"It wasn't even at 50 percent" by game time in San Diego, Peters said, but "I'll be ready this Sunday." He was unable to practice last week.

The other key injury victim with uncertain status, weakside linebacker Akeem Jordan, did not have positive news to report. Jordan was unable to practice with a hyperextended knee.

"You never know," Jordan said, when asked whether he might play. He wasn't smiling. "That's up to the trainers and coaches. There's always a chance."

Brown also referenced the training staff, in a more upbeat context.

"We have a great training staff, and they got on it right away when it happened" during Sunday's loss to the Chargers, he said. "I feel a lot better . . . I've got a good chance" of playing.

Brown said the games-played streak doesn't mean much to him, except in how his absence would affect his teammates. (Greatly, at the moment, with corner Ellis Hobbs out for the season with a neck injury and corner Joselio Hanson suspended for taking a banned diuretic.)

"For me, I care about the guys I play with, and I feel like I'm an important piece to that whole puzzle. That's why I've played through some things," he said, including a 2003 sports hernia that was operated on after the season. "It's for the guys that go to training camp with me, and stuff like that."

When Brown departed early in the second half Sunday, the Eagles were left with Dimitri Patterson playing opposite Asante Samuel. Patterson had participated in three Eagles games, almost exclusively on special teams, no outside coverage at all. Taking Patterson's place inside, on slot receivers, was Ramzee Robinson, on his fifth day with the team, having been signed in the wake of the Hobbs and Hanson situations.

"It felt more like 3 or 4" days on the roster, Robinson joked yesterday. "It wasn't hard from a physical standpoint, because at the end of the day, football is football."

The part about not knowing much about the Eagles' defense was a little trickier, he acknowledged, though he said secondary coach Brian Stewart "did a great job, bringing me along as quickly as possible."

"That's the thing about being a professional," Robinson said. "You have to be able to come into a situation like that and seize the moment. It's really no excuses to it . . . I was able to do a pretty good job."

Robinson was cut before the season by the Lions.

"This defense is very different from the schemes we played in Detroit," he said. "It is its own animal, which shows me why this defense has been so successful throughout the years . . . I'm really excited about it."

Video review

 

Donovan McNabb was asked about the way TV cameras caught him, after one of the Eagles' failed red-zone excursions, turning toward the sideline and seeming to yell "just run the ball," or something similar.

"I'm a football player. I want to score," McNabb said. "Do I remember that? I don't know. I've said a lot of different things through the course of the game. I'm sure they might have clips of it, they might not. But again, it's about winning ballgames, and I want to do whatever it takes to have a win."

Asked about the rollout play to the left that the Chargers were all over, an incompletion to Brent Celek on second-and-goal from the 1 in the second quarter, McNabb said that if the Eagles had it to do over again, "we wouldn't roll to the left. We would never roll it to the left."

Birdseed

 

Being fourth in the NFL in penalty yardage is "ridiculous," Andy Reid said. "That's something you can control . . . There's one side of it where you've coached teams where you have to really motivate them to play hard, but this group here, there are times when you just have to back them off and tell them there's a time and place for everything" . . . Safety Macho Harris sat out yesterday with an eye infection, but should be OK for the game . . . Wide receiver Kevin Curtis (knee) is out this week . . . Safety Quintin Demps (ankle) did not practice. *