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Eagles working to have a positive influence on Green-Beckham

When Dorial Green-Beckham landed at Philadelphia International Airport last week, he was greeted by Eagles employees Quintin Mikell and Dom DiSandro.

When Dorial Green-Beckham landed at Philadelphia International Airport last week, he was greeted by Eagles employees Quintin Mikell and Dom DiSandro.

It was no surprise that they were the first faces from the organization to meet the new Eagles receiver. Mikell, who played in Philadelphia for the first eight of his 11 NFL seasons, is the team's director of player engagement. And DiSandro, who did most of the pre-trade background legwork on Green-Beckham, is the Eagles' vice president of team security.

Both, in their own way, will help to keep Green-Beckham on the straight and narrow and to assimilate the talented but troubled receiver into the Eagles and a new city. But the 23-year-old would be wise to spend more time in the office of Mikell so that he doesn't get called into DiSandro's office.

Mikell's job, in part, is to give players the resources to make the sometimes-difficult transition from college to the NFL. But there is almost as much counseling. That's why the Eagles locate his office - Harold Carmichael held the post for many years - between the locker room and the practice fields.

But it takes a village. And for Green-Beckham, who spent many of his formative years in foster homes for the neglected and abused before being adopted by his high school coach and his wife, acceptance is a big piece of the familial pie.

"I feel like the whole team accepted me. Since Day 1 everybody was glad that I was here," Green-Beckham said this week. "Everybody accepted me. They treated me like a brother. For me, that's big because then I feel more like this is a family and we all have each other's backs."

It's on the Eagles as a whole, as Howie Roseman noted after he dealt for Green-Beckham on Aug. 16, to "rally around" the receiver and give him "a support system." Mikell, DiSandro, and other staffers such as Brian Dawkins, who was recently named football operations executive, will aid Green-Beckham off the field, while Doug Pederson, his coaches, and the players will assist him in the meeting rooms and between the lines.

"We are not in the rehabilitation business," Pederson said recently. "But at the same time, we feel like with the staff . . . and with the personnel staff upstairs, that we can bring guys in that might have had a little bit of a history and we can help these players not only become young men, but become good football players."

Green-Beckham's history with off-the-field incidents isn't long, but during a two-year stretch at Missouri he was arrested twice for marijuana possession and for allegedly pushing his way past a woman and causing her to fall down at least four stairs. The woman declined to press charges, but Green-Beckham was still kicked off the football team.

He's apparently been trouble-free since that April 2014 episode. But the Tennessee Titans didn't give up on their 2015 second-round draft pick after only one season without reason. It's not as if they didn't give him a similar foundation as the Eagles intend to provide.

Former player Tre' Rollins serves as their director of player engagement. Green-Beckham also had veteran receivers such as Andre Johnson and Harry Douglas to use as resources. He said he considered them mentors, but didn't use player engagement services "a whole lot."

"I knew what I was supposed to be doing . . . putting in extra time," Green-Beckham said. "But here me being situated in a new area, in a new place, then it's kind of like I need somebody like that that I can go talk to and ask questions for."

Titans general manager Jon Robinson and coach Mike Mularkey cited Green-Beckham's inconsistency when asked to explain why they dealt him for veteran offensive lineman Dennis Kelly, but it's clear that his work ethic, or lack thereof, played a role.

"That's doing things when nobody's watching," Mularkey said before the trade. "That's in the classroom. I think it's just putting the work in without being directed by anybody, doing it yourself. . . . [Green-Beckham] does do it. I'd do it more."

The Eagles are obviously hoping that a new environment will change Green-Beckham's habits. Former Eagles receiver Greg Lewis will be his position coach. There isn't a receiver older than 26, but Jordan Matthews would be the ideal player to emulate. The third-year receiver is among the hardest workers on the team.

Matthews is a meticulous note-taker. Nelson Agholor hasn't exactly seen the fruits of his labor on game days, but he also has a stellar reputation in the classroom. Green-Beckham has sat next to Agholor and said that he has picked both players' brains over the last week.

"Him being a young guy, we can break him into this culture and say, 'OK, this is how we do things here,' " Matthews said.

He added, "You do that over time, then when people see good things happen for you they say, 'OK, I might want to try what that guy is doing.' . . . I don't know if Dorial had that at Missouri or Tennessee, but I want to make sure he has that here with me."

Pederson and his coaches are limiting Green-Beckham's playbook as he gets acclimated. He's playing only the "X" receiver spot and has been given a few plays to learn. He should get some snaps with the first-team offense when the Eagles travel to play the Colts for the third preseason game on Saturday.

Green-Beckham had difficulty knowing at times where to line up with the Titans. He struggled with routes that had multiple options based on coverages. The Eagles offense is vastly different from the Titans' both in scheme and terminology.

"He's not where you want him to be, obviously, with the terminology of the offense," Pederson said. "That's why we're going to keep it very simple and keep it to one position for him as a receiver. Put a little package together, two, three, four plays, and just let him go play."

Even with all of his problems, Green-Beckham still caught 32 passes for 549 yards and four touchdowns as a rookie. There might not be another young receiver in the NFL who can match his combination of size (6-foot-5, 230 pounds) and speed (4.4-second 40-yard dash).

It's almost always been that way for the St. Louis native. Green-Beckham was a three-sport star (football, basketball, track) as early as his freshman year at Hillcrest High in Springfield, Mo. It was around that time that Green-Beckham and his brother, Darnell, were taken in by John Beckham and his wife, Tracy.

Green-Beckham had been shuffling among foster homes for years. His birth mother, he has said, had a substance abuse problem. The brothers once lived in a van for a month. The Beckhams, who had fostered more than 20 children, eventually adopted both Dorial and Darnell.

Green-Beckham has said it saved his life. He's off to another challenge, however. He said he flew to Philly without packing much. His 1-year-old son, Drelyn, is back home. The Eagles will be his family for the time being.

Mikell declined to go into detail about his conversations with Green-Beckham or how the Eagles plan to incorporate the receiver into the team's culture, but he summed up their services in a text message.

"It's just as simple as this," Mikell said. "He is family and we treat him as such."

The rest is up to Green-Beckham.

jmclane@phillynews.com

@Jeff_McLane