One other question about McNabb, and OT

As much as it baffles me that Donovan McNabb had no idea how overtime works in the NFL, here’s what baffles me even more: that he would admit it.

I mean, it’s not like news conferences are free and open exchanges of ideas. Questions are asked and answers given, and occasionally a little truth is revealed. Not much, though, and not often.

But there was McNabb, after the Eagles’ brutal 13-13 tie with the Bengals on Sunday, admitting to reporters that he had no idea the game would end after a single overtime period. And then he compounded it by musing about what might happen if a conference championship game or Super Bowl ended in a tie. (Uh, Don, think they might play those out ...)

And just like that, he was a pinata. There’s nothing new about that, but usually he doesn’t pass out the Louisville Sluggers to his detractors quite so readily.

So why now?

Only thing I can figure is that he was so beaten down by the game – remember, it was only the second in his 10-year career in which he turned the ball over four times – that he just blurted it out, too tired and disgusted to care about the consequences. Or maybe the season (which, you might have noticed, hasn’t exactly gone according to plan) has taken its toll on him. Or a career of flak-catching has eroded his will.

But for whatever reason, there seemed to be a certain amount of resignation in his voice. He had a serious case of the bleep-its, as comedian Dana Carvey likes to say.

If you recall, McNabb admitted the day after Barack Obama was elected – again, without prodding – that he had never so much as registered to vote. On that occasion, McNabb just seemed so giddy about the result, that it didn’t matter one iota to him what anyone thought. (It was nonetheless surprising to hear that a man nearing his 32nd birthday had never bothered to register, much less vote.)

I don’t think this is necessarily a trend. I don’t think this marks a period of McNabbian glasnost, or anything like that. But for different reasons – elation in one case, depression in the other – we have seen a marked departure from McNabb’s usual news-conference MO.

Normally he is either contrary (as when he prefaces every answer to a tough question with, “Not at all.”) or rambling (“... and the list goes on.”) or bizarre (as when he claimed, back in training camp, that the Eagles should have won all their NFC East games last year, or when he said earlier this year that he didn’t think the Redskins had proven they were better than the Birds, after the Skins had beaten them rather soundly). Sometimes he attempts to be amusing. And he has at times been combative, most memorably in the spring of 2005, when he said this in response to some broadsides from Terrell Owens: “Keep my name outta your mouth.”

But he has never been like he was Sunday (and to a lesser degree, after the election). He has never made such embarrassing disclosures about himself. Remember, this was the guy who was so evasive about his physical condition late in Super Bowl XXXIX, after teammates said he was so ill or injured or ... something, that wide receiver Freddie Mitchell had to call a play for him during a plodding touchdown drive.

In one interview, with ESPN.com, McNabb said he wasn’t ill, and he didn’t throw up. He was, however, “tired a little bit.” And in another interview, he said he was “winded,” but that he wasn’t alone on that score.

Heck, he wouldn’t even admit to being ill in a game against Tampa Bay two years ago, when everybody saw him throw up behind his right guard.

And now we have something new to, uh, digest. It’s a marked departure from Standard McNabb Operating Procedure, and leaves you scratching your head. If you’re not reaching for a Louisville Slugger, that is.