Young tight ends show early promise

THE FIRST THING you notice, watching Brent Celek and Lee Vickers at the Eagles' current rookie minicamp, is that while both seem able to catch the ball, neither possesses the lithe athleticism of L.J. Smith.

Though Matt Schobel isn't part of rookie minicamp, the same can be said of the Birds' sturdy other tight end, signed a year ago as a free agent to complement Smith.

"Complementing" would normally be the way you'd look at the guys behind Smith, a second alternate for the Pro Bowl last season, by far the best player the Eagles drafted in 2003. But as most fans are well aware, Smith is entering the final season of the contract he agreed to as a second-round rookie from Rutgers 4 years ago. The Eagles like to negotiate extensions with their better young players well before free agency. When they tried to do that with Smith, talks with agent Brian Mackler didn't go well. There's still time to talk some more, and if all else fails, the Birds could franchise Smith next spring. Still, knowing the Eagles' history with players who don't like what the team is offering, it's hard not to look at Celek and Vickers during this minicamp and project how one of them might fit into a sizable role down the road.

Celek, 6-4, 255, is a fifth-round rookie from Cincinnati who has impressed the team with his solid work toward learning the team's complex offense. Vickers, huge for the position at 6-6, 275, spent last season on the practice squad after being cut in preseason by the Steelers, who had signed him as an undrafted rookie defensive end out of North Alabama. Like a lot of practice squad guys, Vickers has traveled a long, rough road to the NFL. He has become a bit of a pet project for the coaching staff.

"Vickers is a man who has not played that position much. He's a very big guy that can run, and it appears he's pretty physical. He's an intriguing prospect," offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said yesterday, as the rookie camp prepared to break for the Memorial Day weekend. "Celek, he's been impressive up to date . . . one reason is because he's pretty sharp - he learns things quickly. We've thrown an awful lot at him early, and he's functioning pretty well. His best attribute is that he does everything well - on the line, adjustments, and in the passing game."

One thing we don't know is how the Birds will use their tight ends in 2007. Smith's numbers dropped off the second half of last season (29 catches the first eight games, 21 the final eight), partly because, after Jeff Garcia took over for injured Donovan McNabb, the Eagles ran the ball a lot more. Smith showed strong improvement in his blocking, which turned out to be pretty important. Mornhinweg and head coach Andy Reid have pledged to maintain their commitment to running. So, if blocking becomes a bigger part of the tight end role, do you necessarily need someone with Smith's rare down-the-field receiving ability?

Mornhinweg indicated that was too deep a question for a May afternoon at rookie minicamp. But he acknowledged that a fullback and a tight end who are physical blockers "can make your run game go from good to great."

Celek said that so far, he has found Philadelphia itself a more daunting challenge than learning the offense - he was born and raised in Cincinnati, went to college there, has never spent much time elsewhere.

"It's like coming to a foreign land; I've never had to adjust to anywhere else," he said.

"I love this offense," said Celek, who said the Bearcats ran more of a power game. "You want to run full speed, do everything full speed [but you're still learning], so it's a little bit of a challenge at first."

Celek's parents own three Cincinnati-area hair salons, and they had Bengals season tickets back in the old Riverfront Stadium days, before the move to Paul Brown Stadium and the imposition of personal-seat licenses, which the Celeks didn't want to pay (perhaps Eagles fans can relate). Now he's competing against Schobel, one of his old Bengals idols. Unlike Vickers, Celek has always been a tight end.

"I want to show [the coaches] athleticism, show 'em I can do some things that maybe they didn't think I could do," Celek said. "Just prove to them that I can play and that I can learn the playbook."

Vickers was a 180-pound cornerback and quarterback in high school in Athens, Ala., who felt his future was as a pitcher. He went to Calhoun (Ala.) Community College with that goal in mind, but he said about a year and a half later, undrafted and sore-armed, he quit school. Vickers worked for an electric company "pulling cables and running conduit," got married, (he and his wife have a 3-year-old daughter), and got much larger. He decided he wanted to try college football, an option he'd earlier turned down for baseball. It turned out, because of his age and the time in community college, he didn't have much Division I eligibility left, but he could play 4 years in Division II. So he became a defensive end at North Alabama.

The Eagles saw him in preseason last year with the Steelers, liked the way he moved. Birds quarterbacks coach Pat Shurmur worked out Vickers as a receiver during a pro day, on a whim. So when Pittsburgh cut him loose, the Birds picked him up, and the project began.

Vickers, 26, said he was surprised the Eagles saw him as a tight end, but he was all for it, since "I needed a job."

But learning a new position at the pro level isn't exactly easy.

"My head was spinning," Vickers said. "When they first put me out there, I couldn't motion right, I couldn't do anything right. I'd never done it before . . . I'm still not where I need to be, but everything's going in the right direction."

The first ball he tried to catch, from quarterback A.J. Feeley, got to him much more quickly than he'd anticipated, he recalled.

"It doesn't look that fast on TV," he said.

That practice squad year helped him make up a lot of ground, he said. Now Vickers feels ready to make the team, maybe contribute on special teams. What happens after that depends at least a little on what happens with Smith, and with Celek and Schobel, as well.

The Eagles announced they reached agreement on a 4-year contract with fifth-round rookie safety and corner C.J. Gaddis, the third signing among their eight draftees . . . Wideout and kick returner Jeremy Bloom, the former Olympic skier who sat out last season on injured reserve, seems to be standing out in these early minicamps. Bloom, nagged by a hamstring injury last year after being drafted in the fifth round, is showing good hands and crisp pattern-running. *