We're joking, of course, just as Donovan was (we think) when he told reporters yesterday that he was "told by the janitor" that he would return to his starting role for tomorrow night's game against Arizona, after having been benched at halftime of Sunday's 36-7 loss at Baltimore. Andy Reid famously delegated Sunday's bad-news-delivering task to quarterbacks coach Pat Shurmur.

You do have to wonder what kind of resurrection opportunity McNabb is being handed, with hobbled Brian Westbrook sitting out practice again yesterday because of ankle and knee injuries, and the Eagles talking up the potential contribution of long-forgotten Lorenzo Booker as they prepare to try to match weaponry with a 7-4 playoff contender, ranked second in NFL offense.

"It's a lot of things wrong with this offense right now," wideout Reggie Brown concluded yesterday. But Brown also asserted that "I don't think we're going to struggle for long," and he seemed to be thinking along the same lines as McNabb and other Eagles about what the quarterback needs to do to pull out of the worst slump of his career, to at least end his long Eagles tenure with some dignity.

"Just take it easy," Brown said, speaking of not just McNabb but the entire offense, which hasn't scored in 99 minutes, 29 seconds. "We don't need to go out there and push, try too hard, we just need to go out there and relax, get into some rhythm, just play Football and have fun. No one needs to go out there and press and think we need to get it all back in one play and one series. Inch by inch, we can get it back."

A much younger McNabb went through a dry spell in the first half of 2003, enduring games almost as futile as these last two.

"I just kept firing," McNabb recalled yesterday. "I kept giving the guys opportunities to make plays, not feeling that I had to make every play possible. That was the attitude that I had earlier this year and is something that we have to get back to. You show trust in the guys that you will put the ball there, and you expect them to bring it down. It's something that, they know it, I know it as well, and we look forward to getting it going on Thursday."

Free safety Brian Dawkins said he thinks McNabb, who has five interceptions and two fumbles in his last seven quarters of play, is pressing, putting too much pressure on himself.

"The thing that Donovan has to do is just relax," Dawkins said. "It's hard to say, in tough situations and criticism and all that stuff, but just relax and play your game. If he plays his game, those balls that are [thrown] high, they're not high, he's putting it where it belongs, and that's in the receivers' chest. It's just going to be up to him to just be able to realize the moment, seize this moment, which it is. All eyes are going to be on him, but don't think he has to do everything by himself, because he doesn't. We're all there for him."

Dawkins' analysis sounded much like the one later provided by Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, an MVP candidate this season after having been benched, at one time or another, by the Rams, Giants and Cards.

"It doesn't matter how long you've played this game or how well you've played it, there's always periods where it doesn't go in your favor," Warner, 37, told Philadelphia-area reporters in a conference call yesterday, when they asked him about McNabb. "It doesn't mean you can't play anymore, or you don't have a lot left in the tank . . . There's times when you're pressing and you're trying to carry a team, sometimes trying to do more than you really should be trying to do, but you feel that responsibility as the leader of the team.

"I know that I've been there before."

Warner recalled that with the Rams in 2002, the year after he won his second MVP award, he played only seven games because of finger and hand injuries, losing all six games he started and throwing three touchdown passes, with 11 interceptions and a 67.4 passer rating.

"It didn't mean I couldn't play. It was just pressing, one time a tipped ball that normally hits the ground is intercepted. One time you're in the pocket and you go to throw and the guy coming around the end hits the ball [as the Ravens' Jarret Johnson did in plucking a fumble from McNabb Sunday] instead of missing it . . . I know that's the situation with Donovan," Warner said. "Some things have gone against him the past few weeks, but he's still a great player."

Warner also talked about how hard it was, but how critical it was to his confidence, to get back into a situation where a coaching staff and an organization were willing to commit to him again. McNabb has to be wondering about that commitment level right now from the Eagles; Reid never said Monday, despite being asked several times, whether McNabb is the quarterback for the rest of the season or until the next interception.

"No, not at all," McNabb said when asked whether it would be hard not to look over his shoulder tomorrow night.

"I wouldn't even look at it like I'm on a short leash. I don't think that's a way of looking at it. I think a lot of people can make assumptions of what happened in the past game, but I look at it as me just playing Football and doing what I'm supposed to do at the position. Everything will take care of itself."

McNabb didn't seem to be able to make any more sense than the rest of us out of Reid's "one step back/move forward a mile" rationale.

"I don't think so," he said, when asked whether sitting out gave him a new perspective. "A lot of it is, you're a competitor. It's no different, really, than basketball or baseball. If you're a little off, you keep shooting. That's the way I feel like you get out of a little drought, if you continue to keep firing, things are going to turn out for the better. That's going to be my approach, but we all need to go in there with a little different mind-set, of, obviously, taking care of the ball. It's [not] that I'm going to be gun-shy or anything. I'm going to stay aggressive, just keep playing ball, and having fun in the process." *

For more Eagles coverage and opinion, read the Daily News' Eagles blog, Eagletarian, at www.eagletarian.com.