Takeo Spikes Lands in Philly.

Today the Philadelphia Eagles formally announced the signing of Takeo Spikes, and Kelly Holcomb, that will be the only time I mention Kelly in this, at the Nova Care Complex late this afternoon. As expected Spikes had nothing but good things to say about the Eagles, and that he is beyond excited to be in Philly. This will be the first time in his ten year career he will have an opportunity to be playing for a playoff caliber team. When asked about how he is feeling these days, Spikes said this is the best he's felt since before his season ending injury in 2005. As you can see in the picture, Spikes will be rocking number 51 this season, so no more jokes about Matt McCoy being route 51, he currently does not have a number, and the Eagles are thinking about keeping it that way. When asked how he was able to get the number 51 from McCoy, Spikes said he challenged McCoy to an arm wrestling match. When McCoy accepted the challenge and extended his arm to start the match, Spikes bitch slapped him and told him that he was taking his number and his spot at LB. McCoy fell to the ground, like he did all last season, and said that sounds like a good plan to him. Spikes then proceeded to look for, and I quote, "that sissy with the bow tie who plays a banjo." I have no idea who he could be talking about. This guy is friggin nuts. You can watch the press conference here. Unfortunately there is no video of the "bitch slap" Spikes laid on Matt McCoy.

State of the Franchise: The Philadelphia Eagles Offseason Update.

When the Free Agency period started in the beginning of March, their wasn't much joy within the Eagles fan base. When the Eagles let Jeff Garcia, Michael Lewis, Rod Hood, and "the great" Donte Stallworth go, some fans were pissed and had doubt about how the team was being run. Some wanted Jeff Garcia to stay and compete for a starting job with Donovan McNabb, yea okay. Garcia did a great job as back up but come on, he's 36, and last time I checked, he didn't lead us to a win vs. the Saints in the playoffs. I say that cause that's what critics of McNabb would say. They would say he didn't step and lead his team past the Saints. Don't get me wrong Garcia did a great job rallying the troops through the season, but he also got a $5M contract from the Bucs. McNabb has a salary of $5.5M this season. $10M on two QB's, not gonna happen. We know why Michael Lewis is gone, so I won't really delve to deep into that. His job was lost during week 6 in New Orleans when he let Joe Horn get past him for that 48 yd TD. Lewis was biting on the play-action fake all game. Enter Sean Considine, who is not much better by the way. Rod Hood, not a big loss. He didn't want to be an Eagle anyway. The Eagles actually offered Hood a better contract in the middle of last season, then he received from the Cardinals this season. He was a good nickel cover corner, but he wasn't the best tackler. Joseph Addai put Hood on his back or broke his ankles on several occasions in the Colts game and he missed tackles on a regualr basis all season. He's replaceable. Enter William James, and hopefully Brandon Meriweather. Now for Donte Stallworth. How will we ever deal without him playing 10-12 games a season. You would think that Stallworth was one of the top 20 WR's in the league, which he's not, with the money he was asking for. Now did Stallworth do a good job last season, yea, when he was on the field, he was okay. He had 2-3 good games, besides that he wasn't that great. Would I have liked to see the Eagles re-sign him, sure, but in turn the Eagles would have had to give up their 3rd round pick for this years upcoming draft. In the long run, that pick could turn out to be more valuable than Stallworth. WR's are not going to make or break this team.

