Philadelphia — Donovan McNabb has the Philadelphia Eagles headed for Chicago and the second round of the playoffs. After another postseason failure, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers can only watch and wait, perhaps for Bill Parcells.
McNabb threw for two touchdowns and 194 yards and ran for 57 more as the Eagles beat the Bucs 31-9 in the first round of the playoffs Saturday and perhaps ended Tony Dungy's coaching career in Tampa Bay.
It left the Bucs talking about the Eagles and some of the Eagles talking about Dungy.
"If he gets fired, it's crazy," said Philadelphia tight end Chad Lewis, who caught one of McNabb's TD throws. "He's a great coach and one of the great people in the NFL."
Dungy himself wouldn't speculate on his future.
Asked if he would be dismissed after six seasons, the only winning coach in Tampa Bay history responded: "I don't think so. But I don't make the decisions."
That was the mood of his players, who were quick to praise McNabb and the Eagles, but reluctant to speculate on the future.
"Next question," Warren Sapp said each time he was asked about Dungy.
Praising McNabb and the Eagles was easy.
In the first half, which ended with Philadelphia leading 17-9, he accounted for 161 of his team's 190 yards, and his 39-yard run after the Bucs took a 3-0 lead seemed to ignite the Eagles. He had 251 yards passing and rushing, all but 83 of the Eagles' total of 334 for the game.
And it wasn't only the running he kept moving to avoid the rush and was about to take off running to an open field when he found Todd Pinkston for 40 yards to set up the Eagles' field goal.
"I was able to see some lanes and pick up some yardage," said McNabb, who spent much of this season trying to stay in the pocket.
Still, the Eagles' win was overshadowed by speculation that this would be Dungy's last game after six seasons as the only winning coach in Bucs history. He could be replaced by Parcells, who led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories, took New England to the Super Bowl and the New York Jets to the AFC title game.
The loss was typical of Tampa Bay's offensive failures the Bucs have had three starting quarterbacks and three offensive coordinators in the last three seasons and just don't score enough touchdowns. This was the third straight playoff game they didn't score a TD, and Brad Johnson compounded the problems by throwing four interceptions.
"I talked to this team last night and told them if we can make the decisions about Tony hard or we can make it easy," said Keyshawn Johnson, who played for Parcells with the Jets and was traded by him.
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