IS GLAD SPRING TRAINING IS FINALLY HERE
The Eagles already have signed the Canadian Football League's top rookie from the BC Lions in running back Martell Mallett. Now, they have interest in the league's Canadian Player of the Year, also from the Lions.
Defensive end Ricky Foley, who led the league in sacks with 12, worked out for the Eagles yesterday, according to multiple reports. He met with the Jets on Tuesday and the Rams on Wednesday. He initally was scheduled to work out for New England yesterday, but those plans changed and he was in Philadelphia.
Foley, 27, who spent time with the Baltimore Ravens in 2006, becomes a free agent Feb. 15 unless he re-signs with the Lions before then.
"I just want to look into all the possibilities that are out there,” Foley told the Vancouver Sun. “I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t want to look back at my life at this time in 20 years and wonder, ‘What if?’ My new representation allows me to explore every option and exhaust all opportunities.”
Foley sounds more interested in the NFL now then he did a few weeks ago when he told the Sun, "It's one thing to work out for an NFL team. It's another thing to get signed. I've put in four years of hard work. I'm Canadian player of the year. I don't want to throw it away for a chance down there, where I'm a nobody."
But Foley also could be the next Cameron Wake, his former BC teammate who signed a 4-year deal, including a $1 million signing bonus, with the Miami Dolphins before last season.
With no NFL Europe or Arena League, the NFL is signing more players from the CFL than in the past in its search for talent and training camp reinforcements. The Eagles signed two prominent CFL players last winter and neither made it out of training camp.
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DeSean Jackson spent a lot of time in Florida over the last 2 weeks with the Pro Bowl and then a number of appearances related to the Super Bowl.
He also was involved in some testing done by the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, which set up a performance lab in Miami and tested a number of NFL players, including DeSean, the Cowboys' Mile Austin, the Giants' Eli Manning, the Chargers' Vincent Jackson and the Falcons' Tony Gonzalez.
This is all part of Gatorade's Super Bowl advertising campaign in which the company will be promoting its new series of pre, during and post workout drinks.
Video of DeSean's workout and his Gatorade testimonial is below.
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After the Pro Bowl, Eagles left tackle Jason Peters noted that he and Giants tackle David Diehl had to play a half apiece, more than most players, with the Vikings' Bryant McKinnie (Woodbury, N.J.) getting dismissed from the NFC team.
"I was going against [Tennessee's Kyle] Vanden Bosch," Peters said. "He's 100 miles an hour every play, so it's almost like I played a whole game. Everybody else is 50 percent, he's going 100."
Peters missed the Pro Bowl the previous two times he was selected, so he did not seem too upset about having to work harder in this one.
Either way, McKinnie does not have much sympathy."Anyone who watched the game would know it wasn't like they were going that hard," McKinnie told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "If you watched the game, [the pass rushers] were stopping in front of the quarterback."
McKinnie also downplayed his dismissal, saying it was overblown. He missed three of the four practices, while his Twitter account was talking about the Miami nightlife. He said he took a cortisone shot the week before the game and also became sick.
"There wasn't anything bad behind it," McKinnie said. "I just feel that they made it more than it really was. It wasn't like I got locked up somewhere and couldn't play in the game because I was in jail. That's how they made it seem. I just didn't know that it was going to be that serious."
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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