So after 2 weeks of the Eagles doing nothing, some fans, a lot of fans, were hitting the panic button. WIP's phone lines were full of fans sick of Joe Banner being so cheap, and hoping Andy Reid would just quit. It was very annoying. Think I'm kidding, take a stroll over to the IgglePhans message board to get a feel for how some fans feel about the Eagles front office these days. Some fans just do not get how a team is run with salary cap and what not. The Eagles were not in a position to start signing over rated free agents. This was not a good free agent class. Why spend big money, that you don't have, to sign players that are just not worth it, and that don't fit into some of your systems. Then March 15th, two weeks into free agency, the Eagles strike, landing FA WR Kevin Curtis. Kevin Curtis was regarded as one of the best free agent WR's this off season. Some had him ahead of Stallworth. They are very much alike. Almost the same size, Curtis could be faster, he has good hands, and most imporantly, is not a injury risk. Still with that signing, fans were still not buying it. Some were. A lot were and still are pissed at the Eagles for what happened with Stallworth. Then after the dust settled some interesting things started to leak out about the Stallworth situation. It turns out Stallworth's agent, none other than Drew Rosenhaus, pretty much gave the Eagles the shaft. After Rosenhaus tried to get the Eagles to sign Stallworth to a 1yr deal for $5M, he went back to Stallworth and told him the Eagles offer was $2M and no more. When in turn, the Eagles were willing to pay $3.6M-$4M. So while the Eagles were waiting for Rosenhaus to get back to them, he never did. In the end, the Eagles should be happy that happened, cause they ended up with a pretty good wide out in Curtis and saved themselves the trouble of giving up this years 3rd round pick. Next the Eagles front office tried to do some damage control by hitting the airwaves on local radio stations 610 WIP and Sports Talk 950. First came Joe Banner on the Howard Eskin show. He did a nice job of trying to explain the Eagles position for this off-season and next off-season. He did have the tough task of actually fielding calls from pissed off irate Eagles fans. At one point he actually told a fan, who said he was wasting money on tickets and didn't really care for the Eagles any more, to stop coming to games if you don't care. Pretty ballsy. Of course most fans took it as, I don't care if you stop coming, we'll fill your seat with someone else. What he was saying was, if you feel like your not getting your money's worth out of your Eagles tickets and you don't like being at games, don't come. Yea I'm trying a little to help Joe Banner out here, not many people in this town do. Next stop, Tom Heckert hit the Jody Mac Show to talk about free agency, Chris Gocong, the draft, and many other things. If you want the details of that interview click here. The Eagles attempt to do damage control for the lack of off-season moves kind of worked. The signing of Curtis sure helped but fans still, were not happy. The only thing that would make fans happy would be the Eagles getting a top tier LB. Al Wilson, Lance Briggs, and Takeo Spikes were all on the trading block and fans would love any of the above to improve a weak LB crew. Next they signed DT Monte Reagor, umm, what? This was foreshadowing for what was about to take place the following week, yesterday, and the Eagles gave fans what they wanted, a really good LB, that makes everyone feel a little bit better about going into next season. As you know they traded DT Darwin Walker, with Reagor there to take his spot, and a 2008 7th round pick, which is fine cause they will have at least one compensatory pick to replace that one, and in return the Eagles got pro bowl linebacker Takeo Spikes and back-up QB Kelly Holcomb. Round of applause. They deserve it. As much as people started to panic in the first couple weeks of the off-season, they Eagles have done a fine job. Now we have the draft to look forward to, and hopefully the Eagles address some key needs.

Players Added

Bethal Johnson, WR/KR
Kevin Curtis, WR
Monte Reagor, DT
Takeo Spikes, LB
Kelly Holcomb, QB

Players Re-signed

Quintin Mikell, S
Juqua Thomas, DE
Correll Buckhalter, RB
William James, CB

Players Lost

Jeff Garcia, QB
Rod Hood, CB
Michael Lewis, S
Donte Stallworth, WR
Darwin Walker, DT

Gillick: Freddy Garcia could be traded.

Pat Gillick was a guest on the Howard Eskin show on Friday and talked about a lot things.

The interview started with hot topic of the Phillies bullpen. Gillick said that they have been working the whole off-season trying to aquire bullpen help from numerous teams. He said that the market for bullpen help was not good right now, and that there were only about 2-3 teams that have excess bullpen help, and he was hoping that in the coming months that one of those teams would try and move some pitchers.

He said as it stands right now, they are going to have to rely on someone to step up from the bullpen that they have right now. Who does he think could emerge in the bullpen? Joe Bisenius or Zack Segovia.

When asked if the Phillies were at a point were they had to make a move, Gillick said it was highly unlikely that the Phillies would be making any trades at this point. He said its not from lack of effort, but that fact that the teams with extra bullpen help want to wait till the season starts and see how things turn out with injuries and such. He said the same goes for the Phillies with starters. They feel they need to keep Lieber for now in case a starter goes down.

But on the flipside of that, Gillick also made a comment that Freddy Garcia could possibly be traded somewhere down the line, and that "they can't rule out anything" when its come to trading one their starting pitchers. He said that if the right proposel came along they would not hold back on trading Lieber or Garcia. The whole interview was pretty much pitching talk as to be expected. One other note, when asked what would happen if Pat Burrell did not perform well protecting Ryan Howard at the 5th spot, Gillick said a change would be made.

