IS BUYING CROSS-COUNTRY SKIS
Like many of you, I was interested in what Andy Reid had to say out in California at the NFL Meetings. Paul Domowitch did a fine job of getting all that on here yesterday.
Domo remains convinced that the Eagles are more worried about the running back position than about their left tackle situation, that they very well might end up with either Todd Herremans or Shawn Andrews moving to left tackle, and feeling fine with that. Domo certainly knows his stuff, and he was out there with the Birds braintrust and I was not, but I really can't see the Andy Reid I know prioritizing running back over left tackle.
End of the day, I think both are needs that ought to be addressed early in the draft.Conventional wisdom holds that it's easier to draft an impact running back than an elite left tackle. I don't know which will be targeted first, but I have a hard time envisioning Herremans or Andrews as the first option for the most important offensive line slot, one of the most important positions on the field.
At the combine last month, I heard Andy's spiel about how Andrews was the best college tackle he'd ever seen. I also know that Andrews didn't show up on time for training camp last year while grappling with depression, didn't play after injuring his back in Week 2, and didn't seem to be champing at the bit to return after surgery. Andrews is an amazing talent, but you're going to trust Donovan McNabb's blindside to this guy?
One of the things that made Tra Thomas valuable for so long was that he studied the guys he was going up against, and took pass protection very, very seriously. He would hold, bite, cut, whatever he had to do to keep his QB safe. Andrews has a different makeup. He's at his best on the run, flattening linebackers ahead of screens. I've never heard him described as a student of the game.
Herremans? More the type of personality you'd trust, but when the center is kidding you about how short your arms 
are, you're probably not a potential Pro Bowl tackle. I really think there's a significant move to be made here, either a first-day draft pick or the much-discussed trade for Buffalo's Jason Peters, which you'll recall we brought up a few weeks ago, after hearing John Clayton refer to Eagles interest.
Speaking of Buffalo, our old friend Terrell Owens has decreed that he only needs to show up for mandatory actvities. That's probably true, contractually. But have you ever heard of a receiver coming to a new team who didn't want to get as much work in with his new quarterback as possible? This was not Terrell's attitude 5 years ago when he arrived in sunny Philadelphia, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't how he approached Dallas in 2006. Good luck to Dick Jauron and Trent Edwards; they're going to need it.
I'm thinking maybe Terrell only wants to attend OTAs in which there is no possibilty of snow in Buffalo. In that case, he won't meet his new teammates until training camp.
Finally, the intrepid Sheil Kapadia at Moving the Chains on this site was very thorough in his treatment of the amazing Ryan Moats story, which for once does not involve the former Eagles running back forgetting his assignment or fumbling. This time, Moats, now a Houston Texan, was an apparently innocent victim of an overzealous (and perhaps racially profiling) Dallas cop. Moats was trying to get to a hospital where his wife's mother was dying. Thankfully, it seems the Dallas police are taking the situation seriously.
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.
