McNabb comes back to Marlton

Donovan McNabb slapped hands with Jamaal Jackson and warmly wrapped an arm around the center he had, in recent years, relied on for protection.

Back in the Philadelphia area Saturday, the former Eagles quarterback and teammates from his past, present, and possibly future came together for an afternoon football clinic under a blazing hot sun at Marlton's Memorial Sports Complex in Burlington County.

There were Eagles such as Jackson, Todd Herremans, Jeremy Maclin, Leonard Weaver, and Sav Rocca, as well as Washington Redskins including Clinton Portis, Fred Davis, and Devin Thomas.

Also in the crowd was the still-unsigned Brian Westbrook, who is eyeing possibilities, including a potential reunion with McNabb in Washington. He said he still was considering which team fits him best, but allowed that McNabb's presence in Washington "definitely plays into" the enticement to go there.

With dance music playing in the background and roughly 320 children, ages 11 to 16, running football drills, their tongues turned sports-drink red, McNabb and his fellow pros provided encouragement and playful trash talk.

Weaver, a burly fullback, chest-bumped scrawny teens after nice catches. McNabb, twisting his hips to the music, told campers in his passing drill that they could meet Beyonce if they could complete throws into a lacrosse goal.

"Come on baby, you've got to want it!" he told one.

It was the 10th year of McNabb's camp, and eighth in the Philadelphia area. It cost $300 per child, with the money going to the McNabb Family Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which will be part of Virtua's new Voorhees hospital.

McNabb said he expected to move some of his charity work to Washington, but would keep the camp in the Philadelphia area.

"When you've been a part of a city, a family, for 11 years, obviously there's a lot of attachment," McNabb said.

In his opening remarks, he jokingly called his former Eagles teammates "guys I played with just a couple of months ago, before I was traded, or booted, out of here."

McNabb later told reporters he held no bitterness toward the Eagles.

"To give me the opportunity to play here for 11 years, as a starter, not too many guys have that opportunity," he said. But he also talked about the pressure he faced, referring to it when asked about playing for a more veteran team in Washington. Older players, he said, get more attention in wins and losses.

"Some young guys always want to get the credit, until they get in the shoes where they're the ones that they're getting the criticism, then all of a sudden people don't like being criticized. I can handle that; some people can't," McNabb said. "So, until they get hit with that type of buzz, then they really realize the shoes that I was in."

For some Eagles, the camp was their first chance to see their former quarterback since his April trade. For the Redskins, it was a chance to support their new teammate.

Herremans said he expects to be ready for training camp after being held out of recent practices. He said that he felt tightness in the Achilles tendon and arch in the foot that required surgery last year, but that he had loosened it up and "it feels really good right now."

Two campers said the players made them work hard.

"Some adults are really light on you because you're a kid. They try to push you," said Josh Williams, a sixth grader from Oreland.

Joseph Scott, an 11-year-old from Camden, agreed. "They'll push you until you keep pushing them back."

As for his feelings about McNabb, he said, "I liked him, until he went to the Redskins."