The Stallworth Debacle: He said, She said.

Its been roughly two weeks since Donte Stallworth signed with the Patriots and he was on the Howard Eskin Show on Thursday to clear the air, well kind of. The interview started with Eskin giving some softball questions, but then he went into what happened with Drew Rosenhaus. The interview started with Stallworth stating that he never wanted to leave Philly and that he loved it here. He also said that reports that he felt "unwanted", which were reported in the Daily News, were false. He felt like the Eagles always wanted him but in the end the two couldn't come to terms in a contract that both would be happy with. As far as his signing with New England he said he kind of looks forward to living in Foxboro away from all the city hype. When talking about the contract situation, Stallworth said there were teams that wanted to sign him for a one year deal, and teams that wanted to sign him to a multi-year deal. He claims via Rosenhaus, that the Eagles only wanted him to sign a one year deal, which is basically what he got from NE. A one year deal with ridiculous incentives for next season which Stallworth will never see. He said he wanted an option in his contract that could be picked up after next season, and claims the Eagles never offered that to him. The only way Stallworth would have signed a one year deal was if it was for $5M, which no team was willing to pay. When Eskin started to imply that Rosenhaus was lying to Stallworth about what the Eagles would have been willing to do, Stallworth said that Rosenhaus talked with the Eagles and they weren't going to change their offer, which is false, but okay Donte. In the end Stallworth said hes had Drew as his agent for two years and he trusts him and would take his word over the Eagles FO any day. The last topic they talked about was the leak of the fact that he is in the substance abuse program with the NFL. Stallworth said he thinks someone leaked it on purpose with the intent to hurt his stock in the free agent market. He went on to say that it could have been any body and that he doesn't put it past anybody, including the Eagles.

So who would you believe, Eagles FO or Drew Rosenhaus? Next question!

Down goes FEDORUK!!

Not much to say here. Just a good video of the Flyers Todd Fedoruk getting knocked out cold.

Tom Heckert: Chris Gocong to play LB and DE next season.

Eagles GM Tom Heckert was on the Jody Mac show today and had a lot of interesting things to say about the Eagles. He talked about the Safety position, Jeremy Bloom and the kick return situation for next season, Free Agency, Salary Cap, the Draft, and most importantly Chris Gocong.

• The interview started off with Heckert saying that they feel good about the DE position as stands right now. He said they have a solid 4 guys at that position and that Chris Gocong could play there next season, I will get to Gocong at the end of this.

• They also feel good about the Safety situation. They feel if they needed to , they could start Mikell if Consandine or Dawkins was to get injured. I hope they don't feel strong enough not to take a S with their first round pick.

• He talked about the kick return situation for the Eagles and said, Jeremy Bloom and Bethel Johnson will be returning kicks next season, and if they had to, they would put Kevin Curtis back there cause he has experience returning kicks.

• He went on to talk about the salary cap and free agency. He said they feel good about how they've done so far, but that they are still actively looking at free agents. When asked about cap space, Heckert said they would be able to move bonuses around to free up cap room if they had to, and that they would do that if a player comes along that they would like to make a deal with.

• As for the draft Heckert said Compensatory drafts picks will be announced at next weeks NFL team meetings, and they are not expecting any picks for this season. Free agents signed this off-season will count in next years picks. As for the draft class, he said he felt that DE's, S's, and CB's were the strongest positions in the draft this year. That says a lot about which direction they are headed.

• As for Chris Gocong. They are feeling very confident in him right now. He said he feels Gocong will play both the LB and DE position throughout the season. They feel he will be a strong LB this season, but if not he will play DE. He went on to say Gocong is up to 265, and has been working really hard since week 8 of last season. He's been hitting the weight room a lot and is prepared for this season.

So, I'm still not completely sold on Gocong, but I'm feeling a little more optimistic.

The Bourn Identity.

