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Yes, the start of training camps is two months away, but it’s never too early to consider the coming season. A look at the best-case and worst-case scenarios for the Eagles in 2012.

Dream scenario (13-3): The Eagles believed they'd assembled a team last year that could be among the very best in the NFL, and they believe it still. They will need to play defense better, but new middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans and the year the rest of the players have now spent in the new defensive scheme should help them do that. Michael Vick will need to commit fewer turnovers, but his words last December and so far this offseason indicate a better understanding of his own level of responsibility. In the Eagles' dream scenario, Vick plays safer than he did in 2010 and smarter than he did in 2011, and the meet-in-the-middle result is one of the league's most productive quarterbacks. With DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy around him, as well as his own ability, he has no excuse not to be. The Eagles' dream scenario also has them leading the league in sacks again but covering receivers better this time, especially in the middle of the field. And it has Demetress Bell serving as a surprisingly good replacement for injured left tackle Jason Peters. If these things all come to pass, the Eagles will be capable of beating anyone on their schedule.

Nightmare scenario (7-9): Yeah, as bad as they were last year, they still managed to finish 8-8, and Andy Reid's had only one sub-.500 season since the turn of the century. In the Eagles' nightmare scenario, though, the turnover problem doesn't get fixed, the downgrade from Peters to Bell at left tackle messes with the entire offensive line dynamic, Vick gets hurt again and someone like Mike Kafka or Nick Foles has to start a half-dozen games. In the nightmare scenario, 2011 turns out not to have been just one down year for Nnamdi Asomugha but rather the start of a decline. Maclin can't regain his 2010 form the way he's expected to now that he's fully healthy, and Jackson remains a deep downfield decoy who keeps the safeties back and limits Vick's offense to smaller chunks of yardage instead of backbreaking big plays. The nightmare scenario, in which the Eagles finish under .500 in year two of this big plan, sees the end of the Reid and Vick eras in Philadelphia, and leads into a 2013 offseason of great change and upheaval in an organization that prizes continuity as one of its better traits.

Mort and Suzy discuss the Bears' offseason issues, Max and Marcellus rank the teams in the NFC East, and Herm and Bill Polian show off their dance moves.

Our man Sal Paolantonio sat down with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick for a SportsCenter conversation that touched on a number of topics, including the perception that this is a critical year for Eagles head coach Andy Reid. Sal asked Vick what he thinks when he hears that Reid might not be back in 2013 if the Eagles struggle, and Vick said, "I hate to think about it ... Let's just say that won't happen."

It's well known Vick feels a very strong affection and respect for Reid, who signed him once he got out of prison and with whom he credits his development into the quarterback that took the league by storm in 2010. If Reid's job is in jeopardy, Vick may well be motivated to make that not be the case any longer. We don't know what we'll get from Vick in 2012 -- the brilliant magician of 2010, the turnover-prone quarterback of 2011 or something in between. It could be anywhere on the spectrum with a player of Vick's abilities, and his performance this season will go a long way toward determining whether the Eagles make good on their promise this time.

Sal's a team player, and he sent me a couple of extra quotes from his Vick interview, including Vick's response to "Is this the year?":

"Should be. I don't want to make any predictions, but with the guys that I've got around me that's playing for the Philadelphia Eagles including myself truly believe that we can push for it."

"The window is closing for me as well. I'll be 32 next month and so I'm on the back now. I still feel good, don't get me wrong, but it's only a certain amount of guys can say that they played with the group of guys that I played with and I'm just thankful to have a group of guys around me and the coach that I have. It means a lot."

I was kind of surprised it look that long, actually.

There was maybe a two-hour window between the time Monday morning that the news broke about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers shopping (and, more likely, cutting) tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. and when people started asking me on Twitter whether he'd make sense for their team. Usually it's quicker than that. But I guess it's a rainy Monday, and maybe folks aren't feeling like themselves. I include myself, of course. Did you catch that Matthew Berry-style column lead up there?

