The Eagles' season veered even farther off course yesterday with the news that the team's franchise running back, the key to the offense, was back at square one, starting rehab on a painful injury that threatens to keep him out of this week's game and limit his effectiveness even beyond that. Westbrook was injured six plays into his comeback from the ankle strain that had kept him out of the previous week's loss.

Westbrook got the MRI that told him the bad news at 6:30 yesterday morning, he told listeners to his ESPN (950-AM) radio show last night; he began taking treatment almost immediately, as he did with the ankle.

Westbrook said this would be similar to the ankle injury in that he would rehab all week, then make a game-time decision about playing Sunday in San Francisco, the Eagles' final game before their bye week.

"At the end of the day, you have to try to get a feel for what it's going to feel like," he said. "Can you stand that pain, and play with it, and be effective? Do I want to be out there at 45 percent and not willing to take a hit and hurting the team more than I'm helping it? No. I would rather have Correll Buckhalter, a proven running back, a guy who can get the job done, take over and carry this team. I wouldn't want to set the team back like that."

Given how sensitive ribs are, and the position Westbrook plays, it seems very unlikely he can be effective this week, as the 2-3 Birds try to stop the bleeding against the 2-3 49ers.

Westbrook said he wanted to clear up a misconception, that the pain shot he took to keep playing Sunday somehow made his ribs feel OK the rest of the way.

"Oh, my goodness, it doesn't," he said. "Every hit, you feel it. Every time you run, you turn, you feel it."

Westbrook was injured on a 5-yard run to the left side, during the Eagles' opening drive. He was upended by a low hit from Washington safety LaRon Landry and fell forward. Safety Chris Horton then landed on Westbrook, who got up quickly, adjusting his pads. Westbrook stayed in the game until he scored on a 9-yard run up the middle, but came right off the field to head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder, who took him to a treatment table behind the bench and began working on his chest.

Westbrook then jogged down the tunnel to the locker room, where he got the injection. He returned quickly and played the rest of the game, but was much less effective. At one point, Westbrook was chased down from behind by linebacker London Fletcher, a rare sight.

"It kind of went downhill from there," said Westbrook, who took a screen 17 yards on the game's first play and ran four times for 22 yards on that series. The rest of the afternoon he gained 34 more yards on five more receptions, and ran for just 11 more yards on eight more carries.

Westbrook made clear the difficulties of playing with damaged ribs.

"Everything that you do, it affects you," he said. "You turn left, turn right, you're affected. That's part of my game, trying to make people miss. You get hit on your left side, you feel it. You get hit on your right side, you feel it. As a player, you want to be able to do the things you can do to help this team, but it definitely limits the things you're able to do.

"It's one of those things that, it needs to heal. Unfortunately, the place it's injured doesn't get a lot of blood flow. That blood helps to heal you."

Westbrook suffered a rib fracture in a game in Cleveland back on Oct. 24, 2004. He sat out the next week, a home win over Baltimore. Westbrook returned for a road loss at Pittsburgh the week after that, but was ineffective, gaining just 17 yards on six carries and catching three passes for 4 yards. He seemed more or less back to normal the week after that.

Westbrook said that so far, this injury seems at least slightly less painful than that one.

Earlier yesterday, coach Andy Reid was asked about Westbrook playing in San Francisco. "We just have to see," Reid said. "We have to see how it works out and exactly the pain level there. Right now he's very sore, so we'll see how things go over the next few days."

Birdseed