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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Next Year's Draft or This Year's Trade Bait?

    We've had a little time now to think about the Eagles' draft, and the Lito Sheppard trade situation. Some further thoughts:

      1. The biggest surprise of the draft was that the Birds did little to address the safety and corner positions. They drafted one of each in the fourth round, but the corner, Jack Ikegwuono, won't play this season because of a severe knee injury.

     2. This could mean the Eagles actually do intend to keep Lito Sheppard. I still think this would have to involve adjusting Sheppard's contract, and even then, it would be a little dicey egowise, juggling Shjeppard and Sheldon Brown alongside Asante Samuel. I don't care what anybody says about the kind of guy Lito is -- I agree, he would never want to be a distraction -- but I also know that Sheppard feels he was told he would be traded. If he isn't traded, he won't be happy, and teammates will know that, even if he isn't doing situps in his drveway for the cameras.

       3. After parsing what Andy Reid said Sunday and talking to a representative of Sheppard's agent group, I think the plan still is to trade Sheppard. I can't say I blame fans for being unenthusiastic about the idea of losing a Pro Bowl-qaulity player for a draft choice or choices next season, particularly since the Birds already have two first-round selections in '09. But such a deal could make sense if the Eagles think they can package some of those picks for one of those supposedly unavalable elite wideouts the team has been pursuing. I have no idea if this can actually happen, but it's a lovely thought, isn't it?

       Before we leave you, here a link to some guy who used to play basketball for Syracuse treating a referee badly (well, pretending to, anyway). This act might need some polishing, and maybe a bucket of confetti, before he goes on tour with the Globetrotters.  Also, who knew there was a Hank Baskett charity basketball tournament?

.       

Posted by Les Bowen @ 11:13 PM  Permalink | 5 comments
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Comments
Posted by shmu65 12:21 AM, 04/30/2008
Come on Bowen, you know as well as I and everyone else that the Eagles have no desire to acquire another future top pick. They would never want to spend that kind of money paying all of those picks and they have the track record to prove it (trading out of the first round two years in a row anyone?). What the Eagles are doing right now is coming to terms with the fact that Lito Sheppard will be with the team in 2008. And why not? The NFC East is loaded with receiving talent (Owens, Burress, and now Thomas and Kelly!). Wouldn't it be prudent, if we couldn't match that talent toe to toe (i.e. have our own super receiver on offense), to then have a stellar defense to negate the multiple weapons that our opponents will throw at us this year? There's a reason that we haven't heard from Lito himself and I think it is one of that the team is talking to him about upping his contract and staying with the Eagles. And let's give the benefit of the doubt that, while there are "me-first" athletes in the league that seem to garner the majority of the press headlines, there are also team-first-class-act guys that don't always run their mouths and do have some respect for the game as well as their fellow teammates. And Lito Sheppard is one of those guys. As for his teammates knowing that he's unhappy, who cares? Those teammates know that the NFL is a business. It's not Pop Warner. Those guys are just as worried about their own job status and will have more than enough to focus on than to worry about some press fueled "upset player" story.
Posted by DCSBE 01:23 AM, 04/30/2008
I sure hope that we can come to terms with Lito, do you remember the secondary back when we had Troy Vincent, Bobby Taylor and Al Harris i do it was pretty damn good. And just like the comment above we don't need anymore picks,we have 2 first rounders next year if Andy doesn't deal them away for another freakin lineman ...lol Look i understand we need the beef up front in order to run the ball but we have it now and the sand is running out of the hour glass PHILLY!!!! Hey Andy Reid i want you to read this next little tidbit you just might learn something and stop being so bull headed... We’re trying to build a championship football team. I’m not interested in having a team that year in and year out wins eight or nine games. That’s not what the exercise is about. The only way you can give yourself a shot at building a championship team is by drafting outstanding football players. That’s where you get them, you bring them into your system, they learn your philosophy. Hopefully the end product two or three years out is a Superbowl Championship........
Posted by Super5 07:07 AM, 04/30/2008
Les, loved the McNabb video. Besides being a super player, he is a role model. Anyone who wants to get rid of him- is just a flat-out dope! Regarding Lito, I say play hardball. Let him holdout & get $0 OR make $2M & contend for a Super Bowl! Wish I had that choice!
Posted by kujo76 10:23 AM, 04/30/2008
It's a gamble, but Lito has to be thinking about his prospects if the eagles go deep into the playoffs this year, or if he has a good statistical year. He has two ways to make a killing next year. This year, while certainly he'll make some cash if he is traded, he doesn't have the bargaining power he'd have if he was coming off a good year or a year with a team that went deep in the playoffs.
Posted by Stephen_Niksa 12:24 PM, 05/01/2008
I would treat Lito the same way the Pats treated Samuel a season ago when he was an unrestricted FA: I would pledge to re-sign him to a new contract, trade him to another team, or release him by June 1, 2009, in exchange for labor peace in 2008. In view of the team's choice not to draft anyone who will be able to contribute at corner this season, the Eagles would risk negating much of the progress they have made this offseason in re-tooling the D if they are stuck with Hanson as the nickle corner.
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About The Daily News' Eagles Blog
Les BowenLes 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.

Rich HofmannRich Hofmann arrived at the Daily News in 1980 for a job whose status was officially designated as "full-time, temporary." A senior at Penn at the time, he was hired to fill in on the copy desk during a staff illness. The notion of him covering the Eagles or being a columnist did not exist in anyone's imagination. It was supposed to be six weeks and out, but he never left. It is only one of the reasons why so many people have concerns about him as a potential house guest. Rich has blogged the postseasons of the Flyers and Eagles.

Paul DomowitchPaul Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982. He has spent most of his 26 years at the paper covering the Eagles and pro football. A native of Wilkes-Barre and a graduate of Wilkes University, where he spent 3 years as the sports editor of the school paper and zero semesters on the dean's list, Domo came to the Daily News from the Fort Worth (Tx.) Star-Telegram, where he covered some very bad Texas Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was 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, who is a University of Oklahoma grad and is dangerous to be around following a Sooner loss, have been married 27 years and have raised 2 terrific daughters – Allison, 23, who attends Boston University School of Law; and Amy, 21, a sports marketing major at Clemson. When he's not writing about football, Domo enjoys reading Robert Parker, John Sandford and Harlan Coben novels and playing pickup basketball when his arthritic hip doesn't object.

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