Anyway, in response on Twitter I wrote that you could make a case for any of the four NFC East teams to pursue Winslow, to which four fan bases responded something along the lines of, "Really?", to which I said, "Yeah, really." But the limits of the 140-character Twitter world being what they are, I hereby expand:

Dallas Cowboys

They have been looking, since Martellus Bennett signed with the Giants, for a second tight end to replace Bennett. They drafted James Hanna, but he's not likely the solution right away. The issue here is that Winslow isn't really a blocking tight end, and it might be tough to convince him that he's not among the top options as a receiver.

New York Giants

They signed Bennett, but he only accounts for one of the two holes opened by the ACL injuries of tight ends Jake Ballard and Travis Beckum in the Super Bowl. There are reports that Beckum could be ready early in the season, but optimism sometimes gives way to reality, and the Giants may want to have coverage. As is always the case with the Giants, if they're interested, it would have to be for their specific price.

Philadelphia Eagles

There's been talk in Philly for a couple of years about Andy Reid wanting to use more two-tight-end sets. It hasn't come to fruition, but a re-energized Winslow paired with Brent Celek could open up some of those possibilities. Again, though, as in Dallas and New York, he wouldn't be among the top receiving options, given the rest of the talent on the roster.

Washington Redskins

This only makes sense if the Redskins decide to cut Chris Cooley loose for financial or injury reasons. If that happens, they don't have many (any?) real strong tight ends behind Fred Davis. Receiver Niles Paul and even linebacker Lorenzo Alexander have been mentioned as candidates for tight end snaps this offseason, so it's not as though the roster is currently teeming with options should Cooley be cut.

Those Philadelphia Eagles fans worried about a LeSean McCoy holdout can rest easy. The Eagles on Thursday night announced that they have agreed to terms with their star running back on a five-year contract extension that runs through 2017. (He was already signed through 2012.) Adam Schefter is reporting that it's a $45 million deal that includes $20.765 million in guarantees.

This is the latest internal signing for the Eagles in an offseason that has seen them extend the contracts of wide receiver DeSean Jackson, defensive end Trent Cole and right tackle Todd Herremans. They made little noise in outside free agency, and in fact their biggest move of that period were trades -- the acquisition of linebacker DeMeco Ryans and the dumping of cornerback Asante Samuel, whom they'd deemed a too-expensive extraneous piece. The money they're handing out this offseason is directed at keeping their young star players under control and happy for a long period of time.

This tells us a couple of things about the Eagles and where they think they are right now:

1. They really do like the roster that went 8-8 last year and believe it to be capable of much bigger things. The signings they made last offseason failed to make a 2011 splash, as the Eagles struggled at the start of the season with a bunch of new players, new coaches and new schemes. They have said many times that they believe the right thing to do is bring back relatively the same group of players and expect to build on the four-game winning streak with which they ended the season, and their offseason focus shows that they're not just talking. They believe they have a strong roster that should win a lot of games.

2. The Eagles believe that not only will they be a strong title contender in 2012, but that this roster they have assembled is built to contend and win for years to come. They are determined to keep together their core of young stars because they're not worried about bottoming out this season and having to blow up and start over with a new plan, a new coach, etc. Yes, if they flop again, Andy Reid could lose his job. But the Eagles are operating as though they do not believe that's a possibility, building for the future even as they adopt a win-now mentality.

3. If you're a young Eagles player, you can feel confident that the team isn't just blowing smoke when it tells you that you'll be taken care of. Players such as wide receiver Jeremy Maclin and cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie can head into the 2012 season knowing that, if they perform on the field the way they and the team know they're capable of performing, the Eagles will be willing and able to give them long-term extensions and whatever level of security goes with that in the NFL. We don't know what will happen with those two players this year, but if they do great things, the money will be there for them.

The one gigantic question mark that still remains is quarterback Michael Vick. He's going to turn 32 next month, and while he did sign a contract extension last summer, the Eagles are able to escape that at the end of this year with minimal remaining commitment if Vick doesn't look like the long-term answer. Undoubtedly, the Eagles' preference would be for Vick to accomplish tremendous things with this core group of young talent -- this year and in years to come. But if they struggle again, and if Vick piles up the turnovers again, there's a chance that someone different could be leading this group in 2013 and beyond.

