The Birds were ranked sixth in the NFL in total offense in 2007, but too often couldn't finish the job. Chewed up yardage in the middle of the field, but when they got inside the opponent's 20, they sputtered and stalled like an old Buick.

Finished 24th in red-zone touchdown percentage, converting just 45.1 percent (23 of 51) of their trips inside the 20 into TDs.

If you polled Eagles fans, most would blame last season's red-zone inefficiency on the team's wide receivers. Of course, they also blame the wideouts for the high price of gas, Ryan Howard's hitting slump and the gristle on their last roast-beef sandwich.

I'm not here to start another argument over whether the Eagles need to go out and get a legitimate No. 1 wide receiver. Would their offense be more prolific if they had Chad Johnson, Roy Williams or Anquan Boldin lining up on one side? Sure.

But their poor red-zone production last year had little to do with whether Kevin Curtis and Reggie Brown are good enough to win a Super Bowl with (they are).

The Eagles have finished in the top 12 in the league in red-zone touchdown percentage 5 of the last 7 years. Finished third in '03 (62.7) and seventh in '01 (54.3) with Todd Pinkston and James Thrash as their starting wideouts. Finished 10th in '06 with Brown and Donté Stallworth as the starters. Also finished third in '04 with Pinkston and a guy named Terrell Owens.

What was missing from the Eagles' red-zone equation last year was production from the tight end position, particularly from starter L.J. Smith. Smith was hurt almost the entire season. Hampered by groin and knee injuries, he missed six games, wasn't anywhere close to 100 percent in the other 10 and caught a career-low 22 passes and one touchdown.

"I basically played half a season last year," Smith said. "The year before [in '06] all [five] of my touchdowns were in the red zone. The red zone is a chance for offensive coordinators to find that [coverage] mismatch when the defense brings in that extra linebacker or that extra defensive lineman in goal-line situations.

"You want to have a tight end to find the mismatch. That's the time to do it. For whatever reason, we couldn't get the job done last year. But hopefully I can kind of steer the ship straight, so to speak."

Smith may not yet have fulfilled all of the expectations the Eagles had for him when they selected him in the second round of the '03 draft. But he has been one of their most effective red-zone weapons during his five seasons in Philadelphia.

Smith's value to the Eagles was underscored in February when, just days before he would have become an unrestricted free agent, the team put the franchise player tag on him.

Smith is healthy again and eager to prove he is one of the league's better pass-catching tight ends. He had 111 receptions for nearly 1,300 yards and eight touchdowns in '05 and '06 before his injury-plagued season last year.

"I'm looking forward to it," Smith said during the Eagles' just-completed 3-day minicamp. "Because I feel a healthy me can only add another dimension to the offense that might have been missing last year.

"That's not to speak negatively on the other tight ends. I think they're great. But I just think I add something else to the offense where coach [Marty] Mornhinweg has something [different] to work with."

Both Mornhinweg and head coach Andy Reid are optimistic that the Eagles' red-zone production will be much better this year.

"I think we'll get back to where we were," Reid said. "But to say that's [just because of] all the skill guys, that's not necessarily the whole picture. It takes the whole team mixed in there, starting with me making sure we have the right plays in there, and the offensive line. You can't exclude those factors. But with the people we have, we should be able to get back to where we were productionwise, in the previous years."

Said Mornhinweg: "We need to do a better job in the red zone, with or without L.J. But he's an excellent player, and he should help us all over the field as well as in the red zone this next year. He's a great player." *

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