No Going Downtown on Sheldon Brown

If you watched the Eagles closely last year, you probably noticed that the team's best cornerback was Sheldon Brown, not Lito Sheppard. Sheppard had more highlight-worthy picks, which led to his being named to the Pro Bowl. But people in the know felt it was Brown who was more worthy. In fact, Sportsline.com's Clark Judge obviously confuses the two when he recently completed his NFL player rankings (cornerbacks here)--he puts Brown at number 7 among cornerbacks, saying, "He was one of three Eagles defensive backs to reach the Pro Bowl." Whoops.

A new book provides more credence to Brown's superior cover skills. My brother pointed me over to SI.com's latest column from Dr. Z (here), which extols the virtues of KC Joyner's Scientific Football 2005. You think you're a diehard football fan? Well, Joyner quit his job in order to tape and watch nearly every NFL game from last season, in order to break down each and every passing play. The book costs $50 and can purchased at Joyner's Web site (here).

Among a few conclusions that Dr. Z points to, there's one about Sheldon Brown:

"Finally, a nice little plug for Philly's right cornerback, Sheldon Brown, who was not a Pro Bowl choice and made only one all-pro team last year: mine. 'I knew Brown was good, going into this review, but when I saw his stat lines my jaw dropped ... he only allowed one TD, despite facing 117 passes ... Brown allowed a mere two completions on 24 deep passes, which ranked second in the league...I don't get a commission for his Honolulu plane ticket and hotel room, but I like to see justice served. If he plays this well next year, he ought to not just go to the Pro Bowl. He should be an All-Pro.'"

In comparison, overhyped Broncos corner Champ Bailey finished tied for 73rd--yes 73rd--in deep-ball completion percentage. So be thankful, very thankful, that Brown is signed through the 2012 season.

Class Acts?

How desperate am I for football? Instead of watching the first hour of game seven of the NBA finals, I tuned into "Meet the Draft Picks" on Comcast Sportsnet last Thursday instead, deciding to stick around especially after I saw my man R. Diddy on the show. A mix of analysis and human interest stories, the show didn't provide a lot of new insights--though it was sponsored by the Philadelphia Barrage, our outdoor lacrosse team (Who knew we had both indoor and outdoor lacrosse teams? I didn't.)--but I did learn the following things:

1) David Bergeron can ride a unicycle. That could come in handy, since the 7th-round linebacker from Stanford is a long shot to make the team and might need an alternative career.

2) Reggie Brown can bench press 400 lbs. In other words, no 5-foot 9-inch Carolina cornerback will be able to jam him at the line and toss him around like a rag doll.

3) Sean Considine was the highest-scoring safety prospect on the Wonderlic test, the NFL's official "intelligence" test for draft picks.

4) Our other seventh rounder, Keyonta Marshall, says his first name is pronounced like "Chianti." I have no idea why that is.

5) Before introducing Brown, they threw up a list of Andy Reid's previous picks at wide receiver. Let's just say that if Todd Pinkston was hands-down the best pick, then it wasn't that much of a list.

Finally, and maybe I'm a little slow on this, but watching the segment on Ryan Moats made me think, "Hey, they can do formations this season with both Moats and Brian Westbrook on the field." Imagine each in the slot, or maybe Westbrook in the slot and Moats in the backfield (or vice versa) with the defense spread out and suspectible to his quickness if the Birds run the ball. Or Westbrook in the slot, Moats in the backfield (again, or vice versa), and Moats then goes in motion and lines up in the other slot position. Can you say multiple mismatches? In the past Reid has had two quarterbacks in on the same play (for that stupid send-McNabb-in-motion-and-let-Detmer-throw-the-ball stunt that has never worked), so don't think you won't be seeing Moats-and-Westbrook formations come September.

Virtual Vitriol

Finally entering the 21st century, notorious Philadelphia sports radio station WIP is now broadcasting live over the Internet (right here). So if you live out of town and miss hearing Howard Eskin call a listener a jackass or a moron, or need to hear Angelo Cataldi say something ridiculous that makes you forget he was once a respected sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, now's your chance. I cannot highly recommend enough that you listen to Ray Didinger (of NFL Films) and Glen Macnow's show on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Didinger will provide you with more Eagles insight in five hours than you'll get from listening to WIP the rest of the week.

If you have some extra cash and live many time zones away, you might want to purchase software to let you record the WIP audio stream TiVo-like on your hard to listen to on your schedule. I haven't used such programs, and therefore can't recommend one over another, but a quick Google search led me to the Replay Radio, iRadio, and Skado, each of which costs $39.95. iRadio Lite is only $14.95, but won't let you burn to disc. If you're desperate for intelligent Eagles analysis, it might be worth it to hear Didinger every week.

