But we digress. Again, close your eyes. Pretend for a second that you are picturing an area of real improvement for the Eagles this season. Imagine what it looks like, how it might be different, how it might make things better.

It is hard to do it on offense. Because while they undoubtedly have spent the offseason drawing up packages involving Lorenzo Booker and DeSean Jackson as complements to Brian Westbrook - and it is almost certainly inventive stuff, because that is the best thing that Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg do - the problem is the injuries to wideouts Kevin Curtis (sports hernia surgery, out for an unspecified while) and Reggie Brown (nagged by a hamstring all summer, which followed an Achilles' problem). You wonder how much of the fun stuff they'll be able to do in the absence of health.

It is hard to imagine on defense, too. New cornerback Asante Samuel barely played this summer. The allegedly improved pass rush, adding to what All-Pro defensive end Trent Cole gives them, has been injured and iffy. Besides, defensive coordinator Jim Johnson isn't showing anything yet.

But close your eyes and see a kickoff return. See Quentin Demps. Hear the simple but effective philosophy.

"Just get it and go, baby," said Demps, a fourth-round draft choice out of Texas-El Paso.

"Just get it and go," he said. "Follow your blockers. Trust your blockers. Go."

Demps had a 101-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in last week's exhibition game at New England. Last night against the Jets he had another big one, a 51-yarder up the left sideline in the second quarter. He also had a 34-yarder in the second quarter.

The last couple of years, all the Eagles have been able to do with their return teams is aspire to average - and they often came up well short. Consider: 101 yards, 51 yards and 34 yards for Demps in just the last two exhibition games. Consider: All of last season, the Eagles' longest kickoff return was a 35-yarder by Correll Buckhalter.

Thirty-five yards. That is astoundingly impotent. But it isn't the worst stat. Here is another one to ponder: Only 13 times all season did the Eagles start a drive on the good side of the 50-yard line. Roll that one around in your head for a while. They had 176 drives last year. Thirteen started in a place with immediate possibilities. Thirteen.

Nobody really talked about it because nobody ever talks about special teams - except when they start dropping punts and costing themselves a game, as the Eagles did in the opener last year against Green Bay. They call them the game's invisible yards, but this stuff matters.

If the Eagles' offense is to get to the point where it needs to get, its life needs to be made easier. It needs better field position in general and gimme field position at least occasionally. Some of that is turnovers on defense, granted. But a lot of it is improvement in their return game and that is where a player like Demps can matter, significantly.

He isn't really ready to help them as a safety, Eagles coach Andy Reid said after the game, "but as a return man, he sure looks like he's got a little zip to him."

Of course, Demps' night was not perfect. Perfection is unlikely in this kind of a mess, and Demps was not immune. He will not be the punt returner in the opener against St. Louis - DeSean Jackson will - but Demps was trying to return a punt last night in the fourth quarter. He had to run hard to his right to catch it and the ball slipped cleanly through his outstretched hands, off one of his knees, and over to the Jets.

At first, Demps was going to say that took his eye off the ball, but stopped himself after "I took my . . . "

"I just wasn't in good position," he then said. "The next time, if it did happen again like that, I'd probably let that one go."

He is still learning. He says there remains plenty for him to work on, every day, every play, "carrying the ball, catching the ball, all of that." It is the danger, of course - youth, inexperience, learning when the games start to matter.

But what is the alternative? The upside is too important, and the zip is too real, even if the yards are invisible. *

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