offseason residence] and seems to be feeling pretty good. We'll have to keep a close eye on that and make sure that we limit his throws to see exactly where he is.''

So much for what figured to be a relatively worry-free training camp after two late Julys/early Augusts in which he was coming back from the sports hernia surgery that ended his 2005 season after nine games and the knee surgery that ended his 2006 season after 10 games.

But if McNabb and the Eagles can keep the shoulder trouble away, he has the chance to build on the return to full health that he said he experienced late last season. After missing the two games because of ankle and thumb injuries, McNabb returned to throw six touchdown passes and just one interception in the final four games.

''Then I started rehabbing again and strengthening the leg, and really the whole body, in February,'' McNabb said. ''I felt like my body was progressing to get back to where it was before the [knee] injury.''

larry.orourke@mcall.com

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