Bob Ford: Eagles' Sims fired up to face old team

Motivation is not a problem for Eagles linebacker Ernie Sims. He can whip himself into a dangerous, speeding projectile during any given practice for the slightest of reason. It doesn't take much.

In training camp, Sims had difficulty sorting out the difference between the contact and the noncontact drills, or maybe he just didn't care much for the latter. So, to keep the confusion to a minimum, he simply hit people as hard as he could on every play and apologized later. He had to do a bunch of apologizing.

Now it is the regular season and Sims doesn't have to be sorry for his enthusiasm, at least not on Sundays. He can hit the opponents as hard as helikes when he catches them, which was only four times in the opener against the Packers. Still, the season is young.

This Sunday, when the team bus rolls up to Ford Field in Detroit, Sims won't have to invent his motivation for the afternoon. In fact, Sims might not need the team bus to get from the team hotel to the stadium. He might just camp out and wait for the game.

The Detroit Lions traded Sims away - the Detroit Lions! - and there is a part of Ernie Sims that would like to make his former organization regret that decision.

"Oh, yeah. There's a part of me. All part of me wants to prove them wrong," Sims said after practice this week. "Who wouldn't? They traded me for whatever reason, and my competitive nature is that I want to prove them wrong."

It wasn't like being dismissed from a perennial contender that must choose among all the talented players on the roster and must discard one or two. The Detroit Lions were last in overall defense in 2009, ranked 32d out of the 32 teams. You get traded away under those circumstances and it's as if the team is screaming, "Here's the problem. Man, we've got to get rid of this guy."

That's not the sort of thing that sits well with Sims. He drew his eyebrows together and narrowed his eyes when it was brought up to him. Sunday cannot come soon enough.

"Me being an emotional player, I can't hide that," Sims said. "But I think in the end, I'll calm down and make plays. That's how it's going to be."

That was also the plan when the Lions took Sims out of Florida State with the ninth overall pick in the 2006 draft. He made his plays for three consecutive seasons of 16 starts, compiling 456 tackles in that time. Last season, he missed five games with shoulder and hamstring injuries, and his numbers went down. And that was that, after all he had gone through with the team. The Lions traded him to the Eagles three days before the 2010 draft.

In his four seasons in Detroit, the Lions were 12-52, including an embarrassing 0-16 in 2008. The franchise hasn't made the playoffs since 1999, and is the only NFC team without a postseason appearance since the league expanded to 32 teams in 2002. And they got rid of him? It's enough to make a guy pretty angry.

"I'd be lying if I said I haven't been thinking about it this week. I actually woke up more eager," he said. "I've been waiting for this for a long time."

There is something else Sims has been waiting for a long time, and it is another of those subjects that makes him draw his brow line together and look at you through hooded eyes when it happens to come up. The man hasn't played in a winning football game that matters since Dec. 23, 2007. Yikes.

That was the second-to-last game of the 2007 season, a 25-20 win over Kansas City. Since then, the Lions have won only two games, and Sims missed both of them because of injury. Counting last week's loss to Green Bay, Sims is on a 0-for-29 streak in games he has played. His personal losing streak could be broken this week, however, and, imagine that, it would happen against the Detroit Lions, of all teams.

"That would be amazing," Sims said. "I feel my time in Detroit was a good learning experience for me. I grew up as a football player and as a man. I can't take anything away from what I learned in Detroit, but I can't wait for this game. It's going to be awkward, seeing my old teammates across the field, but my emotions are going to take over and I know I'm going to be trash-talking out there, and everything else is going to take care of itself."

And by that, of course, he means getting a win. He still remembers what those feel like.

"It was real frustrating in Detroit. When you don't win, it kind of takes the fun away from the game. That's what was happening to me in Detroit. Football wasn't fun anymore," he said.

Winning is fun. Hitting people is fun. Putting the two together is a lot of fun. That is what Ernie Sims would like to have Sunday afternoon in Detroit: a lot of fun. He can't really wait.

"I think it might be possible I'm going to get wound up," Sims said.

No kidding.