IS GLAD SPRING TRAINING IS FINALLY HERE
Just about everyone figured that the 53-man roster the Eagles announced Saturday, heavy on wide receivers and quarterbacks, light on defensive tackles and tight ends, would not be the roster for the season opener a week from today at Carolina. That's already official, with a team source confirming this afternoon that the Eagles have released A.J. Feeley to make room for defensive tackle Antonio Dixon.
The Birds wanted to trade the 32-year-old backup quarterback, who had an excellent preseason, and probably won't be out of work long. But it's hard to get NFL teams to give up something for a player they don't think you can afford to keep, and that was the situation with the Eagles and Feeley, who could not be reached for comment Sunday.
With the addition of Dixon, an undrafted Miami University rookie released by the Redskins, dropping Feeley will not mean that Michael Vick comes off the exempt list and onto the active roster, even though Vick emphasized after Thursday's preseason finale that being able to practice during his two-week suspension would be "very, very important" to sharpening his skills.
Dixon, meanwhile, has overcome a lot of obstacles. Here is a link to A USA Today story about him, written when he was in college. It tells of his imprisoned father, and of how Antonio couldn't read until he was in high school.
The team also announced four additions to the practice squad, all players who were cut Saturday. They are WR Danny Amendola, OL Paul Fanaika and Mike Gibson, and TE Rob Myers. That leaves four spots, which should be filled on Monday.
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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