For Eagles, more than a win at stake vs. Chiefs

KANSAS CITY - The Eagles still have those 13 drafted rookies, plus a handful of undrafted newcomers, who remain in the hunt for roster spots. For several players, this youth wave is bound to have a ripple effect, endangering what looked to be secure positions a month ago, when training camp began.

Moise Fokou and Macho Harris, for example, started for the Birds as rookies last year, but after position changes, neither seems to have a clearly defined role on the team that is scheduled to face the host Kansas City Chiefs in a preseason game tonight. And tonight figures to provide them little clarification, with the starters set to play about three quarters.

Is veteran backup linebacker Omar Gaither safe? What about tight end Cornelius Ingram, whose knee-fluid problem now has been traced to a Baker's cyst, drained yesterday? With the coaches gushing over rookie defensive ends Brandon Graham and Daniel Te'o-Nesheim, could Darryl Tapp be in danger of not making the team?

Fokou began camp as the starting strongside linebacker, but after the first day of live hitting, defensive coordinator Sean McDermott stuck Akeem Jordan in that spot. McDermott clearly is pleased with how Jordan is playing. Fokou, meanwhile, found himself shuffled to the bottom of the defensive end rotation, trying to learn how to play with his hand down for the first time in his career. Lately he is splitting time between d-end and linebacker.

Fokou is still the quick, aggressive young player the coaching staff liked so well last season, when he was a seventh-round rookie from Maryland, the guy they stuck with through a bunch of special-teams penalties, usually written off to his fierce, high-motor style. But now the coaches have other quick, aggressive young guys to work with.

"I have no idea," Fokou said this week, when asked whether he knows where he stands. "It's been a shaky couple of weeks, moving around from SAM to d-end to 'joker' [a standup pass rusher] and everything, but you just show up every day and keep doing what you're doing. That's how I look at it. I'm still focusing on the strongside linebacker position, and at the same time, I think they're trying to find other ways I can help the team. The more you can do, the better . . . I like to look at it positively, but you don't know where their mind is, what the decision's going to be . . . keep working hard, playing hard, make them make a decision at the end. I'm in the blind, just like you guys."

Fokou said something many players in his position have said over the years - that it does him no good to sit around looking at the roster, counting this many d-ends and this many linebackers, parsing who has to go for him to stay.

"You do that and your focus goes away," he said. "You've just got to focus on what you're here for. We're young and very talented. We have a very deep camp. It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out."

Gaither is in the same linebacker crunch, though he isn't being loaned out to the defensive line. He is wondering at idle moments whether he might find himself starting the season in another uniform, one way or another.

"You never know . . . I'm a good solid backup who, in my eyes, can start, but anything can happen," Gaither said. "A lot of guys who don't make it here, it seems like they make it elsewhere, and they play, and they play well. The Eagles just do a great job of getting talent in. It's almost like an overload sometimes. The linebacker position is another example of that this year. You never know what'll happen. Right now I'm the 2 - the first linebacker off the bench - but if somebody makes them the right offer, who knows?"

Right there, Gaither raised an interesting point. The Birds are awash in defensive ends and linebackers, but other teams say the Eagles are beating the bushes for a veteran tight end to add to their group. This quest isn't exactly a secret; offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg has been talking about it since early on at Lehigh. Tight ends will come loose when teams cut their rosters, but if you want a guy a little better than that, or you just want to make sure you have dibs, a trade that sends a veteran reserve to greener pastures might be a good solution.

A tight-end move could affect Ingram, who conceded this is "definitely not" the comeback preseason he had in mind, after tearing the same ACL in his left knee each of the previous 2 years. A move to injured reserve, which would end his season, seems possible, or he could be cut and brought back to the practice squad. Ingram is not eligible for the physically unable to perform list, since he has participated in camp.

Tapp had designs on the starting spot opposite Trent Cole when the Eagles acquired him from the Seahawks back in March and signed him for 3 years at $9 million. Graham has taken that starting spot. Tapp seems mainly scheduled to play behind Cole. He has had a relatively quiet camp.

"Wherever they need me; I've been working at a lot of different positions, so we'll see," Tapp said, when asked where he fits in.

"Definitely," Tapp said, when asked whether he thought the coaches were happy with his work so far. "It's been a big transition. They've been happy with the progress I continue to make . . . I don't think it's [been] everything you could ask for, but it's coming, though. Trying to get more comfortable in the defensive scheme, what they ask me to do."

Harris was the Week 1 free safety starter a year ago, as a fifth-round rookie. That was a desperate move that didn't work out great. In the offseason he was moved back to his college position, cornerback, but hamstring problems have dogged him throughout the preseason. He is scheduled to play tonight.

"All I can control is, while I'm here, do what I can do," said Harris, who has thought about the implications of not having a defined role. Joselio Hanson and Dimitri Patterson seem to be the top corner reserves, with fourth-round rookie Trevard Lindley working in. "Anything else, that's on the coaches. I haven't really talked to them about it. I'm focusing on getting healthy. I'm feeling real good now."

Eagles players are off tomorrow, and fullback Leonard Weaver will spend his day at his alma mater. Carson-Newman College, in Jefferson City, Tenn., will celebrate Leonard Weaver Day as it kicks off its season against Winona State . . . Hard to say what the Baker's cyst diagnosis means for Cornelius Ingram. It's not like he tore his ACL again, but apparently the cyst is associated with arthritis and cartilage damage, not a great omen for a 25-year-old pro football player.

For more Eagles coverage and opinion,

read the Daily News' Eagles blog, Eagletarian,

at www.eagletarian.com.

Follow him on Twitter

at http://twitter.com/LesBowen.