Physician Raises a Flag

Donovan McNabb’s career-high four touchdown passes on a broken right fibula drew locker-room descriptions of heroic, tough and inspirational.

A day later, former NFL team doctor Robert Huizenga chose another: unfortunate.

“The protocol should be if you have a player in obvious pain like that, you get him off the field, either immediately or at halftime at the latest,” said Huizenga, who served as the Los Angeles Raiders’ team physician from 1983-90. “It just seems like there should be a system in place to ensure that. Unfortunately, there isn’t one.”

McNabb, the Philadelphia Eagles’ 25-year-old two-time Pro Bowl quarterback who signed a $115-million contract extension earlier this season, suffered the injury when he was sacked by Arizona Cardinals Adrian Wilson and LeVar Woods on his team’s third snap.

With an obvious limp that prevented him from a rushing attempt for the first time in his four-year career, McNabb threw for 255 yards Sunday in a 38-14 victory that kept the Eagles (7-3) atop the NFC East. After saying he “blocked out” the pain and asking a trainer to tape up his ankle at halftime, McNabb remained in the game until 4:49 remained in the fourth quarter. For the season, McNabb has thrown for 2,289 yards and 17 touchdowns, and has rushed for 460 yards and six touchdowns.

“[McNabb] didn’t want to be bugged on,” Eagle Coach Andy Reid explained Monday. “He was sure that it was a sprained ankle and not to make a fuss of it, let’s just go play. This happens. It happens to a lot of players that get hurt in this game. You’ve got to bank a little bit on what the player says, and Donovan was convinced that he was fine. That’s part of the examination.”

After the game, an X-ray revealed the broken bone. McNabb is expected to miss the rest of the regular season. He’s expected to decide by Wednesday if he’ll undergo surgery or have his ankle placed in a cast.

In other injured quarterback developments Monday, Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Tommy Maddox, who sustained concussions to his brain and spinal cord when he was hit by Tennessee linebacker Keith Bulluck, was up and walking before being released from a Nashville hospital. Maddox was admitted to a Pittsburgh hospital Monday night for more tests and the Steelers expressed optimism that he might return to play later this season. In Denver, Bronco quarterback Brian Griese’s left knee injury was declared a second-degree sprain of the medial collateral ligament that will probably sideline him for three weeks.

Amid the panic in Philadelphia, kick returner Brian Mitchell assured a WIP radio audience that the team could survive the quarterback change to Koy Detmer by saying, “When a general is killed in war, you don’t stop fighting,” and listeners phoned in to express despair about the Eagles’ Super Bowl chances if the future brings a playoff game in Green Bay, where Packer quarterback Brett Favre is 32-0 in games when the thermometer reads 34 degrees or cooler.

Yet Huizenga pointed to a concern in the NFL he said is far more reaching. “Where is the common sense?” he asked. “Pain is fine, if the player is moving well. McNabb wasn’t moving well enough to defend himself. He’s lucky he didn’t suffer a disabling injury. Where were the people who are supposed to have the players’ best health interests, the coaches and the doctors? I hope this will be a call to common sense, but I’ve seen so many cases like this swept under the rug and I see no reason why it won’t happen again.”

Warren Anderson, an Arizona-based personal trainer of McNabb, said the quarterback’s performance was admirable -- and fits with his strong-willed pattern of returning from a left knee sprain as a rookie to play in a meaningless season-finale and playing through an on-field vomiting episode Oct. 6 at Jacksonville.

“He’s as tough as they come, he was gutting it out,” Anderson said. “When you play with a guy like that, you appreciate that attitude of laying it on the line. I’m sure if it was up to him, he’d play again this week.”