As spring training starts to wind down we have a good idea of what the Phillie's roster is going to look like. One guy that is sure to be in the dugout sometime this year, whether it be opening day or during the summer sometime is Michael Bourn. The 5-11 speedster from Texas actually got some playing time last season but didn't turn any heads. So far this spring training, its the exact opposite. Everybody is excited about what Bourn has been doing in Clearwater. Bourn has been working hard this spring. After being called up to the Phillie's from AAA last season, Bourn, known as being very fast, was caught stealing 3 times. This spring he has Davey Lopez helping him with his base running, and so far, it looks like its working. He's tied for 1st in runs scored, has the most triples this spring and has 5 steals thus far. Bourn is on the verge of being placed into the Phillie's outfield within the year and could eventually work his way into the lead off spot. The Phillie's feel confident enough in Bourn, that Aaron Rowand is still on the trading block.

So who is Michael Bourn? After high school, he was drafted by the Houston Astro's with the 577th pick in 2000 draft. Rather than starting his pro career straight out of high school, Bourn decided to continue his education while playing ball at the University of Houston. It turned out to be a good choice for him. He played for the Cougars for 3 seasons. During his freshman year he started all but one game. He ended the 2001 season with a .303 batting average, a .431 OBP and led the team with 35 steals and 50 walks. In 2002, Bourn started all 65 games for the Cougars. He led the team in runs with 65 and in steals for the second straight season with 32. Bourn was known as a consistent offensive threat who always found ways to get on base, and when he did, he wreaked havoc on opponents. In 2003, the Philadelphia Phillie's drafted Bourn in the fourth round with 115th pick. The Phil's gave him a $299,000 signing bonus and Bourn accepted.

Bourn's career with the Phil's started out with the Batavia Muckdogs in the NY-Penn. League. His batting average in 125 at bats was, well, just average at .280. His slugging % was at very low point also, at a measly .296. He really was not known for being a power hitter and only had one extra base hit in the 35 games he appeared in. He did have a knack for getting on base though. He had a OBP of .404 and posted 23 walks, and 23 steals. In 2004 though, a different Bourn showed up. Playing for the Lakewood Blue Claws single A Atlantic South league, he showed a difference at the plate. Bourn was giving himself a new identity. Somehow he got some power. Who knows how. Whether he started hitting the weight room or had some coaching help with his swing, he was finding a way to get more than the average single. Their was a difference at the plate. In his 413 at bats, he hit .317, with a slugging % of .429. He went from .296 to .429 in less than a year. That is a nice improvement and showed that he was willing to work hard to play better. He ended the 2004 season with 20 doubles, 14 triples, and 5 home runs. He went form having 1 extra base hit to 39 in one season. To help his cause he was posting a good SO to BB ratio, having struck out 88 times and walked 85 times. And as usual to Bourn, he was tearing up the base path with 57 steals. All in all, Bourn ended up leading the SAL in triples, walks, steals and OBP.

In 2005 the Phillie's decided they saw enough good things in Bourn that he was sent straight to the Reading Phillie's skipping Clearwater all together. Playing against tougher competition Bourn continued to show promise but struggled at times. In 135 games he batted .268 with 80 runs, 44 RBI and 38 stolen bases, and was named to the Eastern League All Star team. In 2006, Bourn would do a lot of shuffling within the Phillie's system. He started the year off with Reading Phillie's then in March was sent to AAA with the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Phillie's. Then in September, Bourn got the call that he would be joining the the Phillie's in Philadelphia. He was not a major a factor, and was only able to muster up one hit in eight at bats.

So here we are, about mid-March with opening day rapidly approaching. Michael Bourn is having a very successful spring at this point. He is getting on base at a consistent basis. He's stealing bases and scoring runs every chance he gets while being coached up by base running guru Davel Lopes and starting shortstop Jimmy Rollins. When discussing Bourn's speed Rollins had this to say, "He's much faster than I'll ever be. Some guys are fast, and other guys fly. He flies. He's talented. There's no doubt about that." Thats high praise coming from the guy who leads the Phil's in stolen bases year in, and year out. Bourn has been getting plenty of chances to learn while on the job. When asked how he was taking the advice he's receiving from coach's and player's, Bourn responded with a smile, "I have a heavy load, but it's all about learning. No matter how much of a veteran you are, you've always got something to work on. I want to keep getting better." So this season Michael Bourn will be coming a long way from his 2003 identity of the speedster with no power to the 2007 identity of, starting outfielder who can get on base and score at will. When will this identity come to fruition, time will tell.