But by dishing out all of these deals to players already on their roster, by locking up their best wide receiver and their star pass-rusher and the running back who scored a whopping 20 touchdowns for them a year ago, they're also giving Vick the best possible chance to succeed. He will have a happy and hungry group of star players around him in 2012, and the Eagles believe they have spent this offseason setting the proper tone and putting the pieces in place to succeed in the short-term and the long-term as well. All that remains to be seen is how it all looks once the games start. And we won't know that for at least four more months.

The San Francisco 49ers' Jim Harbaugh, known to walk past the first-class cabin to his seat in coach, should be relieved to have missed Forbes' list of 10 highest-paid coaches.

Harbaugh's three NFC West contemporaries made the list, with the St. Louis Rams' Jeff Fisher and the Seattle Seahawks' Pete Carroll earning a reported $7 million annually.

Coaches presumably do not make available their contracts or tax returns, so these listings qualify as unofficial. They are generally consistent with media reports, at least.

The Arizona Cardinals' Ken Whisenhunt checks in at tied for eighth ($5.8 million).

Note that the listings include sports beyond football, but not including hockey. Five of the 10 highest-paid coaches have won championships: Bill Belichick, Mike Shanahan, Doc Rivers, Gregg Popovich and Mike Tomlin.

Harbaugh, who promoted a blue-collar culture complete with work shirts last season, reportedly earns $5 million per season. That would rank Harbaugh among the higher-paid coaches in the NFL, but with 14 regular-season and postseason victories last season, the price tag has been a bargain to this point.

Carroll and Fisher would have to produce 19.6 victories in a season to match the $357,142-per-victory average for Harbaugh. Whisenhunt would have to produce 16.2 victories.

Donovan McNabb's been in the news this week. The former Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins quarterback has been working out and drumming up publicity in an effort to get a job with an NFL team and continue his career. Eagles coach Andy Reid said he'd recommend McNabb to other teams, which is tough to believe considering he traded him two years ago and needs a veteran backup quarterback and doesn't seem interested in signing McNabb himself. We still get plenty of McNabb questions on this blog because Eagles fans still care about him and for good reason. He was a great player for a long time in Philadelphia, and should be remembered fondly there.

But as Ashley Fox points out at the end of her latest column, sometimes the player is the last to know when his career is over. And for McNabb, it obviously appears that that time has come:

McNabb should walk away, head held high, knowing he impacted at least one franchise for the better. He is the Eagles' most accomplished quarterback of all time, with more attempts, completions, passing yards, touchdowns and games played than anyone else. In 11 years, McNabb played in 148 regular-season games and went to the playoffs seven times, including five NFC title games and one Super Bowl.

His legacy is set. He was an iconic player. He wasn't perfect, and there are indelible marks on his tenure -- he either did or didn't get sick in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, he didn't know the overtime rules in a 2008 game at Cincinnati, he either was or wasn't jealous of Terrell Owens, and on and on -- but McNabb is the best modern-day quarterback the franchise has had.

McNabb will be up for discussion for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but the last two seasons haven't helped him. There is no reason to add meaningless years to the journey and prolong the inevitable. McNabb should start the next phase of his life. He will make an insightful television analyst, and he might even find peace in being the one to critique and criticize, rather than being the one who is critiqued and criticized.

We've been saying this for a while here on this blog -- that McNabb is more likely to be working for the same company I do than playing quarterback for an NFL team in 2012. There simply isn't any evidence over the past two years to indicate that he can possibly be of use to any team in the league. He's not, as Ashley points out, interested in serving as a mentor/backup to a young quarterback, or that's what he'd have done last year in Minnesota. And since no team needs or wants him as a starter, he's got no real avenue for a return to the league. It may take him some time to realize this, but McNabb's done as an NFL quarterback, and I agree with Ashley: Continuing to deny it is only going to cost him pieces of his dignity. There's no need for that.

Player trades aren't as common in the NFL as they are in baseball or some other sports, but the Philadelphia Eagles do seem to be a rare exception. As Zach Berman pointed out in this New York Times story from a week and a half ago, since Howie Roseman became GM 27 months ago the Eagles have made more trades involving players (i.e., not just draft picks) than any other team in the league. (They were tied with Seattle at 15 at the time the story was published, and they traded Asante Samuel a few days later).

