Paul Domowitch: Eagles injury report was short by one Abiamiri

ANDY REID generally is very diligent when it comes to providing injury information to the media. He's the only coach I've come across in nearly 3 decades of covering the NFL who regularly opens his news conferences with an injury report.

While coaches like the Patriots' Bill Belichick lie with regularity when it comes to the health of their players, Reid usually is a straight shooter.

So why then, you might ask, did it take Big Red almost 3 months to tell us last week that, oh, by the way, defensive end Victor Abiamiri had career-threatening microfracture surgery on his right knee in early February and might or might not play this season?

If you guessed that it must have just slipped his mind, go to the back of the line. If you guessed that he and the Eagles intentionally kept the severity of Abiamiri's injury under wraps so that no one would guess their draft strategy, you win a Donovan McNabb bobblehead.

"This is a competitive business," an Eagles executive said. "You don't want anyone knowing things they don't really need to know. And since we're not playing games in February and March, [Abiamiri's injury] wasn't something they needed to know about."

The oft-injured Abiamiri had his knee repaired on Feb. 9. There's no guarantee he will play again, and he almost certainly won't be ready for the start of the season.

Let's go back to the days before the draft when word first got out that the Eagles, who had the 24th pick in the first round, were looking to trade up. The popular thinking, both in NFL draft rooms and in the media, was that the Birds were looking to go up and snatch one of the draft's top two safeties, Tennessee's Eric Berry or Texas' Earl Thomas.

The Chiefs ended up selecting Berry with the fifth overall pick. But when the Eagles traded up with Denver to No. 13, it seemed a fait accompli that they would take Thomas. Instead, they took Michigan defensive end Brandon Graham.

A lot of people second-guessed them for taking an undersized pass rusher over a difference-making safety who would have been able to step in and start from Day 1. Many probably still are. But when they finally 'fessed up about Abiamiri, their reasoning at least became a lot clearer.

Of course, Reid isn't about to tell that there was any kind of subterfuge going on with respect to keeping his lips zipped regarding Abiamiri's surgery.

"That's not how I was thinking," he said, even as he fought not to smile.

In retrospect, we should have been smart enough to have figured it out for ourselves. If Abiamiri hadn't gotten hurt, the Eagles probably would have used him as their first- and second-down left end this season and then moved him inside to tackle in their nickel package.

In mid-March, they acquired veteran defensive end Darryl Tapp, who brings a lot of the same things to the table as Abiamiri, in a trade with Seattle. If Abiamiri had been healthy, that's probably a move the Eagles don't make.

At the league meetings in Orlando a week later, Reid was asked who the in-house candidates were to replace recently released Darren Howard as the pass-rushing tackle in their nickel package. He mentioned Trevor Laws, who fell out of favor last season and seldom played. He mentioned starting tackle Mike Patterson. He never mentioned Abiamiri.

After the draft, when asked which players wouldn't be able to participate in minicamp, he listed Abiamiri, but was purposely vague about his injury. Then last Friday, he finally came clean.

Did it benefit the Eagles to keep Abiamiri's injury a secret? Hard to say for sure, but probably yes. For starters, the Seahawks might have asked for a little more than Chris Clemons and a fourth-round pick in the Tapp trade if they realized how badly the Eagles were in need of a run-defending left end.

But the draft was when it really paid off. If other teams had had an inkling that they were trying to trade up to get Graham rather than Thomas, it's possible they would have had a more difficult time consummating the move-up. Or somebody else would have jumped up to Jacksonville's spot at 12 and taken Graham.

Other teams who were in the market for a defensive end, including the Giants who took Jason Pierre-Paul at No. 15, and the Titans, who took Derrick Morgan at No. 16, might have also tried to trade up to 12 or 13, depending on how they had the defensive ends stacked on their board.

"There's no question it would have put us at a potential disadvantage [if the extent of Abiamiri's injury had been known last week]," the Eagles executive said. "Anything that can allow you to execute your plans is helpful.

"We knew teams in that range were interested in taking defensive linemen. Everyone thought we were trading up for a safety. Even if we had made the trade with Denver [for the 13th pick] before the draft, people would have still thought we probably were trading up for a safety.

"It's all a cat-and-mouse game. It's fun as long as you're successful at it."

Send e-mail to pdomo@aol.com