IS BUYING CROSS-COUNTRY SKIS
CERTAIN GROUPINGS become familiar enough to seem permanent. The Art Museum anchors one end of the Parkway, City Hall the other. Gaze north up the Delaware on a clear day from the middle of the Walt Whitman Bridge, you know you'll see the pale-blue span of the Ben Franklin.
That's how it has been with the Eagles' offensive line and its tackles, Tra Thomas and Jon Runyan. One hundred thirty-four regular-season games, the Birds played with those very large, talented men bracketing the guards and the center. They were a big part of the foundation of Andy Reid's success. Reid inherited Thomas, drafted 11th overall in 1998, the year before the coach arrived. Runyan was Reid's first big free-agent addition, in 2000 - a tough, durable soldier whose mean streak was legendary.
The next 3 years, the only change along the line was when Hank Fraley replaced injured center Bubba Miller, in 2001. The Eagles talked up stability and cohesiveness as keys to the line's performance.
But when the veterans report to Lehigh on Wednesday, there will be no Thomas or Runyan. In an offseason of significant change for the Birds, nothing changed more than the offensive line. Stacy Andrews was the key free-agent signing that allowed Reid to move Stacy's brother, Shawn, to Runyan's right-tackle spot. Runyan became a free agent at 35 and had microfracture knee surgery that has kept him from working out for potential employers. Thomas, a year younger, also was allowed to drift into free agency and found himself signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Eagles replaced him by trading for Buffalo Pro Bowl tackle Jason Peters.
If the configuration remains as Reid envisions it - Stacy Andrews has yet to experience contact rehabbing from ACL surgery near the end of last season - only left guard Todd Herremans and center Jamaal Jackson would occupy the same spots as a year ago. With the Eagles being touted as Super Bowl contenders, it seems relevant to mention that none of their prospective offensive-line starters played in Super Bowl XXIX, 4 1/2 years back.
Expectations are high, though.
"We're going to try to be the dominant line in the league," Peters said recently. "We've got some big guys. Big, athletic guys, not just big guys."
That much is apparent even to Runyan, who is watching from afar these days.
"Definitely, they've added some athletic, big guys that can play offensive line," he said. "Now the thing is to go out and get the reps, get the experience and put all that together. If you have guys banged up and guys in and out, it's not going to gel like it could. When I first got here, it seemed like we played 3 or 4 years with the same five guys out there all the time, and that made huge strides with how we performed as a line."
The Boston Globe recently noted that only 16 of 32 NFL teams will enter training camp with the same top five offensive linemen they fielded last season. The Patriots are one of those teams, and their left tackle, Matt Light, talked to the Globe about why he thinks that's a big plus.
"The obvious part is the familiarity," Light said. "It's not impossible, but it's a heck of a learning curve trying to get used to playing next to another guy and all the mistakes that come with that. When you've been able to keep a group together, you are able to get through camp so much easier. You're able to install things quicker."
The Football Outsiders Almanac 2009 said this about the Birds' changes up front: " . . . our research indicates that the best offensive lines are the ones that experience continuity, so while Philadelphia has added superior talent with their free agent acquisitions, it may take a season for that talent to gel into a superior line."
In spring organized team activities, the Eagles' "new" line didn't get a lot of work together. Stacy Andrews was able to participate only in a few days of drills at the very end. That will be the crucial task at Lehigh - making all these parts fit together smoothly. Obviously, nobody involved wants to contemplate the possibility of it taking an entire season.
As Reid, a former Brigham Young guard, put it recently: "Those five guys have to be dancing the same dance. That will take time. There are a couple of new pieces in that puzzle there. That's what training camp's for. By the time we get out of training camp, they'll be in sync."
This will be a big test for vaunted offensive-line coach Juan Castillo, known mainly for developing guys who weren't top draft picks into solid contributors. It would have been nice to have gotten Castillo's thoughts on building offensive-line cohesiveness, but the Eagles don't allow assistant coaches below the coordinator level to talk to reporters for that sort of story.
The way Herremans sees it, Reid and general manager Tom Heckert already took care of the hardest part of building a top-flight line; Castillo is just handling the details.
"I think getting all the pieces together was the biggest process," Herremans said. "We've got that done, now it will just be a matter of spending time together, getting to know how each other plays. We shouldn't have any problem. Everybody's getting along with each other. Everybody's athletes. Athleticism can make up for flaws in technique, but you know Juan's going to have us drilling technique until the day's end, every day."
Herremans has taken to the task of helping the other guard, Stacy Andrews, adjust to a new system, after 5 years in Cincinnati.
"I work one-on-one with him every day. Todd's the man," Andrews said.
"Sometimes Juan's got all these guys out here, he doesn't have hours to spend with every person," Herremans said. "I'll just show him through the steps, tell him where he wants to put his head, and stuff."
