His job is to keep Linc jumpin' and Eagles ready to spring to action

Don Smolenski looks down from his second-floor office windows at the bright green, unmarked expanse of the NovaCare practice fields.

A little too bright, a little too unmarked.

Usually by July, those fields have hosted a postdraft minicamp and a couple of rounds of "organized team activities," indistinguishable from minicamp to the naked eye. Yesterday, with no yard markings visible, they looked like meadows. Exquisitely manicured meadows. With Broad Street traffic rumbling past.

The fallow fields make Smolenski nervous. He is the Eagles' chief operating officer, responsible for the bottom line. In this offseason of the NFL lockout, Smolenski has been the busiest of the 198 or so Eagles employees at NovaCare, none of whom has been laid off or forced to work reduced hours, as has happened elsewhere in the league.

Smolenski is the guy in charge of trying to shoehorn more events into Lincoln Financial Field, in an effort to make up for lost lockout revenues.

"This will be our busiest summer since we opened the building" in 2003, Smolenski said, as he anticipated the imminent arrival of 113 tractor-trailers full of equipment that will be part of the the July 14 U2 concert, which precedes the July 23 soccer match between the Union and Real Madrid, which leads into the Aug. 6 Taylor Swift concert.

Smolenski is also the guy who will have to throw together training-camp logistics in a frenzy if the lockout ends in the next few weeks, which seems possible, perhaps even likely, from the generally optimistic tone of talks lately.

Right now, the Eagles still hope to have a normal Lehigh camp, Smolenski said, "but it definitely requires some setup time. It's definitely on people's minds, coming out of the July 4 break."

Lehigh, Smolenski said, "has been great and has been accommodating; they're going to do whatever it takes to be able to host us. I can say that holds true for all of the vendors that we work with - the vendors that provide the bleachers, the vendors that provide some of the netting and the fencing, the flooring for some of the tents . . . To whatever extent that they've been able to extend deadlines for deposits, they know we're good for it, and they've worked with us. That's helped us to be as flexible as we can be . . . If there are some additional costs associated with trying to scramble the people together in a hurry, that may come with the territory. That'll be worth it. That'll be a good thing."

Smolenski said the team has not set a "drop-dead date" for being able to hold camp at Lehigh. The school indicated earlier in the spring that it would like to know by now, but Lehigh hasn't told the Eagles to forget it.

"So far, the dialogue has been, 'We're going to go with it, we're going to do the best we can with whatever date comes,' " he said.

The Eagles have done a lot of preparation already, wishing and hoping to get the phone call that an agreement has been reached. "It's really just a matter of saying 'go,' " he said. "A lot of the work has been done - if you walk down to the training room, all their boxes are packed. It'll just sort of be the last push that will be intense."

Many observers feel that if an agreement isn't reached by the end of next week, the league will have to start canceling preseason games, which will be the biggest financial blow of a lockout that has been relatively painless so far for both sides. Smolenski wouldn't say what canceling a preseason game would mean to the Eagles.

"Nobody wants to get there. Everybody wants to play," Smolenski said.

Other than offseason training bonuses, players under contract haven't lost anything yet. And owners haven't lost much that they can't make back if the lockout ends soon.

"Certainly there's a direct impact on retail sales," Smolenski said. He declined to specify how much less money the Eagles have made this offseason from jersey and other merchandise sales. "Let's just say that retail sales have been noticeably less than what they would otherwise be, especially coming off the year that we had, with some of the marquee players," such as Michael Vick, LeSean McCoy and DeSean Jackson, who are still relatively early in their Eagles careers.

Smolenski remembered how strange it was back in March, when he went down to the training room and found tight end Brent Celek there, bidding farewell like a student ready to depart for the summer. The practice facility has been quiet ever since, except for that brief lifting of the lockout around the April draft, which now seems part of the distant past.

Like just about everybody not in the negotiations, Smolenski is powerless to determine his fate.

"I had a cabdriver the other day, he knew who I was, he was like, 'I hope they get this thing done,' " Smolenski said. "All you can say is, 'I hope so, too' . . . We've stayed busy, we've planned, we're ready to go. We just hope that can start soon."

For more Eagles coverage and opinion, read the Daily News' Eagles blog, Eagletarian, at www.eagletarian.com.

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