Donovan McNabb will hope for happier days on Thanksgiving. Photo by Peter Wodarczyk – Contrastphotography.com

At Eagles coach Andy Reid’s Monday press conference, he wasted no time in announcing his starter under center for Thursday night’s game against the Arizona Cardinals at Lincoln Financial Field.

It will be five-time Pro Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb. Against Baltimore Sunday, a 36-7 loss, McNabb had one of the worst halves of his 10-year career, turning the ball over three times.

Even though it was a three-point game at halftime, Reid decided to bench McNabb and turned the keys of the offense over to Kevin Kolb, the 2007 second round pick out of Houston.

The move was a disaster as Kolb continued to turn the ball over, including the longest interception return in NFL history by Ravens Ed Reed.

What would be an even bigger disaster is a loss on Thanksgiving.

Here are Reid’s remarks from Monday:

“I would like to address the quarterback situation right off. [QB] Donovan McNabb will be our starting quarterback for the Arizona game on Thursday.

“I mentioned this yesterday, that sometimes you have to take a step back to step forward in a positive way, and Donovan will do that. This has nothing to do with [QB Kevin] Kolb’s performance or Donovan’s performance.

“I think it was the right thing to do. I would not change my decision on that, on what I did yesterday. Obviously, we have to do a better job with turnovers. Nine turnovers in two games is absolutely ridiculous. That’s my responsibility to get that right and to get, really the rest of the football team right, and I will do whatever it takes to do that.

“And beyond that, I think it’s important that the players understand that, the coaches understand that, and the people that are around me in this building understand that. Other than that, it really doesn’t matter to me. We have a short turnaround. We have a Thanksgiving Day game. We are practicing today and tomorrow. It’s important that, after I have an opportunity to address the team this afternoon, that we move on from yesterday’s game and we get on with Arizona and we get on quickly with Arizona. They present a very explosive football team. Offensively, you won’t find two better receivers in the National Football League than what they have.

“They have a quarterback that is a future Hall of Fame player and a couple of running backs that are very good players. Defensively, they fly around and they make plays. They have a safety that is second-to-none, [SS Adrian] Wilson. Karlos Dansby, their linebacker, is a tremendous player. I could keep going on. They have a lot of talent on the defensive side of the football. Special teams, they do a great job on special teams. So, it’s important that, as much as we all want to dwell on this game, that it’s not going to happen. We are going to move on. Learn from it and move on.”