THINKS THE EAGLES STOLE ONE
Updating what we posted earlier, Eagles coach Andy Reid confirms, through a team spokesman, that guard Shawn Andrews is absent from training camp for personal reasons. However, the Eagles did not say the absence is excused. That could mean Andrews will be fined. Teams can fine a player $15,000 a day and try to get back a prorated percentage of their signing bonus.
Agent Rich Moran said the absence is not contract-related, refuting speculation on the Pro Football Talk website.
Andrews missed the final week of minicamp in June, also for personal reasons. Teams tend to be more lenient about letting vets skip a little minicamp. The training camp reporting date does not tend to be flexible; it's kind of like April 15th to the IRS.
All of Andrews' starting o-linemates are checked into the dorms by now. As we type, Jon Runyan is holding court for the cameras, leaning on the tailgate of his pickup. Runyan said he has not talked to Andrews.
Todd Herremans, Jamaal Jackson and Tra Thomas just rolled up in Herreman's flat-black, retro Econoline van with huge tires. Iis this some new trend, like the pimped-out old boxy Impalas?) They had been to buy groceries. They unloaded a lot of Raisin Bran and a couple watermelons, but no Andrews.
Still no Brian Westbrook or Lito Sheppard sighting, but we have more than two hours to the 7 p.m. deadline.
That's about it for now. The gnats out here are really annoying.
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.
