McNabb calls "Vick experiment" a gimmick

Donovan McNabb spoke to the media today and addressed his sideline conversation with offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg and his problem getting into the rhythm of his offense with Michael Vick getting snaps under center.

"I remember the conversation," McNabb said when asked if he remembered speaking with Mornhinweg on the sidelines and asking him to "kill" Vick's snaps. "That’s kind of the talk of everything now. I thought the conversation was very productive and very important. It’s the communication between the quarterback and coordinator that we came up with the answers and we were able to go out and be able to execute. As far as everything else, I don’t remember any of that but I remember the conversation and everything else."

When queried on whether he and Mornhinweg have figured out how to make the situation better, McNabb was diplomatic.

"Just play football," the signal caller said. "That’s over. You have to understand with everything that’s going on right now, everyone is making a big deal out of our whole situation. We communicate every game. We communicate out at practice. We communicate here in the building. It’s no different than what we’ve done in the previous years. I know with everything that is going on right now people are searching to try and find something. With the whole situation, the whole issue, it’s blown way out of proportion and we’ve just all moved on."

McNabb then went on to say leaving the game wasn't a problem.

"It’s not challenging at all," McNabb said. "Other quarterbacks have done it and there’s really no problem with it because if you look at the whole situation, it’s another opportunity for us to present pressure on the defense.

"Like I said, I may line up at receiver, tight end, running back, you never know where I may line up but if I come out for a play, I’ll be right back in the next play. It’s whatever we can do to try and confuse the defense, or confuse the defensive coordinator to try to come up with some sort of scheme to try to stop it. But it’s important for the offense to be able to execute the plays to continue the drive on, continue to score, continue to put pressure on the defensive coordinator so now they have to prepare for a so-called Wildcat or when he comes out, they have to prepare for when we’re out there as well."

McNabb was pressed further and couldn't help himself, in essence calling the Vick experiment a "gimmick:"

"I always believe that before you can come up with gimmicks or come up with something else, you’ve got to get your base offense going," McNabb said. "I think in game three of the preseason, that’s something that teams take very important because that’s really the last time that the ones get an opportunity to kick off the rust and ready for the regular season. There a lot of instances that it seemed like we were forcing a lot of different things just to say that we ran it, instead of just running our offense and running how things may go as far as during the year or if we decide to do it. I thought our offense continued to get things going as the game continued on and we got that rhythm that we wanted."