CAN HEAR CLEARWATER CALLING
Andy Reid said he expects Brian Westbrook to be cleared to play against Denver on Sunday, although he said he won’t know for sure until tomorrow. "Right now it looks pretty good,” Reid said.
Westbrook has been working with the scout team.
“Just watching him the last couple of weeks at practice, the next step, if all goes well is to get him back in the game and see what he can do there,” Reid said during his day-after news conference. “He’ll have limited reps and see how he feels and evaluate it as he goes.”
Reid said the team will keep track of how many plays Westbrook would be in the game for. It also will be interesting to watch how the Eagles re-integrate Westbrook in the offense, given the success that LeSean McCoy and Leonard Weaver have had in the run game.
Reid said Westbrook will have “fresh legs.” But Westbrook has not played since Nov. 15 and that could make it tough to jump right back into action.
“When you have great players that helps you win a little bit more,” Reid said. “We’re not going to get worse with Brian Westbrook coming back.
“I think it’s good for everybody. It’s good for him. It’s good for the team. He’s a good football player.”
There was not much celebrating by the Eagles when they clinched a playoff spot with yesterday’s win over San Francisco. And that is just the way Reid wants it.
“There’s so much still on the line that you have to stay focused on Denver and exhaust yourself there, and that’s kind of how I approached it last night and through the morning,” Reid said.
Of the playoffs, Reid said, “I know it’s there and I know that’s real, but at the same time we have two good teams coming in that we know we are going to play. We’ve got one of them coming into Philadelphia, the Denver Broncos, so it’s important that all of our effort is put forth there. Obviously, as coaches we have started that today, but not to look ahead to the playoffs, that’s when you get into trouble."
On the injury front, Reid said wide receiver Jeremy Maclin would be eased back into practice after missing Sunday’s game with a torn plantar fascia.
Michael Vick is “pretty sore” with a quad contusion. “We got on it right away during the game and then after the game he was taking care of it too. We’ll see how he does. It’s pretty sore right now."
Quintin Demps is day to day with a slight ankle sprain.
*
Meanwhile in Denver, the Broncos are trying to recover from a late loss to Oakland that largely took their playoff fate out of their own hands.
Coach Josh McDaniels was asked about his team's mental state coming off the loss.
“We put ourselves in a situation where we’ve got to win two games and see what happens," he said. "There are a lot of teams that aren’t in this situation. If we’re concerned about our mental state now, we’ve got other issues. We’re excited about the opportunity that we have.”
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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