ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Here are five observations from the Eagles' training camp.

Camp Classic Moment

This one goes back quite a bit. In the Eagles' 1941 training camp, then-owner Alexis Thompson came up with the idea of putting numbers on players' jerseys. It wasn't until 1973, mind you, that all NFL teams agreed to follow suit, so Thompson definitely was ahead of the curve. Except that the players hated it. "You felt like a clown," quarterback Tommy Thompson recalled years later. "At night, the guys would try to loosen the stitches, hoping (the numbers) would fall off in practice. When you tackled a guy, you tried to rip the number off him." The owner had a design in which the first of the two-digit numbers would identify the position where the player lined up, and the second number his name. There were no names on the backs of game jerseys then. And it was two-platoon football as well. At any rate, the idea didn't catch on in camp. Players complained that the material of which the numbers were made was itchy. They griped about how the system would just commercialize the game. Owner Thompson finally caved on his notion. — Len Pasquarelli

1. As part of his rehabilitation from delicate 2000 foot surgery that ended his season after just five games, star tailback Duce Staley had to lift jacks (you know, the kind that kids play with) one at a time between his toes and then deposit them in a small plastic cup. Trainer Rick Burkholder demanded no cheating and no hands allowed. So this much we know about the man who holds the key to the Philadelphia rushing game: When it comes to jacks, at least he can probably whip most of those pony-tailed pre-teens in his neighborhood. Whether the four-year veteran can return to the form that permitted him to gain 1,000 yards in both 1998 and '99, however, remains to be seen. Foot surgery, after all, is fairly dicey stuff. So is having to watch your quarterback lead the team in rushing, as the Eagles were forced to do last season, when Donovan McNabb ran for 629 yards. The prognosis for Staley is positive so far. The reports on his training camp performance are encouraging, and everyone is saying all the right things. But he carried just two times in the Eagles' preseason loss at Buffalo on Saturday night, and that was hardly enough of a workload for anyone to make a legitimate assessment. And there is this to consider as well: Staley rushed for 201 yards in Philadelphia's season-opening win at Dallas last year and then averaged a puny 35.8 yards in his next four outings. The fact is, while Staley is the centerpiece of the Eagles' ground game, it's time for him to take the next step up to the elite group of runners. Actually, it's time for him to put his worst foot forward and to prove to himself and everyone else that it is fully recovered. If he isn't whole yet, the Eagles could be forced to start rookie Correll Buckhalter, a fourth-round choice. The former Nebraska standout is a tough runner but wasn't even a starter for the 'Huskers.

2. Largely because of their youth and core talent, many pundits have installed the Eagles as the chic favorite in the NFC East, and they certainly appear to be a worthy pick. But this is a team that hasn't beaten the defending division champion New York Giants since 1996, a span of nine straight defeats, and which looked miserable against its old foes in a 20-10 playoff defeat that wasn't nearly as close as the score. Given the abysmal situation faced by the three other teams in the division, the Giants and Eagles both could go 6-0 against Arizona, Dallas and Washington. That means the division title, and perhaps seeding in the playoffs, could be determined in the head-to-head series between the Eagles and the Giants, two teams that don't much like each other. So far, it appears Philadelphia has put the ugly postseason loss behind it, and the players don't seem too engrossed in all of their press clippings. Philly players carry themselves with an air of self-assuredness because they know they are good, but they still have to prove they can beat a New York club that is boringly solid. The Eagles finish the regular season on Dec. 30 by hosting New York, and that matchup could be for the NFC East marbles. One thing the young Eagles cannot afford to do is glance too far ahead. They open the season at home against St. Louis and on the road at Tampa Bay, a couple of stern tests right out of the chute.

3. Some people question how much coach Andy Reid, an offensive guru, knows about the defensive side of the ball. But give the Eagles boss credit for this: He knows enough about defense to know who he wants running that unit. Coordinator Jim Johnson is hardly a household name, even in some households of South Philly, but the guy is one of the top minds in the business. At age 60, Johnson isn't some hot-shot, young rising star. He has been in the league since 1986 and, while he works rather anonymously, ask anyone who plays against him and they will vouch for how tough it is to play his defenses. In the two years since Reid hired Johnson as part of his first staff, the Philadelphia defense ranked No. 24 (in 1999) and No. 10 (for 2000) statistically. But the imprint of Johnson cannot be measured with numbers alone. His style is an aggressive, take-the-ball-away approach that creates plenty of takeaways and often results in defensive scores. The year before he arrived, the Eagles had just 17 takeaways, the lowest in the league. In 1999, the defense generated a league-best 46 takeaways and turned five of them into touchdowns. For the 2000 season, Philadelphia dropped to 31 takeaways and two defensive scores but the attacking mentality remained the same. The big turnaround in the Eagles' playoff win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for instance, came when defensive end Hugh Douglas sacked quarterback Shaun King and stripped the ball. "A lot of coaches say that they are going to put you in position to make plays," said free safety Brian Dawkins. "But he does it every week." Philadelphia returns every starter from its 2000 defense, has added a few new components, and figures to rank among the NFL's top 10 units again in 2001. And Johnson will likely rate among the top coordinators again, even if no one knows it.

4. Few team officials have done so masterful a job in balancing the salary cap as Eagles president Joe Banner, a guy who usually cuts sensible deals, a negotiator who rarely overpays for a player. Banner has locked up virtually all the Philadelphia starters with contracts that extend at least into the 2002 season, but there is one standout who so far has not re-upped. So this bit of advice, Joe: With that $4 million-plus in remaining cap funds, play "Let's Make a Deal" with middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter. The two sides have danced around in bargaining for nearly a year, it seems, with nothing to show for all the effort. Even in an era when the significance of linebackers has been diminished, the big-hitting Trotter is a stud, and he will attract some pretty lofty numbers if he gets out onto the open market as an unrestricted free agent next spring. The guy is flat-out a tackling machine, and a high-character person, the kind of player around whom you want to build a defense. He had over 170 tackles in 2000, and you don't make that many plays just standing around. Philadelphia could slap the "franchise" tag on Trotter next spring to keep him from escaping, but that fancy label does little more than instigate acrimony. A smaller observation about the Eagles' reshuffled linebacker corps: The guy isn't a starter, but every time I see Mike Caldwell, either in "nickel" situations or on special teams, the guy is making a play. He's just a spare part, but a pretty good one, and he had to fight the Eagles over a $75,000 incentive from last season. Selfless roleplayers like Caldwell, who knows his place and doesn't gripe about playing time, are always worth having around.

5. Pencil in second-year defensive tackle Corey Simon, who played on Saturday night with a concussion sustained in a scary training camp incident only a week earlier, as one of the top players at his position for the next decade. The team's 2000 first-round pick, Simon looked like he was playing at several RPM's higher than all the Buffalo blockers trying to keep him out of the backfield. He doesn't play the run as well as you want the tackles to, and sometimes roam a bit too much, but Simon is super quick and gets into and through the gaps to disrupt offensive flow. He had 9 ½ sacks in his rookie season and will almost certainly hit double digits in 2001. We want to squeeze in a plug, too, for a tackle on the other side of the ball. Philadelphia paid a lot of money to lure right tackle Jon Runyan away from Tennessee last summer, but it is left tackle Tra Thomas who had the better season and looks like he has picked up in '01 where he left off last year.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.