Now, on the topic of how the Eagles do with these trades, we turn to Sheil Kapadia, who has broken down the return the Eagles have received on two recent high-profile deals -- the ones that sent quarterbacks Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb out of town.

As Sheil shows, the picks the Eagles got back from McNabb have netted them safety Nate Allen and linebackers DeMeco Ryans and Casey Matthews. That's two projected 2012 defensive starters and a guy, in Matthews, who will get at least some playing time. Not a bad haul for a player it's now clear was basically done at the time of the deal. Yes, McNabb did beat the Eagles once while with the Redskins in 2010, but he hasn't made a significant contribution since he left Philadelphia.

The Kolb trade brought back cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and the picks that produced defensive end Vinny Curry and cornerback Brandon Boykin. Rogers-Cromartie is projected to be a starting cornerback for the 2012 Eagles. Boykin could be the nickel corner and a factor in the return game. Curry is likely to factor into the pass-rush rotation. Not a bad return for a quarterback who would have been their backup in 2011 had they kept him.

When you watch the Eagles' defense in 2012, you should get some idea why it's so important to Andy Reid to be deep at the quarterback position. This is why he drafted Nick Foles this year -- in the hopes that he eventually gets something out of him, whether it's actual playing time for the Eagles or something of value in trade. It's about more than just having good backup options behind starter Michael Vick. It's about how much quarterbacks are worth in today's NFL. By trading two of them over the past three offseasons, the Eagles have helped build their 2012 defense.

Can we trust the Philadelphia Eagles this time?

The Eagles were, as you'll recall, the stars of the 2011 offseason. The lockout ended, and they started spending and signing. Coming off a 2010 division title season during which quarterback Michael Vick had emerged as one of the best players in the league, the Eagles believed they were going to be awesome. Instead, they were one of the league's biggest 2011 flops. Radical changes on the coaching staff and with the defensive personnel failed to come together as quickly and effectively as the Eagles believed they would. They started out 1-4 and never recovered. This offseason, they've been more measured, expressing the belief that the 2011 roster was better than it played and deserves a mulligan. They added a great middle linebacker in DeMeco Ryans to address their biggest need, extended the contracts of some of their core players, and are coming off a draft that many have hailed as the best in the league. Once again, they believe they are going to be awesome.

But is it real this time? Will Nnamdi Asomugha play to his all-pro pedigree in his second Philadelphia season? Will former offensive line coach Juan Castillo's second year as defensive coordinator be free from the growing pains of his first? Will the Eagles be tougher against the run? And perhaps most importantly, will Vick be more responsible with the ball? Because as much as the defensive lapses coast the Eagles in the early part of the 2011 season, the turnovers on offense might have been even costlier. The Eagles might not need the brilliant, electrified 2010 version of Vick, but they do need a version that's more careful and responsible -- with the ball and with his own body -- than the one that played for them in 2011.

Any and all of these things could happen. With all of their problems, the 2011 Eagles still finished 8-8, only one game out of first place in the NFC East. So it's not as though there's some huge mountain to climb to get into the playoffs. But owner Jeffrey Lurie was clearly upset about the way the high hopes of 2011 fizzled, and if the 2012 Eagles disappoint, this could be the first time in Andy Reid's tenure as head coach that his job is legitimately in jeopardy. There's a lot riding on this Eagles season for a lot of people. They didn't do much to correct last year's problems, having sold ownership and fans on the idea that they would correct themselves because of the talent on the roster. That's a big bet to make, and for the sake of Reid and the rest of the folks in charge in Philadelphia, it had better pay off.

Most of the Philadelphia Eagles' draft was focused on defense, as we kind of assumed it would be. But some interesting things happened after the draft at running back. The Eagles picked Kansas State's Bryce Brown in the seventh round, and signed Washington's Chris Polk as an undrafted free agent. Both are highly regarded talents whose draft stock fell because of other concerns -- attitude issues in Brown's case, and injury issues in Polk's. It's entirely possible that neither one ever sniffs a real NFL game, but given their skills the Eagles felt it was worth taking the chance to add quality depth and options to their backfield. Eagles coach Andy Reid was speaking specifically about Brown when he had this to say about the team's running back situation, according to the team's web site:

"We'll see how it goes. We're good with young guys and we'll see how that works out. With Dion Lewis, I would have liked to have gotten him a little more time last year as we went on. I didn't end up doing that, and I probably overplayed LeSean McCoy a little bit, even though he doesn't want to hear that. As he continues to get older and have the number of reps under his belt that he does, you'll want to back off the number of reps that he does."

