Andy Reid donned one of his many Hawaiian shirts and kicked off his 10th year in charge of the Eagles with a press conference up in Lehigh. He certainly seemed in good spirits and gave the kind of press conference we've basically all come to expect from Andy. He did address some of the burning questions facing the team and sounded pretty confident answering all.
On how concerned he is about RB Brian Westbrook not being happy with his contract: "We've always done a good job with those things, so I'm not worried about that. We've always been very fair and understanding to the players that we've approached about contracts. Other than that, I'm not going to get into that. It's not our policy to get into these things, so I'll leave it at that."
On whether he expects Westbrook to be in camp: "I'm sure he would be. Brian is obviously one of the leaders of the football team, so I would expect that he would be here."
And Lito
On whether he has talked to CB Lito Sheppard: "No, I haven't talked to Lito, but he will be here. I will meet with Lito once he is here."
On whether he thinks Drew Rosenhaus being Sheppard's agent will have any effect on anything: "No, I don't think so. Lito seems to be in a good place right now, Drew seems to be in a good place about the situation, so I think Lito will come in here and have a great year."
On whether he thinks there are any unresolved issues with Sheppard: "I don't know if there are or not, but I am going to make sure there's nothing there."
The 30 plus club
He also talked about what he called the "30 plus club" where he plans to give some of his older players a little extra rest this year.
"With the 30-plus club, they're going to work two days and then they'll have the morning practice off on the third day," Reid said tonight after rookies and a handful of veterans reported to training camp at Lehigh University. "We'll do that throughout camp."
It's a plan that will affect veterans such as safety Brian Dawkins, 34, and tackles Jon Runyan, 34, and Tra Thomas, 33. Defensive tackles Kimo von Oelhoffen, 37, and Montae Reagor, 30, also qualify. Quarterbacks Donovan McNabb, 31, and A.J. Feeley, 31, also qualify for the 30-plus club, but Reid said he'd have to come up with a plan for that position because Kevin Kolb is the only other quarterback in camp.
He also said that those rules will be bent a bit for over 30 guys like McNabb, Feeley, Akers, and Rocca. They won't see the same kind of rest that say a Jon Runyan will.
(Throat clear) Injuries (cough)
As for injuries, rookies Bryan Smith and Trevor Laws will not participate in the next couple of days. Laws hurt his foot working out at home and Smith's hamstring tightened while working with the team. Both are expected to miss a couple of days but should be ready by the time veterans report later this week. Cornerback Jack Ikegwonu is up at camp but will only be rehabbing. Desean Jackson, who sat out some of the later minicamps with a hamstring injury says he is back to "100 percent."
McNabb is a "selected veteran"
I'm not sure how much working he'll actually do this week, but McNabb was present for the start of the rookies and selected veterans portion of camp. Some other veterans present were Rocky Boiman, Brent Celek, Ryan Moats, Stefan Rodgers, & Michael Gasperson. For the last two I think we use the term veterans loosely...