Three Preseason Games on NFL Network

For those of you who don't live in the Philadelphia area but do get the NFL Network on your cable or satellite system, it looks like you'll have a chance to see three of the Eagles preseason games, according to NFL.com. The Eagles aren't playing in one of the six live games the network is showing, but you can see the following games a day or two after the fact: against the Ravens (Sunday, August 21 at 1 p.m.), the Bengals (Monday, August 29 at 9 a.m.), and the Jets (Friday, September 2 at 3 p.m.). Click here for the complete article.

It's a Not-So-Wonderful Column Idea

If you think this six-week period before training camp begins is excrutiating, just imagine what it must be like for NFL columnists, who sometimes need to be really creative to hit their weekly quotas. Exhibit A of that fact is the latest piece from SI.com's Andrew Perloff, which imagines what would happen if Terrell Owens had never played pro football--a variation of the old It's a Wonderful Life gimmick of what would life be like if someone were never born.

Perloff imagines various scenarios through the years of his alternative history, ending with the 2005 Phillies winning the World Series:

"With no Owens holdout, Philadelphia's sports radio home 610 WIP has nothing to talk about and slowly transitions to a classical-music station. Fans actually start to notice the Phillies and the extra support inspires the team to capture the NL East and eventually win the World Series, giving the city its first champ since the 1983 Sixers."

The column left me wondering which was a sillier idea--imagining a T.O.-less NFL, or that this group of Phillies would actually be inspired by fan support.

Tackling Dummy

It'd be understandable with all the hoopla concerning T.O. that you might forget that Corey Simon was also a no-show at recent minicamps (though he will eventually to have to sign the Eagles one-year offer if he wants to make any money this year) and Hollis Thomas is disgruntled with his contract. Well, the Eagles sure didn't at draft day, not only taking a DT in the first round, but also in the final round. Mike Patterson plays a similar shoot-the-gap style as Simon, and 325-pound Kenyonta Marshall can eat up even more space than Thomas. Jim Johnson went out of his way to compliment both during the team's most recent minicamp.

But the team may not stop there in its attempt to create a new tackle rotation for 2006. Both the Trenton Times' Mark Eckel (here) and ESPN.com's Len Pasquerelli (here) have reported that the Eagles are interested in another USC tackle, Manuel Wright, who will be available in a supplemental draft on July 14. According to Eckel, the Birds could use one of the three fourth-round picks they have next season to grab Wright. (They could even take him with a third-round pick if they think the Packers or Dolphins would grab him with their own fourth-round pick, then use a couple of their fourth rounders to move back into the third round next April.)

Wright has prototypical size and showed flashes for the national champs last year, and as much as I'd love to have another Trojan on our roster (yes, I'm a grad school alum), the more you read about him, the less he seems like an Andy Reid guy. Sure, he's not a trouble maker, but he volunteered himself for the supplemental draft because he would have been academically ineligible to play in the fall, and this comes after he had to spend a year at Long Beach City College to get the academic standing to play for the Trojans to begin with.

Ok, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to play defensive tackle. But beyond the lack of book smarts he has displayed, Wright has had a questionable work ethic. He apparently came to USC out of shape, although he was better prepared last season. (More here) But Eckel even quotes Patterson as saying about Wright that "When he puts his mind to it he can be a heck of a player. He has to show he wants it. But he has great size and teams like that size."

Perhaps the thinking is that he will "want it" more if he's around his former USC teammate. It could also hasten Darwin Walker's move to end. While Walker is always mentioned as the strongest guy on the team, he's yet to become a dominant force inside.

Whether the Eagles wind up selecting Wright or not, I do know one thing: Paul Grasmanis is going to have to have a heckuva preseason to make this team. (Unless, of course, there's a rash of injuries.)

Down Time

It's the worst part of the year for a football fan--the roughly seven weeks between now and when training camp starts. It's even worse than that other pigskin desert, the period between the end of the Super Bowl and the draft, because there's at least some free agent activity and an awful lot of mock drafts to keep you occupied. But while you can't expect daily posts here, there's not a complete lack of things to talk about--yet. I'll try to spread posts out so there's regular activity here for at least the next week or two. If things get really desperate, I may have to start talking about the Phillies--at least there's a chance this year that two Philly sports teams will be lying for our attention come August.

Anyway, the news today is that the Birds signed fourth-round draft pick Todd Herremans, the offensive tackle prospect out of Saginew Valley State. He joins seventh-round pick Keyonya Marshall as the two 2005 Eagles picks signed thus far. ESPN.com's Len Pasquerelli mentioned Herremans in his most recent "Tip Sheet" column:

"Herremans will take a little while to adjust to big-time competition, but there are a lot of teams that kicked themselves when the Eagles plucked him with the 126th overall selection."

While Herremans was definitely pegged as one of those last-minute flying-up-the-board sleepers in the draft, the odds are against him becoming a starting left tackle in the NFL. In fact, Pasquerelli's colleague John Clayton did an analysis a few weeks ago (click here) that found that 27 of the league's starting left tackles were selected in the first three rounds of the draft. But if an organization is going to get a lower-round pick to start at LT, it may be the Eagles. After all, Artis Hicks looked more than serviceable starting there for a couple of games in 2003, and he was working there at minicamps as Tre Thomas recovers from a blood clot in his leg.

