Vick's Return Creates Quite a Crowd

Three Former Pro Bowlers Search for Playing Time Behind Center With Eagles

PHILADELPHIA -- About a half-hour after the Philadelphia Eagles' lopsided loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday, one former Pro Bowl quarterback, Donovan McNabb, walked across their spacious home locker room. McNabb, already dressed in a suit, stopped to chat with someone on his way toward the door.

A second former Pro Bowl quarterback, Jeff Garcia, stood by his locker across the room, staring into it silently while he pulled on his clothes. The Eagles' third former Pro Bowl quarterback, Michael Vick, was nowhere to be seen, with his locker emptied. What all three had in common was that none had participated in a single play that day while the team's other quarterback, Kevin Kolb, had thrown three interceptions in his first NFL start.

It was a locker room overflowing with intrigue, which is usually the case for a team with more than one quarterback capable of being the starter. The Eagles have pushed that beyond its normal limit and, in a season full of quarterback drama league-wide, they lead the NFL in subplots at the position.

Vick is eligible to play this weekend against the Kansas City Chiefs in his first regular season game since being reinstated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Yet even that is only a relatively small part of Philadelphia's quarterbacking soap opera, with Kolb perhaps set to make a second straight start while McNabb recovers from a fractured rib and various observers speculating how Vick and Garcia might fit in.

"I know I can't ever remember a team having three Pro Bowl quarterbacks," former NFL coach Dan Reeves said in a phone interview Wednesday. "But to me, the biggest problem is that your starting quarterback is hurt. It's good to have quality people behind him. But Michael isn't ready to start, so now it comes down to who's a better option between Kolb and Garcia."

Eagles Coach Andy Reid said Wednesday he hadn't decided if Vick will play Sunday or what role Vick will have if he does play. "We'll see," Reid said at a news conference at the training facility. "I haven't gotten that far with it yet."

Vick, who missed the previous two NFL seasons while serving his federal sentence for his role in a dogfighting operation in Virginia, played two preseason games for the Eagles, then sat out the first two regular season games under the terms of his reinstatement by Goodell. He said on Wednesday he's thankful for his opportunity and "very excited" about the prospect of playing on Sunday, and added that "it's time to play football."

In an interview carried online by the team, Vick said: "Football-wise, I think I'm about 85 to 90 percent. I feel like I've got my legs back. I've been doing everything I need to do in the training room to make sure that I can reach the point of being 100 percent."

But Vick's re-entry into the mix perhaps could serve to further muddle a situation already filled with uncertainty. McNabb has been a fixture as the Eagles' quarterback since Reid, as a rookie head coach, drafted him in 1999. He's been selected to five Pro Bowls (to four for Garcia and three for Vick) and has helped Reid take the franchise to five NFC championship games and a Super Bowl in their 10 seasons together.

Yet this is the toughest of sports towns and the failure of Reid and McNabb to win a Super Bowl together has produced periodic speculation about when one or the other, or both, might have to say their farewells. Reid sparked renewed questioning of McNabb's long-term future with the team when he benched McNabb in favor of Kolb for the second half of a game last season against the Baltimore Ravens.

Reid reinstalled McNabb as the starter immediately after the benching, and McNabb played well for the remainder of the season as the Eagles reached another NFC title game before losing at Arizona. Expectations for this season soared long before the Eagles made the headline-grabbing move during the preseason of signing Vick, with McNabb's blessing, to a contract that pays him $1.6 million this season and would pay him $5.2 million next season if the team exercises a club option.

McNabb suffered his rib injury during a season-opening triumph at Carolina. Garcia, the veteran who led the Eagles to the playoffs in the 2006 season when McNabb was hurt, was added after McNabb got injured in the opener and was Kolb's backup last weekend.