Eagles forced to cope with a short week

SEATTLE - Three days after a home loss to the New England Patriots, the Eagles boarded a charter and flew 2,380 miles to the shores of Puget Sound, where tonight they face the Seahawks.

This is hardly the normal routine in the NFL.

Playing again in 4 days, instead of the usual 6, 7 or 8 days is hard enough. But flying from one coast to the other to do it? Not something the Eagles have ever attempted, in their 79-year history.

In fact, under Andy Reid, they have only had to make the 4-day turnaround for a road game once, in 2001, when they lost at home to the Redskins, then won a Thursday game at Kansas City.

Obviously, the way the New England loss played into this 4-7 disaster of a season, other matters have taken center stage this week. But there are five games still to play before whatever happens happens, and whether the Eagles miraculously make the playoffs or not, these remaining games might very well determine the scope of organizational change for 2012.

This looks like a winnable game, the Seahawks also 4-7, with a sack-prone offensive line and an unimposing passing game that will be missing its top receiver, Sidney Rice, sidelined with a concussion.

But the short week and the travel, along with the fact that you never really know what you're getting from the Eagles, ought to make it interesting. Michael Vick will miss his third game with broken ribs, Vince Young again quarterbacking.

The team's focus this week has been on rest and what defensive end Jason Babin termed "mental reps," visualizing what you don't have time to actually do on the field before the game, with an eye toward preserving energy. Of course, given the blowout loss to the Patriots, having another game to focus on so quickly hasn't been such a terrible thing for the Eagles.

"The best way to put the loss behind you is to go out there and perform well," Babin said.

Left guard Evan Mathis made it plain on Monday he was only interested in talking about getting ready for the Seahawks; and he stuck to that focus.

"The coaches and the training staff have done a good job of communicating to us what we have to do to get recovered," Mathis said Tuesday, the final full day of preparation, and also the only full day of preparation.

Mathis said Monday and Tuesday morning were about getting the game plan in. Tuesday afternoon was the one chance to really do the work on the field. More than most weeks, this game's preparation took place in meeting rooms.

Defensive end Darryl Tapp outlined his care regimen, Tapp speaking on Tuesday afternoon: "I'll get a massage tonight, I saw the chiropractor yesterday. Continue to pump in the fluids, stretch a lot . . . You've got to recover from the last game and still prepare for the one coming up."

Tapp played his first four seasons in Seattle, with every road game at least a 2-hour flight away, usually more. He said there is a temptation to sleep during long flights, but going coast-to-coast, that isn't often a good idea.

"It's a Catch-22," he said. "You want to sleep, because it's a long flight, but you can be screwed when you try to sleep that night. You'll be up at the crack of dawn the next morning. If you do go to sleep, just make it a nap - no more than an hour at the max. Get up and move around a little bit. Keep pumping fluids; you'll definitely be dehydrated on a flight that long. It might not be that bad coming back, because we're not going to be out there that long."

Tapp said he would wear tights and pressure stockings under his clothes, out and back, to limit swelling. "It definitely helps," he said.

Tapp said he planned to watch game film on his iPad during the flight. He said game preparation wasn't nearly as big a problem for the defense as for the offense, which has the more complex scheme.

"We've got to really focus on what we do best, be sound in our technique and fundamentals," he said.

The Eagles practiced indoors Tuesday on a warm day, just so they could pipe in amplified crowd noise to help the offensive line prepare for what might be the NFL's loudest outdoor venue. Philadelphia fans tend to look askance at fans from places like Seattle, where nobody has memories of going to games with their grandfather in 1960 because there was no team until 1976. But even if the vibe is a little different, it can be hard to play in CenturyLink Field, formerly Qwest Field, where a pregame ceremony features the running up the flagpole of a "12th Man" banner.

"It's gonna be loud. That 12th man, those fans really take that seriously," said another former Seahawk, Eagles fullback Owen Schmitt. "That definitely helps their defense out, for sure, the crowd noise."

Tapp said when he played in Seattle, he appreciated the difficulties the crowd posed to opposing offenses, but he sometimes struggled with it himself.

"It was an advantage, and it was something you had to overcome. It got so loud on defense, we could hardly hear the calls," Tapp said. "When Lofa [Tatupu, the former Seattle middle linebacker] was there, he would try to give me the call. I had to read lips to hear what he was saying."

Tapp agreed that even when the fans are loud, the game has a different vibe than it does at the Linc.

"Philadelphia fans, they're bred to love their teams. The Seattle Seahawks are still kind of a new thing, and they've really had just one exceptional year. That's the Super Bowl [XL] year. They have a lot of interest and a lot of energy out there, but here in Philadelphia, shoot, this is your blood."

Schmitt sounded like he didn't mind the Northwest style of fandom a bit.

"They're not like the fans here at all . . . Even if the game's not going our way, they're always uplifting," he said. "They don't have a lot of [pro] sports. Football and baseball are their two big deals. Obviously the media market isn't as big as it is here, but they've got a huge fan base [geographically]."

"The noise is real," said Babin, who spent a year-and-a-half as a Seahawk, mostly riding the bench, a slight he said this week he would like to avenge. "I think those smart guys [from the tech industry] figured out the right angles to get the noise bouncing around."

Babin didn't seem to enjoy his time in Seattle much at all. Asked if he had any positive memories of the place, he could think of one.

"I learned to recycle," he said.