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We are approaching the long-term extension signing season, when the Eagles often use their considerable leftover salary-cap space to lock up many of their top young players until they're old and gray or their skills begin to diminish, whichever comes first.
The Eagles have plenty of cap space (more than $16 million at last check), and have several players who normally would be on their extension radar right now, including defensive tackle Brodrick Bunkley and linebackers Omar Gaither and Chris Gocong, all of whom are in the third year of their rookie deals.
But the NFL owners' decision in May to opt out of the final 2 years of the collective bargaining agreement has made it unlikely that any Eagles will be signing extensions between now and the end of the season.
"It's a little hard to go do deals right now when you don't know what the landscape is going to be going forward," Eagles president Joe Banner said earlier this week.
There have been no discussions between the league and the NFL Players Association about a new deal since the death of the union's longtime leader, Gene Upshaw, in July. The union's in-house counsel, Dick Berthelsen, was named Upshaw's interim replacement.
The union recently hired a search firm to help find a permanent replacement, but it probably will be well into 2009 before someone is hired.
If a new labor deal isn't in place by March of 2010, there would be no salary cap that year, which is the final year of the CBA. If the cap goes away, many of the free-agency rules change, including the service time required to become a free agent. A player currently can become an unrestricted free agent after his fourth year in the league. If there is no cap, that changes to 6 years.
"When you don't know what the rules of the game are going to be, it kind of hinders doing a long-term deal," Banner said. "Players don't know if they're going to be free agents after 4 years or 6 years. I don't know if the cap's going to stay relatively flat or take a significant jump.
"I'm a little reluctant to lock in to too many players without knowing what the next cap will be. Also, we're only a couple of years away from the next round of television deals. So you don't know what's going to happen with that. You don't know what your player costs are going to be. I'm glad that, for the moment, we don't really need to do anything."
-- The NFL trading deadline is Tuesday. In response to the growing number of e-mails from you wide receiver-obsessed Eagles fans, no, no, a thousand times no, the Eagles will not be trading for the Lions' Roy Williams or the Bengals' Chad Ocho Cinco or T.J. Houshmandzadeh. For an explanation, I defer to Titans coach Jeff Fisher. "During the middle part of the season, it would take a month to learn a new [offensive] system," he told reporters this week in response to the same wide-receiver inquiry.
-- Lito Sheppard's hopes of being traded by the deadline seem pretty much dead. The Eagle aren't interested in dealing him right now, and no teams have inquired about him.
-- The Eagles have drawn just 23 penalties in their first five games. That's the seventh fewest in the league. Seven of those 23 flags have been thrown on their special teams. Eagles offensive linemen have been called for just two holding penalties. One was on left tackle Tra Thomas, the other on left guard Todd Herremans. Both were in the Week 3 win over the Steelers. Offensive holding penalties are down all over the league, mainly because the officials have been told to call it only if it impacts the play. Through 5 weeks, there have been only 159 offensive holding penalties called. Last season, there were 602 holding calls. In 2006: 579.
-- David Akers isn't the only veteran kicker struggling with 40-plus-yard field goal attempts these days. Ravens kicker Matt Stover is the third most accurate kicker in league history, but has missed all three of his attempts from beyond 40 yards this season. The 40-year-old Stover has missed from 45, 47 and 48 yards. Like Akers' misses, all have been long enough but wide. Said Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who was the Eagles' longtime special-teams coordinator: "I'm not concerned with Matt's age. He's kicked very well in practice and even the balls he's missed he's hit very well. So it's not like he's losing leg strength. It's not so much age as it is knocking it through the uprights. Sometimes, Matt is thinking about the direction of the kick and things like that instead of just punching it right between the sticks."
-- Bucs quarterback Jeff Garcia is alive and well and expected to start this week's important NFC South game against the 4-1 Carolina Panthers. After leading the Bucs to the playoffs last season, Garcia has languished on the bench behind Brian Griese this season for reasons that coach Jon Gruden never has made completely clear. But Griese is out with an elbow injury and Garcia has been taking the first-team snaps in practice. "For me, it's an exciting time because I feel like there's an opportunity that might be presented there," Garcia told reporters. "I just want to be able to get back in and be the guy I was for this team last year. The guy that I feel I'm capable of being. If I'm given that opportunity, hopefully, I can run with it and make the most out of it."
From the lip:
-- "It's frustrating because I came here to win. That's why I came here. I could have gone anywhere. I came here to win. It's disappointing as hell, and frustrating." - 49ers linebacker Takeo Spikes, on his team's 2-3 record
-- "Never, ever, ever, ever go against the monster because the monster always wins." - Bengals wide receiver Chad Ocho Cinco's explanation for his slow start this season
-- "The kid, he's just a winner. I don't know what it is about him. He just has a knack. He has that 'It' sort of thing." - Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward, on his quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger
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