Exciting headline: McNabb wants a "financial apology"

I noticed a KFFL headline making it's way around the Eagles message boards about Donovan McNabb stirring up some passions.

KFFL is a fantasy football news sites that aggregates news about NFL players. They generally find stories, slap a headline up about them and don't even bother to link to that actual source. So you get headlines like this

"McNabb wants financial apology"

This is where simple news aggregators fail.

Never is the headline put in any context nor is it really explained. The headline is based on this story by Jason Cole of yahoo sports.

After being benched briefly in November and then coming back to lead the Eagles to a the NFC Championship game, McNabb and agent Fletcher Smith want Philadelphia to come through with a financial commitment to him. McNabb, 32, has two years remaining on his contract, which complicates things for Philadelphia.

If there’s no meeting of the minds, expect that McNabb will skip the offseason program. That won’t be popular in Philadelphia, but McNabb hasn’t ever really been all that popular with the fans anyway. The way he and Smith likely see it, what is there to lose?

It's Cole's assessment of the situation. He doesn't say he based this is based on a source or conversations, it's just what he thinks will happen. It's pretty much a run of the mill  assumption about any offseason contract dispute. If a guy wants a new deal and doesn't get it he might skip team activities.

With just two years left on his deal, McNabb was always likely to engage the Eagles in contract negotiations regardless of whether he was benched at some point. In fact, the history of the organization would suggest that the team would also likely initiate contact with the player over a new deal. This is my take on it. My take as someone who has watched how this organization does business since the minute Lurie bought the team.

Whether or not Cole's assesment is right or not remains to be seen. However, I think this should serve as a cautionary tale as far as these new aggregation services go. A headline with no context is not a substute for news. I certainly hope if Eagles fans see a titillating headline on one of these services they will seek out the original story or come to a place like this that will provide some sort of insight or analysis and host a real discussion about it. Luckily, if you're reading this you're already one of those people.