So... does that mean Reid wants to cut back on McCoy's carries in 2012? Are the Eagles gong to a running back committee? Is McCoy's fantasy draft stock about to plummet?

Unlikely. Please take into account a couple of things when reading into Reid's comments:

First, the Eagles are currently in the midst of contract negotiations with McCoy. Surely, a large part of McCoy's argument is the significance of the role he plays in the Eagles' offense. He had 60.9 percent of the team's rush attempts last year (the eighth-highest such figure in the league), and while his 48 catches ranked fifth on the team in 2011, he did lead the team in receptions in 2010 with 78. McCoy gets a lot of work, and this part of his argument is a strong one. Publicly hinting that the plan might be to give him less of a percentage of the overall offense could be a bit of a negotiating tactic on the part of Reid.

Second, Reid's comment about overusing McCoy in 2011 probably says more about the disappointment that was veteran backup Ronnie Brown than it does about any future plans for McCoy. The Eagles likely wanted to give more reps to their backup running back in 2011, but couldn't because Brown wasn't playing well enough to justify them.

As brilliant as McCoy is, there's little doubt that Reid and the Eagles would like him to take on fewer than 60 percent of the team's carries in future seasons. That's a big workload, and McCoy isn't just some mule you ride until he's done and then replace. He's a dynamic, exciting, multi-talented playmaker who matters to their passing game, and is a big part of helping their offense work the way it's supposed to work. To maximize McCoy's value to the team in this and future seasons, it would be wise to keep an eye on his workload. The young running backs the Eagles picked up Saturday evening could represent fresh-legged options for keeping McCoy himself fresh. I think that's all Reid was saying there.

No, relax, this does not mean Michael Vick is in trouble. The Philadelphia Eagles are committed to Vick as their quarterback for 2012, and their hope is that he and the team play well enough that they can comfortably remain committed to him for 2013 and beyond. But Vick is turning 32 in June. And he does have a habit of missing games with injuries. And his current backups are Mike Kafka and Trent Edwards.

Fundamentally, though, this is a pick about Eagles coach Andy Reid and the way he feels about the quarterback position. Reid does not believe there's such a thing as being too deep at that position. He also believes that he and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg can develop quarterbacks and get the best out of them. So here comes Nick Foles, who may someday be Vick's replacement or may be a better 2012 backup than either of those other two guys or may someday be a guy they can trade for something of value because quarterback is so important a position in the NFL.

Foles is a 6-foot-5, 243-pound monster with the physical tools to develop into a very good NFL quarterback. He's also a polished thrower with a strong arm who has a reputation for handling pressure well. It's entirely possible that, after a full offseason program and training camp, Foles will be a more appealing backup quarterback option than Kafka, even though Kafka's been in the Eagles' program for a number of years now.

Again, it's a hedge on the future and the present, an infusion of depth at the most important position on the roster. The Eagles used their first three picks of this draft to improve their defense, and while quarterback wasn't a crying-need pick for them, they are run by a coach who believes you can never have enough at that position. So to no one's surprise, they used one of their Day 2 picks on a quarterback.

Breakdown: The Eagles will open on the road in the midwest for the second year in a row, beginning their 2012 season with a ho-hum matchup Sept. 9 against the Browns in Cleveland. But things get intense pretty quickly. Six of their next seven games, beginning with the Sept. 16 home opener against the Ravens, are against teams that made the postseason in 2011. The only one that's not requires a long road trip to Arizona to play the Cardinals in Week 3.

Last year's disappointing record didn't keep the Eagles from being a target of the networks that put games in prime time. They'll appear twice on ESPN's Monday Night Football -- Nov. 5 at New Orleans and Nov. 26 at home against Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. They have two games (so far) scheduled for Sunday nights on NBC -- Sept. 30 against the Giants and Dec. 2 in Dallas. And their turn on Thursday night on the NFL Network comes Dec. 13, with a home game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

If they're in a race with the Giants for the NFC East title, the Eagles will get to play the defending champs head-to-head to possibly decide it. Their final regular-season game of the year is against the Giants at MetLife Stadium. The Eagles have beaten the Giants in seven of their past eight tries, and they haven't lost at the Meadowlands since 2007.