Drew and Drew

If T.O.'s agent Drew Rosenhaus makes you think of Jerry Maguire before Renee Zellweger and that goofy-looking kid showed up and taught him the value of love blah blah, your thoughts will be confirmed by ESPN.com's recent profile of Rosenhaus (click here). It's pretty much summed up in the opening paragraphs:

"MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The gleaming Ferrari 360 Spider, a red soft top, sits on the wide brick driveway, flanked by a black Hummer H2 and a pair of Cadillac Escalades. Palm trees, ruffled by a steady breeze off the water, frame the opulent Key Biscayne home.

Inside, Drew Rosenhaus, wielding a pair of black and chrome Treo 650s – high-tech phones combining e-mail access, a digital camera and MP3 player – is handling two calls at the same time.

'Yeah, buddy, let me get right back to you," the NFL's most powerful agent said, rolling his eyes and switching to the other phone. "Sure, man, we'll do it next weekend in Atlanta. Yeah, I'll be there.'

He signs off and looks up from his cluttered mahogany desk.

'T.O.' he said simply."

Rosenhaus also appeared on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" yesterday and said there was a 50-50 chance of Owens showing up to training camp. He gave his usual arguments, as Bob Brookover reports in the Philadelphia Inquirer (here):

"If the Eagles will honor that contract, so will Terrell," Rosenhaus said. "What I mean by that is, if they said to me that they would pay that entire amount over the life of that contract, we'll guarantee it, then we'll honor it. The problem is, they don't have to. I have players every day like Hugh Douglas or Nate Webster who do five- and six-year deals and either they get hurt or they don't play as well and a year later, the team says forget about those last four or five years. They're underperforming.

"But in the case of a player like a Terrell Owens or a Javon Walker, where they overperform a contract, what is so negative about me coming in and saying, 'Hey, can we take a look at this?' "

Rosenhaus also brings up Webster in the ESPN.com profile, but unfortunately, Greg Garber doesn't ask him what I think are two important questions worth having the agent on the record about:

1) Webster received a $2.5 million signing bonus last year for his new deal and played three games. That's the risk the Bengals took in signing him away from the Bucs; shouldn't the possibility of being released be the risk Webster takes?

2) How much money do you earn from representing Terrell Owens if he doesn't get his contract renegotiated?

(BTW, Webster reworked his deal earlier this week so he won't be released. Part of the agreement is that his final three years of the old deal are voided. So he can get a new and potentially better deal if he stays healthy this season. Was that so hard, Drew?)

I'm not going to defend NFL owners, as they seem to have more of an upper hand with labor than other sports, especially mid-level veterans who have little leverage against teams relying on cheaper roster-filling rookies. But signing bonuses are a way to balance out the lack of guaranteed contracts. If Jevon Kearse suffered a career-ending injury last season, not entirely out of the question given his medical history, the Eagles would have been out $20 million with nothing to show. And T.O. did receive a nice little bonus last year after playing below expectations the previous season in San Francisco.

A final question that goes unasked is whether Rosenhaus thinks his public strategy with T.O. hurt more than it has helped. By attempting to paint Owens as a victim after he earned $10 million in the previous year, Rosenhaus turned most fans from this working-class city against the receiver, fans who gave him a hero's welcome, but also could never dream of earning $10 million in their whole working lives. Shutting up and playing with the same grit and flair this season as he did last season, Owens could have then called attention to a deal obviously designed to leave the Eagles an easy out after two years (most of Owens' 2006 salary is wrapped up in a $5 million roster bonus). If the Birds won the Super Bowl with Owens' help, how much harder would it be for the team to justify not keeping him on the team in 2006.

Instead, Rosenhaus chose to make a bid for renegotiation immediately. Why not tell his client to sit tight and wait for a stronger bargaining hand? Well, what if T.O. were to suffer a career-ending injury this season and be forced to retire? How much of nothing would be Rosenhaus' cut?

Mr. Westbrook Comes to Minicamp

The Eagles Web site is reporting that Brian Westbrook has shown up for the team's passing camp and will sign the one-year offer that's been on the table for some time. A Westbrook news conference later this afternoon may clear up the mystery surrounding his agent situation. While it was recently reported that the running back had dropped his agent and signed with Fletcher Smith, Donovan McNabb's agent, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Bob Brookover points out that "Westbrook is the only Eagles player on the NFL Players' Association Web site who does not have a listed agent."

More mysteries will be solved later when the June 1 cuts are announced. Yes, I already checked, and Drew Rosenhaus is not the agent for unhappy Redskins WR Rod Gardener, who many Eagles fans wouldn't mind the team picking up.