CAN HEAR CLEARWATER CALLING
Eagles wide receiver Kevin Curtis will have sports hernia surgery, coach Andy Reid said today.
The full extent of the injury will not be clear until the surgery is performed, so no timetable was given for a possible return, but expect it to be a while, given the history of the injury. A reasonable timeframe probably would be six to eight weeks from the surgery, which Curtis told the Daily News will take place Thursday morning. The regular season starts Sept. 7. There is little chance the Eagles' leading 2007 receiver (77 catches, 1,110 yards) will be full-strength before October, at best.
Curtis becomes the third Eagles player to suffer a sports hernia in the last few years. Donovan McNabb had surgery during the 2005 season after trying to play through the injury. L.J. Smith had offseason surgery in the spring of 2007 but the injury lingered, especially after he suffered another injury to the area during training camp. Smith cautioned yesterday that Curtis should not try to come back too soon. Previously, cornerback Sheldon Brown played the 2003 season with the injury, something Brown said yesterday he would not do again.
Curtis was injured against Carolina in last Thursday's preseason game. He tried to practice this week but was unable to run hard because of the pain, leading to the decision to have the surgery.
Reid said he is not interested in bringing in another receiver at this time, though the Falcons have released 36-year-old Joe Horn. Cardinals wideout Anquan Boldin has asked to be traded, but Arizona has said it will not trade him.
With Reggie Brown still out with a hamstring injury, suffered on the first play against Carolina, the starting receivers Friday at New England will be rookie DeSean Jackson in Brown's spot and either Hank Baskett or Greg Lewis in Curtis' spot.
Curtis, coming off the most productive season of his career, signed as a free agent from the St. Louis Rams before last season.
"It won't be a threat to what we do," Reid said. "Other guys will have to step up for the time he's out."
Reid said he feels Brown will be ready for the start of the regular season. Brown agreed that was likely.
Baskett has had a strong training camp, as has the rookie, Jackson. The words of offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg and McNabb earlier this week, cautioning against overhyping Jackson, now seem academic. Jackson, the team's leading receiver in the preseason, seems assured of a fairly prominent role to start the regular season, if that weren't assured already.
Baskett said that one of the good things about the Eagles' West Coast-spread the ball philosophy is that "you don't have all your eggs in one basket," no pun intended. He said other receivers will step up to fill the void.
"We all have different things we're good at," Baskett said. "Kevin goes down, I have to step up and fill his shoes."
Smith said he would tell Curtis that after the surgery, he will feel like he can do more than he really can safely do, that he needs to take it very slowly to avoid reinjury.
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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