Omar Gaither underwent surgery yesterday to correct a Lisfranc fracture in his left foot, but coach Andy Reid was reluctant to place the linebacker on injured reserve and end his season.
"I'm not going to make any moves here right now," Reid said. "I'm just going to evaluate a little bit at a time. We don't have to do anything right at this minute, so we'll see. Right now, it doesn't look good."
Reid said doctors inserted a screw into Gaither's foot, which is "better than two, which sometimes they have to do."
Gaither injured his foot in the fourth quarter of last Sunday's game at Oakland. Reid said Wednesday that the middle linebacker would have surgery, but the team already had addressed his possible long-term absence by trading for Will Witherspoon the day before.
Witherspoon played weakside linebacker at St. Louis this season, but he has played in the middle before. After a week of practice, Reid said the 29-year-old was equipped to start and play all three downs. Jeremiah Trotter is expected to help out on the occasional short-yardage down.
"He did a nice job of picking things up," Reid said of Witherspoon. "He'll continue to study. He's a smart guy."
Defensive coordinator Sean McDermott acknowledged Friday that it would be a challenge for the veteran to quarterback the defense and make all the calls. Witherspoon has the advantage of having played in a similar defense under Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo, who learned under the late Jim Johnson as a member of the Eagles' defensive staff.
"It's been the defense I was expecting," Witherspoon said yesterday. "I kind of had a general idea of what was going on. But there are some nuances and things that were different."
Reid wouldn't commit to using Michael Vick more than he had in the Eagles' 13-9 loss to the Raiders, but he did say that the quarterback likely would be active as the backup to Donovan McNabb in tomorrow's game.
Since returning to the NFL, Vick's involvement in the Eagles' first-team offense has dropped from 11 plays in the first game to just two last week.
"I've said this before and we'll just see how it goes during the game," Reid said. "We have about the same amount [of plays] that we had in last week, this week."
Two weeks ago against Tampa Bay, Reid activated all three of his quarterbacks. Kevin Kolb, who started two games when McNabb was injured, was the emergency third quarterback last week.
With defensive end Victor Abiamiri out for tomorrow's game with a knee sprain, Jason Babin is expected to dress and be part of the defensive-line rotation. Babin, who made the team after the Eagles picked him up off waivers during training camp, has been active in only one game this season. "I've been fighting for this opportunity for three years," he said. Reid said that Abiamiri was "making progress." . . . Defensive end Darren Howard (calf) is listed as questionable. Cornerback Dimitri Patterson (quadriceps) is out. . . . Even though Monday night games have lost some of their allure and this one in particular has failed to stoke the juices of Philadelphia fans for various reasons, Reid said it's still a game "with a little more sugar on it."
Contact staff writer Jeff McLane at 215-854-4745 or jmclane@phillynews.com.
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