The Eagles have concerns about their offensive line going into Thursday night's game against the Colts.
Because of injuries, Philadelphia will play only one starter, center Jamaal Jackson, and four backups. Tackle Winston Justice and guard Nick Cole, two of those backups, have plenty of upside.
But coach Andy Reid obviously wants his starters back playing -- he just needs them to get healthy first.
"That's a spot, that I've said it before, I want them to have an opportunity to play together and I think the more time they spend together the better things work," Reid said this week. "This is the hand we are dealt with here, and we expect guys to step in and play well."
One of the fun back-and-forth debates when it comes to NFL training camp involves the physicality of practices. Some teams can manage success without running hard-hitting workouts in the late summer, while other coaches swear by physical practices as the best way to prepare for a long regular season.
Philadelphia head man Andy Reid is one of those. He runs a physical training camp, and sometimes his team has to deal with injuries during it. This is one of those years, as numerous players have gone down in the first week-plus of workouts.
While the offensive line might not represent a direct draft day decision for your roster, few areas of knowledge can offer a competitive advantage in fantasy football like having a good grasp of the various units of trench soldiers around the league. So with that in mind, each year at FanHouse we break down every NFL team's offensive lines into five tiers: the crème de la crème, the highly competent, the serviceable, the grim, and the bunk.
Last offseason, the Bengals franchised offensive tackle Stacy Andrews, the team's 2004 fourth-round pick, even though he had just 17 career starts. He started 15 more times last season, but a Week 17 knee injury convinced Cincinnati to let him walk this time around.
The Eagles, who are in need of reinforcements along the offensive line due to age and, ironically, injury, wasted little time in signing Andrews. His younger brother Shawn just finished his fifth year with the Eagles, and has 47 career starts at guard and tackle. Stacey's addition means that 34-year-old Jon Runyan's Eagles' career is likely over.
It's shaping up to be a completely lost season for Shawn Andrews of the Philadelphia Eagles. The guard missed a big chunk of training camp with what was described as a clinical bout of depression and then injured his back the second week of the season. Originally the Eagles said that surgery wasn't a possibility to help fix the injury but, several weeks later, Andrews has indeed undergone surgery to repair a herniated disc.
He's expected to miss at least six weeks and could be out for the remainder of the season. Andrews, by coach Andy Reid's own admission, hadn't improved since the injury occurred and one wonders why he didn't pursue the surgical option more vigorously. It wasn't the first time Andrews had an issue with the disc and if he'd had the surgery earlier, he could be back with the team sooner to help them make what they hope will be a push for the playoffs in the season's final weeks.
It appears they'll have to make such a push with Max Jean-Gilles occupying the Pro Bowler's spot at right guard. The good news for the Eagles is that they expect to have Brian Westbrook, Reggie Brown and Kevin Curtis in the lineup this Sunday which should mitigate the gaping hole left by Andrews on the offense.
Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Shawn Andrews has still not reported to the team's training camp, and the reasons have remained mysterious, with rumors about health problems, personal problems, or discontent with his contract.
Now Andrews has finally explained: He's depressed.
"It's not helping us and it's not helping him sitting out," right tackle Jon Runyan said. "The longer he holds out, the longer it'll be before he gets in there. So it's going to be a tough situation. If you keep giving reps to the guy who's backing you up, at some point, he's going to pass you."
Over the weekend when this whole Shawn Andrews mystery started to come to light, Runyan made a comment about Andrews taking a "really expensive vacation." At $15,000 or so a day, the Eagles lineman has surpassed the six figure mark. Could Andrews really be that lazy that he'd rather pay 100 large than have to work hard twice a day in the Pennsylvania humidity? I'm thinking there must be deeper issues.
The guy stepping in for Andrews is third-year guard Max Jean-Gilles who by all accounts is quite a large man. Reports from camp keep talking about just how gigantic he is. (yet agile!)
In other Eagles camp news, DeSean Jackson returned to the field on Wednesday after his "tweaked" hammy kept him out of drills on Tuesday.
Eagles offensive tackle Shawn Andrews did not report to training camp last week, and he's still not there. Andrews has not said why he's not in camp, but it doesn't seem to be a contractual matter. The Philadelphia Daily News offers this from Andrews' agent, Rich Moran:
"We're working on taking care of things," Moran said last night. He would not elaborate on the "personal situation" that has kept Andrews away from Lehigh, even when a reporter referenced some of the more outrageous rumors floating around the Internet, and suggested that the truth could hardly be more damaging.
Without getting into those "outrageous rumors," Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes that if, as some hypothesize, Andrews has some type of emotional or psychological issue, a medical examination could protect Andrews' rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act -- including the right not to be fined $15,000 a day for missing camp, which is what the Eagles are currently doing.
Andrews is a talented player and a player the Eagles want back soon. But for now, there's no sign that his return will come soon.
While Brian Wesbtrook has made it very clear in the past few weeks that he is unhappy with the current contract he is under, the star running back reported to Lehigh this evening on time as all veterans were scheduled to do. The other question mark was whether or not corner back Lito Sheppard would show up on time. He did.
The somewhat surprising news is that one of the games best offensive linemen, Shawn Andrews, failed to report on time and was not at Lehigh University. Andrews is currently under contract until 2015. That's quite a while.
The media can twist stories anyway they want. It happens all the time. Even here on blogs we create stories out of nothing. Teams can also twist stories how they want. It's well known that most coaches despise the injury report and use it as a smoke screen almost as much as they use it to tell us who is really hurt. Who says players can't get in on the action?
Shawn Andrews has been hurt for much of training camp. In an interview with reporters he said that after meeting with specialists that the conversation was a "tear jerker." Wow, that must mean a season ender? God forbid, career ender?
The Eagles have concerns about their offensive line going into Thursday night's game against the Colts.
One of the fun back-and-forth debates when it comes to 
While the offensive line might not represent a direct draft day decision for your roster, few areas of knowledge can offer a competitive advantage in 
Last offseason, the Bengals franchised offensive tackle 
It's shaping up to be a completely lost season for 
Shawn Andrews has still failed to show his face at Eagles training camp at Lehigh University and some of his 
Eagles offensive tackle Shawn Andrews 
The media can twist stories anyway they want. It happens all the time. Even here on blogs we create stories out of nothing. Teams can also twist stories how they want. It's well known that most coaches despise the injury report and use it as a smoke screen almost as much as they use it to tell us who is really hurt. Who says players can't get in on the action?