Complaint department: Not a whole lot to complain about here. There's a stretch from Weeks 11-14 in which they play three road games, but their longest road trips are spaced out and nestled between home games. They don't go anywhere in December that's likely to be any colder that Philadelphia is. They have to play 10 games after the bye week as opposed to six before it, and that's not ideal, but even that could be worse. And the teams they play back-to-back on their short week are Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, which doesn't sound overly intimidating.

Annual victim: As every Eagles fan and many posts on this blog will spend the middle part of October pointing out, the Eagles are 13-0 in games immediately following bye weeks with Andy Reid as their head coach. This year's bye is Week 7, and the opponent who will come into Philadelphia to try and break that streak in Week 8 is the Atlanta Falcons.

Eagles Regular-Season Schedule (All times Eastern)
Week 1: Sunday, Sept. 9, at Cleveland, 1:00 PM
Week 2: Sunday, Sept. 16, Baltimore, 1:00 PM
Week 3: Sunday, Sept. 23, at Arizona, 4:05 PM
Week 4: Sunday, Sept. 30, NY Giants, 8:20 PM
Week 5: Sunday, Oct. 7, at Pittsburgh, 1:00 PM
Week 6: Sunday, Oct. 14, Detroit, 1:00 PM
Week 7: BYE
Week 8: Sunday, Oct. 28, Atlanta, 1:00 PM
Week 9: Monday, Nov. 5, at New Orleans, 8:30 PM
Week 10: Sunday, Nov. 11, Dallas, 4:15 PM
Week 11: Sunday, Nov. 18, at Washington, 1:00 PM
Week 12: Monday, Nov. 26, Carolina, 8:30 PM
Week 13: Sunday, Dec. 2, at Dallas, 8:20 PM
Week 14: Sunday, Dec. 9, at Tampa Bay, 1:00 PM
Week 15: Thursday, Dec. 13, Cincinnati, 8:20 PM
Week 16: Sunday, Dec. 23, Washington, 1:00 PM
Week 17: Sunday, Dec. 30, at NY Giants, 1:00 PM

Sheil Kapadia's latest is a look at what the Philadelphia Eagles might do at a few different positions in the draft 16 days from now, and one of the possibilities he raises is that they could look for a running back to help spell LeSean McCoy every now and then. Rather than a big, bruising type of back as the change of pace, it seems as though the Eagles' preference might be for a smaller, more versatile back who can catch the ball and operate in space:

At the owners' meetings, Andy Reid told reporters he might want to lighten McCoy's load a bit going forward. The problem last year was that Ronnie Brown simply wasn't very good, and Dion Lewis was a rookie who the coaches obviously didn't trust to play significant snaps.

But don't forget that reports indicated the Eagles had serious interest in Darren Sproles before he signed with the Saints. If they can find a versatile running back in the early rounds, perhaps they'd go that route.

Greg Cosell of NFL Films recently said on Twitter that Oregon's LaMichael James is a less physical version of Sproles. James had a combined 2,015 rushing and receiving yards last year, averaging 7.3 yards per carry. He is expected to be a second- or third-round pick.

The Eagles have also reportedly worked out Florida's Chris Rainey, who's expected to be a mid-to-late round pick.

The Eagles have two second-round picks and nine picks overall, so they could be very busy at a number of different positions in the draft. I believe they will continue to work toward a contract extension with McCoy and likely will get one done. If they could come to an agreement with DeSean Jackson, I don't think it'll be a problem to find common ground with McCoy. But that doesn't mean they don't want to be as deep and as creative as possible at that position, if for no other reason than to keep McCoy as productive as possible for as long as possible.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Philadelphia Eagles GM Howie Roseman, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday, made it sound like the team could trade cornerback Asante Samuel if it wanted to. The Eagles are deep at cornerback with Samuel, Nnamdi Asomugha and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and there did seem to be some overcrowding issues last year.

