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Jules talks with Brent Celek 6-5-10 Jules: Brent thanks for taking the time to sit down with me here at ITE. I'm excited to have you the opportunity to talk to you. Brent: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. JULES: Having been born and raised in Cincinnati how have you adjusted to Philly life and how do you like it? Do you go back to your hometown in the off-season? Brent: I like it a lot more. There is a lot more going on in the city as opposed to the suburbs. I do go back to my hometown to visit my family in the off-season. JULES: I'm sure you have tried out a few cheese steak places here. Any favorite? Brent: Jim's is definitely my favorite, Jules. JULES: Nice, ok that's enough of the warm up conversation; let's talk some football because that is what the fans care about most. And of course the biggest change is at the QB position and that not only affects the team but you. What kind of relationship do you have with Kevin? What kind of adjustments to your game do you think you will have to make? Brent: I have a good relationship with Kevin. We came to the team in the same draft class. When neither of us were starting we had a lot of time to work and practice together which I feel has given us enough chemistry to where I won't have too many adjustments to make come game time. JULES: Do you think your role on the field will change in any way? More or less balls thrown your way? Brent: If Coach Reid and Coach Mornhinweg think that it will help us win games then I will see more balls thrown my way. JULES: I realize that losing Donovan was a big change for the team but how do you think the team will adjust to the loss of McNabb and do you think the Eagles will continue to be successful? Brent: Of course I think that we will be successful. Don was a great player and he will be missed but the assumption that we cannot be successful without him is motivation for us. JULES: The Eagles are a very young team now. How do you feel being part of a younger group of guys? Do you see yourself taking on more of a Leadership role with this team? Brent: It feels good because the future is ours. I definitely want to be a leader. I hope to be the type of player and person the new guys can count on for guidance on and off the field. JULES: Brent, the fans love the intensity you bring with your game, do you have any personal goals for the new season? Brent: My personal goal is to help my team reach our goal of winning the Superbowl. JULES: What would any interview be without mentioning the Captain Morgan celebration pose? I think all of the fans really liked it, are you working on some new material for the upcoming season. Obviously, one that won't get you fined by the league or a penalty. Brent: I have a couple of legal but hopefully still entertaining things in mind, keep an eye out. JULES: Brent, you have been a great sport, as we wrap up here can you give me a juicy controversial quote that will make ITE get some big time exposure? Just kidding. But one last question. What do think of passion of the Philly fans? Brent: I have never seen anything like it. The passion that the Philly fans have only adds the passion we have as players. JULES: Thanks for sitting with me and giving me some of your time. Good luck in the upcoming season. Brent: My pleasure. Thank you very much. You can follow Brent on Twitter @BrentCelek or on Facebook too.
McNabb out, Kolb in. A new era begins...Justin Boylan 4-8-10 Monday was a big enough sports day already. The Phillies began their season in Washington with newly acquired Roy Halladay on the mound. He pitched 7 innings, gave up 6 hits and stuck out 9 batters. The Nationals only run was courtesy of a missed call at second base (Jimmy Rollins held the tag on Nyjer Morgan, whose foot came off the bag, the ump missed it and Ryan Zimmerman knocked him in with a double). The Phillies offense was on fire, Ryan Howard and Placido Polanco (welcome back) went yard and three other Phils knocked in runs including Halladay. Started the season out right with an 11-1 rout. Between innings of the Phillies game Tiger Woods was on ESPNEWS live from the Masters (wait there's more). He answered questions for about a half hour and sounded more like a person and less like the robot we saw at his awkward public statement in Florida. I for one am excited to see him play again, I think once he gets out there everything is going to melt away and he's going to fall right back into the game he owns. The nightcap was the NCAA National Championship. Butler-Duke? (Ugh.) A great tournament but Butler cost me $180 (I had Michigan State winning it all), and Duke is well, Duke. So the rooting interest wasn't there but at least the game was entertaining. I had a feeling throughout the first half that Butler didn't have enough magic left for the entire game, Duke looked better and is better. It had two of the “great college players but can't see it working at the next level” stars in Gordon Hayward and Kyle Singler, who each played all 40 minutes and led their team in scoring. Hayward had two chances to win the game. I can see it now, the baby-faced sophomore runs down the court in slow motion, big smile, embraces his coach, Duke stunned. Nope, not this year, this is a year where the Yankees, Lakers and Blue Devils win championships. Depressing. See? Monday had enough going on, so Sunday night when the news broke that Donovan McNabb was traded to the Washington Redskins my mind couldn't wrap around it. Everyone was expecting the move to go down during the draft and Oakland or Buffalo made up the short list I was looking at. For the trade to go down on Easter and for the Eagles to ship McNabb to D.C., can only be described as a shocker. Bigger shock? What we got in return, that list that had Oakland and Buffalo on it also said the Eagles were looking at a third- or fourth-rounder for the quarterback that took the Birds to five NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl. Then reports came out that the Eagles wanted a top-42 pick for McNabb (I call BS on that one, an anonymous team source leaking the info to the media? Please). I can't believe I'm typing this, but the Eagles got the 37 th pick in this draft and either a third- or fourth-round pick next year. Impressive to say the least, ignore McNabb's new team for the moment. With this move the Eagles now have the 24 th and 37 th pick, and a total of 11 picks in the draft at the end of the month, the most in the league. Before