IS GONNA GOOSE THE MAVERICKS
There were no big surprises when the Eagles announced their 8-member practice squad. (Can there be surprises on a practice squad?) Members work out with the team but are not eligible for games unless they are signed and brought onto the 53-man roster. Other teams can sign players to their rosters off opponents' practice squads. The participants make $4,000 a week during the season, which is more than most of us, but less than, say, Donovan McNabb.
As expected, and as was foreshadowed Sunday by your Eagletarian, the Eagles brought back sixth-round
linebacker Andy Studebaker, and added CB Trae Williams, an intriguing player who was cut by Jacksonille after being drafted in the fifth round out of South Florida. At one point last spring, Williams, who played alongside Cowboys' first-round pick Mike Jenkins at South Florida, was a highly regarded prospect.
The Birds also brought back Chester's own favorite wideout, Shaheer McBride, CB Kyle Arrington, FB Jed Collins and DT Mike Marquardt, all of whom spent training camp time with the Eagles. They added OT Chris Patrick and WR Willie Reid.
Patrick, (6-4, 280), has already been with San Francisco and Detroit this preseason. He played at Nebraska and was on Green Bay's practice squad last year. Reid was a 2006 third-round pick of the Steelers, from Florida State, where he and Deion Sanders are the only 1,000-career-yard punt returners, and his 15.4-yard punt return average is a school record. (A little DeSean Jackson injury insurance, one would guess.) So is hard as this will be for his many 
admirers, it would seem that Reno Mahe is really, finally, retired.
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In other Eagles-related news, the Cleveland Browns were awarded offensive lineman Scott Young off waivers. Young was cut by the Eagles on Saturday. Young joins former Eagles teammate Hank Fraley on the Browns' o-line.
Hey, commenters: I can't seem to get the respond-to-comments function to work, so I'll put this up here and hope you see it:
Gasperson has run out of practice squad eligibility, as was alluded to in a weekend Eagletarian. (Every detail of each post should be inedlibly etched on your brains!)
King Dunlap was IR'd. He has an ankle thing that dates way back, but I think they just figured they'd stash him there, since he's a longterm project anyway. He did have a good preseason.
Also, in Tuesday's Daily News, look for Tony Hunt's thoughts on winning the fullback battle (surprisingly, the transition doesn't seem nearly as difficult now as it seemed a week ago, when Hunt thought he might not make the final cut because of the position switch). Also, Lito Sheppard seems to accept (for now) that he isn't being traded, but Lito seems to be saying either that he will be starting at corner Sunday against the Rams or that he deserves to be starting, ahead of either Sheldon Brown or Asante Samuel. Maybe we'll see what that's all about when practice resumes on Wednesday.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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