PREFERS TEMPLE'S OFFENSE TO PRINCETON'S
One thing I think I think:
1. I hate freaking Peter King.
If you scroll down a couple dozen posts, it was SI's King who got the weekend off to a sputtering start by predicting the Eagles would not be able to trade Lito Sheppard. This unwlecome bit of prescience arrived even as Eagles sources were touting all the wonderful Sheppard offers they planned to sift through as the draft began.
None of those Eagles sources was named Andy Reid, though, and late yesterday afternoon at NovaCare, as the Birds wrapped up their 10-player draft, Reid characterized the offers for the Eagles' two-time Pro Bowl corner as "not significant."
Could Lito still be traded? Sure, for a player or players, or a draft choice next year (whoopee). But the draft was the logical time for this to happen. It's hard to think of a team with a crying need at corner that didn't address that need this weekend.
Reid was coy when asked if the Birds will somehow address Sheppard's contract grievance, to try to make him a more willing participant. He said he would talk to Sheppard.
But even if Sheppard, signed through 2011, agrees to show up and at least feign enthusiasm, isn't there going to be some delicate ego-juggling, with Asante Samuel, Sheppard and Sheldon Brown all used to being starters?
"We'll see how it all works out when we get to that point," Reid said.
We'll start getting to that point this coming weekend, when mandatory minicamp unfolds at NovaCare.
Meanwhile, Peter King is dead to me. Dead.
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.
Paul Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982. He has spent most of his 27 years at 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 came to the Daily News from the Fort Worth (Tx.) Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually wa s boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose two sports coats to blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley, a University of Oklahoma grad and very dangerous to be around following a Sooner loss, have been married 29 years and have raised 2 terrific daughters – Allison, 26, a lawyer and graduate of Boston University School of Law; and Amy, 23, who graduated from Clemson and works in marketing and sales for a professional baseball team.
