Just about every day for more than a week now, it's been something. Brian Westbrook's new agent. Westbrook's contract. Lito Sheppard's new agent. Sheppard's contract. Asante Samuel straining a hamstring in his first workout. Shawn Andrews' mysterious absence.

You almost tend to forget No. 5 is here, or at least, tend to forget that his future with the Eagles seems to be hanging on a big comeback season, and that the Birds' playoff hopes also are predicated on that premise.

There is no McNabb controversy this year, though. No sniping superstar wideout. No injury comeback. The whole Kevin Kolb-looking-over-McNabb's-shoulder angle is no longer fresh.

For once, McNabb can just run the offense - he looks really fit and pretty sharp, by the way - without having every throw and every gesture endlessly dissected. It must be nice.

"I still feel like I'm a part of [the camp controversy scene] because I get asked questions about it, but it's nothing that really deals with me, so it feels pretty good," McNabb allowed yesterday. "Ten years, this may be the first time I don't have to answer questions about myself. If you guys could keep it that way, it would be excellent."

McNabb said that he knew it wasn't going to happen, which is the kind of perspective you get on Eagles Nation in your 10th season. No, as the season gets closer, all this other stuff will be resolved or will fade from the headlines, and McNabb will be right back in the crosshairs. All he can do is get ready for it, which might partly explain why McNabb ran sprints on his own following the Monday afternoon workout. That was the day McNabb and a few other "30-plus" veterans got the morning off, but McNabb, who looks as fit as he has been in recent memory, didn't seem to really need a breather yet.

This is quite different from a year ago, when McNabb was able to practice on his surgically repaired ACL, but he clearly didn't have a lot of confidence in his ability to plant hard and throw accurately. In fact, McNabb was well into the second half of the disappointing 2007 season before he started showing that confidence, before he seemed at ease in the pocket.

"It's a big change, as far as the way the body is responding after each practice, the warmup techniques of getting yourself together in practice, and just kind of how I'm feeling out there," McNabb said. "I'm using my legs a lot. That's something I focused on all throughout this offseason, with the release and ball placement and things of that nature. I think it's worked out really well so far."

Eagles coach Andy Reid said yesterday that McNabb "looks sharp right now, very confident with his body. He feels healthy and strong, and he's playing very well right now."

Teammates have noticed, as well.

"I'm not watching his every move; I'm out there running routes," wideout Kevin Curtis said. "But I'm seeing that ball coming to me, and he's throwing the ball well."

Last month, Reid seemed to set the bar pretty high for McNabb this season.

"We're all pulling for that great Super Bowl win, and he can do that. He can lead this team to a Super Bowl win," Reid said then. "He's 31 years old, and he's in a position, mentally and physically, where he can do that."

Yesterday, a reporter doing a story on McNabb's left tackle, Tra Thomas, asked McNabb if he thought it was important to have Thomas back next year - Thomas, right tackle Jon Runyan and soon-to-be-35-year-old free safety Brian Dawkins all are in the final year of their contracts. If the plug is pulled on the McNabb era at the end of this season, it likely will be pulled on some other stalwarts, as well.

"I would like to be back here, too," McNabb joked, gingerly. "We both would like to be back. I've been fortunate enough to have Tra all throughout my career. Not too many quarterbacks can say that they had their blindside, and really, their frontside tackles . . . pretty much throughout the duration of their career." Runyan arrived in 2000, before McNabb's first full season as the starter. "You just have a great feel with each other . . . I think this is going to be a great year for all of those guys, including myself."

If McNabb is healthy, the question then becomes what it always has been in such times - does he have the weapons at hand to get the job done? The quarterback asked for weapons to be added at the end of last season, and at nearly every interview opportunity since then, he has been asked about the progress of that push. The question came up again yesterday.

"You never have enough weapons," McNabb said, smiling and rolling his eyes, presumably to defuse any potential controversy from his remarks. "Our guys are doing well, and the good thing for us is that we get a good opportunity, with being healthy, to be at that full game-speed tempo . . . again, with the addition of [nifty running back Lorenzo] Booker and when [hamstrung rookie wideout] DeSean [Jackson] gets an opportunity to get to full speed, and I get a chance to work on some timing with him - offensively, I think our rhythm is kind of where we need it to be right now, and I think we'll continue to get better."

Booker seems to be an excellent pass catcher, and a quick study - he made going out to Arizona a few weeks ago to work with his new QB a priority. Jackson, on the other hand, has missed minicamp and training-camp time with a hamstring issue. He has done nothing to ease fears that his drop from being projected in the midfirst round of the April draft to 49th overall, in the second round, where the Birds got him, had as much to do with work ethic as with size.

"He needs to get healthy and get back out there, is what he needs to do," Reid said, when asked about Jackson, the best hope the Birds have for a difference-maker in their cast of wideouts. "This is a challenge for wide receivers, that first year, and you have to push yourself through these things, so that's what he's working on right now." *