the trade the Eagles had at least four needs on the defensive side of the ball and three quality quarterbacks. Now they have the ammo to fill those needs and look past the quarterback situation, which has dissolved into thin air. But all right, Andy Reid and the Eagles went back on their words of a few months ago (“Donovan's our quarterback”) and moved the face of the franchise, to a division rival no less. McNabb gets two chances to stick it to the team that traded him and the fans who booed him time after time. During his press conference on Tuesday McNabb said all the right things and didn't badmouth his former team, but you have to be thinking, in the back of his mind, McNabb would like to sweep the Birds up with a broom and make them rethink sending him to play for Mike Shanahan. But then I think about the Redskins, a team that went 4-12 in 2009. A team with receivers named Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly (shout out to OU but we aren't in Norman anymore), and a 30-year-old Santana Moss, a team that signed Larry Johnson and Willie Parker. Does better offensive talent surround McNabb in Washington? N. O. The Redskins' strongest position on offense is tight end, where they have Chris Cooley and Fred Davis, but McNabb was just throwing to an up incoming stud in Brent Celek. Washington does still have the fourth overall pick and is likely to draft offensive tackle Russell Okung out of Oklahoma State. Solidifying the O-line along with the fresh approach being taken by both Shanahan and McNabb is something to watch out for if you're sitting in the NFC East. McNabb has gotten thrown into offseason trade talks more often than I care to remember, it was just a matter of time. As memories were flashing through my mind, I automatically thought about “Fourth and Twenty-Six” and the 3 rd and 10 in Dallas where McNabb scrambled around for about 14 seconds like a chicken with its head cut off, before heaving the ball downfield (weirder than McNabb being gone, the idea that my top two highlights of him include Freddie Mitchell hauling the passes). I thought about November 17, 2002, a game where McNabb throws four touchdown passes and completes 20 of 25 passes (oh right, on a broken ankle). Then there's the “but.” McNabb could never escape the “but,” even with all his accomplishments. He is, without a doubt, the greatest quarterback in Eagles history. But, he couldn't bring Philadelphia its first Super Bowl. God knows he wanted to, and it's a shame it didn't happen here. One thing you can count on, McNabb isn't going to quit. He wants a Lombardi Trophy, bad. As for the Eagles, this whole thing rides and dies with Kevin Kolb. He will be entering his fourth year in the NFL and his first as a starting quarterback. We have seen little of Kolb thus far, but eventually the tide had to turn. This is no longer the Eagles team you have followed for the last eight to 10 years. It's like a Hollywood remake with the same director, but with all new actors playing the main parts. The team is so different, in fact, that only one player remains from the 2004 Super Bowl team, and that's David Akers. Kolb could turn out to be Alex Smith, or he could be Aaron Rodgers. Both were drafted in 2005, Smith played nine games his rookie season and was the starter in year two. Rodgers sat on the bench behind a franchise quarterback and didn't play a full season until 2008, his fourth year. Smith was rushed into a job and now has career numbers that look like 37 touchdowns to 43 interceptions. Rodgers was patient, waited for his time and now is one of the top quarterbacks in the NFC with 59 career touchdowns and 21 interceptions. Which one does Kolb's story sound like? It's just an observation. Something that scares me for the Eagles is what happened to the Atlanta Braves in the NL East (hear me out). Between 1996 and 2005, the Braves won the NL East every single year. They beat up on bad teams in the division for about a decade. (Ignore, for a moment, the 1995 season when the Braves won the World Series for the sake of this point.) In those 10 years the Braves weren't able to bring home a World Series Title, they went twice and lost to the Yankees both times. They became the team with infinite division titles that couldn't get over the hump. Now the rest of the division has caught up with them, passed them and celebrated a championship. (Fly, Phillies, Fly…) The Eagles are on the verge of becoming just that, only without that special season like the Braves had in '95. The Eagles had no problem repeating as NFC East champs, but in their only trip to the big game, they came up short. Now the division has caught up, and in the Giants case, passed them and won a Super Bowl. The Phillies have done to the Braves what the Giants, Cowboys and Redskins want to do to the Eagles, send them to the back of the line, and now the Redskins have McNabb to help them do it. So the Eagles have a lot of work to do to get ready for the 2010 season. Kolb should take a page from his predecessor's book; gather his young weapons, head to the desert and work on that chemistry we want to see come September. The draft 14 days away and the Eagles are on the clock. More times than any other team, one last thing we can thank McNabb for. Stephen's Trip to Training Camp 2009 Steve Lewis 8-6-09 I had the privilege of attending morning session at Lehigh on Tuesday. Camp is an enjoyable experience. The weather was lovely and all the stars were getting lots of reps with the exception of the still recovering Brian Westbrook. But the mood at camp still had a somber feeling from the passing of the team's legendary coordinator Jim Johnson.
Jim Johnson was a perfect fit for this organization. Aggressive, blitzing defenses have always been a staple in Philadelphia and have been a source of excitement for a rabid fan base. Johnson's speed blitz packages, utilizing defensive backs to attack the quarterback, were revolutionary. The game I will remember as Johnson's finest performance was that Sunday night in Foxboro, when he put together a game plan to stall possibly the most potent offense in NFL history. The Patriots were 27 point favorites that night, but Johnson's scheme kept the birds in it to the end. The Pats won the game but the damage was done. Weeks later, Steve Spagnuolo would borrow Johnson's blue print and changed history by ending the Pats perfect season. That script was more suited for Brad Lidge and the Phils anyway. More photos here
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