Up to Speed- Philadelphia Eagles

A lot has happened in the NFL offseason, stuff that I totally spaced on while devoting my time to chronicling the White Sox' wretchedness. So in order to bring myself (and in the unlikely event anyone other than myself reads this, you dear reader), up to speed on the NFL's teams offseason shenanigans, I begin a new feature called, appropriately enough, Up To Speed.

Today I bring you Up To Speed on last year's NFC East champs, the Philadelphia Eagles.

LAST YEAR
2006 was a kwazy year for the Eagles, and this time they didn't even have TO to blame for any of it. Donovan McNabb went down for the year on Nov. 19 in the midst of a really good season for him. However, that wasn't translating to team success, as the Eagles had at that point lost 4 out of 5 to fall to 5-5. Jeff Garcia took over, and the Eagles got spanked by the Colts the next week to fall to 5-6, pretty much ending their season, or so you'd think. The Eagles caught fire after that though, winning 5 in a row to close the season, including 3 consecutive divisional road games. Garcia played better than he had in 5 years, and the Eagles came out of nowhere to win the NFC East before losing an entertaining divisional playoff game in New Orleans.

OFFSEASON
The run defense was bad last year, ranking 26th in the league, and surrendering 208 yards on the ground in the playoff loss. They hope that the offseason addition of free agent linebacker Takeo Spikes will help shore that up. Spikes has had two injury shortened, ineffective seasons in a row, and at 30 years old it's entirely possible that he'll never approach the high level of play he showed in Buffalo in 03 and 04.

Garcia is gone, leaving the Eagles to go be Chris Simms' boogeyman in Tampa. McNabb is back, although he's been apparently put on notice by the Eagles using a second round pick on University of Houston QB Kevin Kolb. As I noted yesterday there's whispers about him being headed elsewhere, which would leave the Eagles with the redoubtable AJ Feeley as their starting quarterback. I don't think McNabb is going anywhere, so let's plan on him being the Eagles QB to start the season.

McNabb clicked pretty well with WR Donte Stallworth early last year after Stallworth was acquired from the Saints. He'll have to work with a different deep threat this year, as Stallworth is gone to New England, replaced by former Rams slot receiver and very fast white man Kevin Curtis. Curtis has caught 10 TD passes in the last 2 seasons.

The Eagles will also have a change in the secondary, as safety Michael Lewis is gone, and will be replaced by 3rd year man Sean Considine.

The McNabb situation is going to be a week to week soap opera for this team. The Eagles played better last year when everyone thought they were dead and the heat was off of them. That won't be the case this year. McNabb and the Eagles will both be expected to perform at a high level. There's no reason to think that the offense won't succeed. The defense still will probably have trouble with the run though, and aging pass rushers Javon Kearse and Darren Howard will have to improve over last year for the Eagles to get pressure on opposing QB's (although 3rd year DE Trent Cole is developing nicely, as evidenced by his 8 sacks last year).

Expect the Eagles to be what they've always been in recent years, an exciting team with a cloud of controversy surrounding their talented quarterback. Now you're up to speed on the Eagles.