Five Keys to the Eagles season ending with a title

Key 5: Westbrook and McNabb staying healthy.

You can talk all you want about the impact rookie running back LeSean McCoy will have this season. You can talk all you want about the excitement Michael Vick will bring to the Eagles offense.

At the end of the day, the Eagles will go as far as Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook takes them.

Just like it has been.

When McNabb and Westbrook are healthy and on the field together, the Eagles have a chance to win – no matter whom they are playing. The due is that good.

Sure the Eagles have had moments of success with each of its stars down. AJ Feeley had his moment in the sun a few years ago, as did Correll Buckhalter, but at the end of the day the Eagles are certainly not better when one or both is off the field – not by a long shot.

Though Westbrook is coming off of an injury and has hit the dreaded “30” an age where running backs tend to decline, he is still the most dangerous weapon in the Eagles arsenal. When he is on the field safeties have to pay attention to him, thus creating more opportunities for the likes of DeSean Jackson and Kevin Curtis to get open down field.

Head coach Andy Reid’s use of Westbrook has frustrated Eagles fans over the years. Though a featured back, Westbrook rarely carries the ball 20 times a game and with the emergence of McCoy, he almost certainly won’t increase his carries this season. Yet even when he doesn’t touch the ball No. 36 has the full attention of the defense. It s something he has commanded over the years and something that will not easily be replaced is Westbrook goes down for an extended period of time.

That brings us to McNabb, who remarkably made it through a full season without an injury in 2008. Though he had his struggles in the first half of the season, McNabb caught fire down the stretch leading the Birds to the NCF Championship game.

If McNabb were to go down it could cause a flurry of problems. Who comes in, Vick or Kevin Kolb? What if one of them helps the Eagles go on a run?

Those are just two of the many controversies that would inevitably come out if McNabb is off the field.

In the big picture this team is still all about McNabb and Westbrook. The time is coming where that will change, but for now, it hasn’t. The Eagles will go as far as this duo takes them.

That could be to Miami.