But Eagles coach Andy Reid, when asked about the same issue Wednesday, was a little more non-committal.

"Asante is obviously on the team," Reid said. "We'll see how things go with the three of them. I said last year and I'll say it again: It's a pretty good situation to have, if you can sit there and say you have those three corners. Asante and Nnamdi are a little bit older, but both of them can still play at a high level. So we'll see how things work out. That's the best I can tell you."

Like a lot of things about last year's Eagles defense, the deployment of those three cornerbacks often seemed confused. Rodgers-Cromartie was asked to play inside in the nickel position, which was not something he'd done in the past. And it's fair to assume they'd be better off with two of the aforementioned three on the outside and Joselio Hanson in the nickel spot. But Reid isn't going to come out and admit he needs to trade a guy because it would help him construct his lineup better. That's not the kind of thing that helps your leverage in trade talks with other teams. So publicly, he insists all was and will be hunky dory.

"As [Rodgers-Cromartie] settled into the nickel position and he learned it, he understood the leverage, and that was really the primary thing that was the problem," Reid said. "Just learning the leverage along with the coverages and indicators of splits with the inside receivers and the kind of routes that came off. He went through and he learned all of that. And we keep all of that kind of in-house with our players, any talk we have with them."

So we'll see. If I were a betting man, I'd be broke, but if I were a betting man I'd bet the Eagles find a taker for Samuel before the draft and that Asomugha and Rodgers-Cromartie are the 2012 starters with Hanson, who has more experience in the nickel spot, playing there. They have four weeks to figure it all out.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Don't you just hate it when football coaches start talking in ultra-technical football jargon and expect us all to understand it as though we're in the meeting rooms with them every day? Like Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid this morning at the NFL owners meetings, explaining what went wrong on defense with his team last year.

"I goofed on that one," Reid said.

This is a new one on me, this "goofed." I'm not sure I've studied enough football to truly understand the complexities of this analysis. Let's back it all the way out and examine the full quote from which this one was plucked.

"The plan I had, I didn't execute it very well, right?" Reid said. "I goofed on that one. I expected the young guys on defense to get where they were getting towards the end of the season sooner, particularly the guys in the middle of the defense -- the linebackers and safeties."

So "goofed," then, appears to have something to do with a plan gone awry. The Eagles loaded up last year at cornerback and on the defensive line, brought in a new defensive line coach, converted their offensive line coach to defensive coordinator and believed their strengths -- on defense and on offense -- would overcome their deficiencies. Instead, the defensive deficiencies were a big part of what did the Eagles in during a 1-4 start from which they were unable to recover. Their "Wide 9" defensive front was very good at getting to the quarterback, but when teams attacked the middle of their defense with the run or were able to give their quarterbacks enough time to throw, those teams found major weaknesses at the linebacker and safety spots that were charged with protecting the middle part of the field.

"I expected the offense to carry it through, and that part didn't take place," Reid said. "But yeah, your linebackers -- the more gaps you open up, the more physical they have to be."

The Eagles patched the linebacker corps together with unprepared late-round rookies like Casey Matthews and Brian Rolle and second-year man Jamar Chaney, and it showed. Reid said the group demonstrated improvement and played well late in the year, when the Eagles won their final four games. But the weakness was still glaring enough that the team decided it needed to make a trade for veteran middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans last week, and it's possible they could still look to add at that position this offseason.

Listening to Reid talk Wednesday morning, the thing that seemed to bother him the most about the 2011 season was the high number of turnovers his offense committed. The 25 interceptions the Eagles threw in 2011 led the league, and when you add in their 13 fumbles, it brings their total number of 2011 giveaways to 38, which was second-highest in the league behind Tampa Bay. So no matter what happens on defense, the Eagles will need to make far fewer "goofs" on offense next year in order to get where they need to go.

But with an entire season under the belts of last year's new players and coaches, the addition of Ryans and a full offseason with which to prepare, the Eagles will enter 2012 with high hope that the "goofs" of 2011 are a thing of the past. Reid answered in the affirmative when asked if he believed he had a Super Bowl contender.

"That's what makes it exciting," Reid said. "We have a good group coming back. Every year is different, I understand that. But we've got to take that momentum that we finished with and build on it an continue to get better."