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Let's see what we've got here | Daily News | 07/27/2007

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The draft picks all are signed. Some key players are coming off serious injury - most notably, quarterback Donovan McNabb, who tore his right ACL last November - but the Eagles say those players are ready to go.

Even taking into account the fact that training camps tend to start optimistically, as rookies and select veterans head for Lehigh this afternoon for tomorrow's first practice sessions, the braintrust's brows seem remarkably unforrowed.

"No contracts, no controversy, no disputes - you start it out about as clean as you can go," mused team president Joe Banner, whose pronouncements tend toward caution.

General manager Tom Heckert said the injury recoveries of McNabb, tight end L.J. Smith (sports hernia surgery) and defensive end Jevon Kearse (knee) are the biggest potential problem areas, and that the news right now on all three fronts is good. Only Smith will be at all limited when drills begin, Heckert said, and Smith probably will just take a few reps off here and there to be safe.

"Through this offseason, and even up to this week, we feel really confident about all those guys - Donovan and L.J. and Jevon, they look great," Heckert said. "It looks like there are going to be very few things to be pessimistic [about]."

One of the main things Heckert said he will be looking at in the early going is the linebacking corps. Neither weakside starter Takeo Spikes nor strongside starter Chris Gocong has ever played a down in an Eagles game - Spikes came this offseason in a trade with Buffalo, and Gocong spent his rookie season on injured reserve. Also, the Birds apparently are looking to get middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter off the field on passing downs in favor of second-year player Omar Gaither. So getting all that synched up might be training camp's biggest project, aside from returning McNabb to form.

"Gocong and Spikes," Heckert said. "We're anxious to see how Spikes fits in. We think he's a heckuva football player, but it's always different when you're watching a guy on tape . . . the rookies are like that, too - you see all the stuff on tape, but until they're here with you and doing your things, it's kind of, I don't know if you'd say it's a mystery, but we look forward to seeing if this guy is what we thought he was . . . Gocong, he's a starter right now, but [third-round rookie] Stewart Bradley and [former practice-squadder] Tank Daniels, we'll see how those guys do in camp."

The same question applies to wideout Kevin Curtis, a major offseason acquisition as a Rams free agent, who is being penciled in as a starter opposite Reggie Brown.

"Like Spikes, we know he's a good football player, but he hasn't been in our system," Heckert said. "We're anxious to see him. We've been really impressed with [2006 draftees] Jason Avant and Jeremy Bloom. Bloom [on IR as a rookie], we didn't really get to see him out there. In minicamps, he's looked great."

The Eagles drafted Bloom in the fifth round last year from Colorado as a returner; his sporadic football career, which he had abandoned 2 years earlier to pursue an Olympic skiing medal, didn't seem to portend much of a future as a wideout. It seemed the learning curve would be too steep. But what the Birds saw this spring certainly got their attention.

"Last season, even before he was injured, he didn't look like the same guy we'd seen on tape. On tape, he was fast fast. Now, he looks like the same guy we'd seen," Heckert said. "I think he's surprised even a couple of our DBs . . . I think he has a chance to help us there."

Heckert said McNabb, who will report today (as will all the QBs), won't be held out of anything as long as his repaired knee feels OK.

"Right off the bat, I think we're going to let him go and see how he feels," Heckert said.

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