Earlier in training camp, Donovan McNabb was hesitant to call this Eagles team "Super Bowl caliber" simply because he said so much can change throughout the season. But that doesn't mean that McNabb's singular goal is not still to finish his season holding the Lombardi trophy.

"I look forward to these next couple years," McNabb said, "Hopefully this year, of putting those things together to go where we need to go and hopefully holding up that trophy at the end."

"I think the focus for me is to win it right now. And the focus for me every year is to win it right now."

When asked about whether or not he kept tabs of his impressive career statistics as they pile up, McNabb responded, "If I can get back all of that to get a ring, I would."

McNabb's 2009 quest for a Super Bowl ring begins this Thursday night in the preseason opener against the New England Patriots.

"Just work on game tempo and timing," McNabb said about the important things to focus on Thursday night. "I think it's important to polish up a lot of the things that you do out here with the team and work on your chemistry.

"You start with confidence in yourself first, and then you go out there and translate it onto the field. We had some ups and downs last year, but we were able to overcome those. I think it's important for us to start fast and in the middle of the season to continue on, hopefully, what we've started and end the season off right."

The Eagles offense was outplayed by the Eagles defense during this morning's practice, but McNabb is not worried about that being any sort of sign of what's to come this year.

"You go through days like this," he said. "Offensively, we've been able to do some great things in previous days.

We'll come back out tomorrow, ready to attack our defense."

Although McNabb is disappointed in the injuries that have hit the Eagles so far during training camp, he understands that it is the nature of the beast in a physical sport.

"Obviously you don't want to see any injured guys go down," he said, "But it's the game of football and I think we have a good training staff that will take care of you if any of those things may happen."

One injury that is of consequence to McNabb is the back issue that is hampering the projected starting right tackle Shawn Andrews.

"Obviously he wants to be out on the field," McNabb said of Andrews. "But if a back is bothering you, a back is going to be bothering you."

"The important thing for us is those guys who are rotating in (Max Jean-Gilles and Nick Cole)," he said, "They have experience from last year.

"That's something that's a positive for us because if anything were to happen, we can fill those guys in knowing that we have the utmost confidence in them to get the job done."

All in all, McNabb is excited about the additions made to the offense this off-season, including his training camp roommate Leonard Weaver.

"We've been communicating on what we want to get done here in this training camp as well as during the season," McNabb said about the relationship with his roommate. "He has a lot of leadership qualities."

But for now, McNabb's focus is on Thursday night, and beginning the 2009 campaign.

"You want to see the offensive line, the guys that will be out there," he said. "You want to see Maclin and DeSean. You want to see Sean Jones and Quintin Demps. You want to see Joe Mays and those guys ... But I think for all of us it's more about getting this thing started."

*-- Posted by Bo Wulf, 1:05 p.m., August 10 *