The Eagles just can’t get a break.
Just a day after they unveiled their new starting left offensive tackle – the guy whose job it is to protect Donovan McNabb’s blind side – they got blind-sided by a veteran player.
The news that they had traded for Bills All-Pro Jason Peters drew widespread praise from both fans and pundits, many of whom are quick to call the team cheap and unwilling to make a blockbuster deal.
But the very next day the thunder bolt was coming from starting cornerback Sheldon Brown; he’s unhappy with his long-term contract and either wants a new deal or be traded. The blast puts the team right back in the crosshairs again.
It might not seem at first that the two are related. I disagree. Here’s why.
Brown fired the first shot in the Birds’ latest public relations war, making it known yesterday that he would just as soon move on after being unable to reach an agreement on a new deal with the team.
Brown finds himself in a circumstance that many Eagles players have chafed under over the years. He signed a long-term deal and got some signing money. He now has several years left on that contract, but he doesn’t like the terms, insisting he’s now woefully underpaid.
The Eagles – as they almost always do – say they don’t want to hear it.
They informed Brown he has a deal and should stick to it. But they did something else yesterday that also raised a few eyebrows.
The team rarely airs its dirty laundry in public. That’s why it was somewhat surprising that they fired back with a statement of their own after Brown went public. The team said they have no intention of trading Brown and that the corner’s attempts to force a trade actually “devalue him in a trade if we are not willing to consider it, which we are not.”
It would be easy to see the Eagles’ side of this standoff, except for one thing: That press conference they held Sunday to introduce Peters.
Peters was involved in a similar contract dispute with the Bills, and the Eagles were only too willing to step up and take him off their hands.
Just another day in the long-running soap opera, “How the Eagles Turn.”
Just a day after they unveiled their new starting left offensive tackle – the guy whose job it is to protect Donovan McNabb’s blind side – they got blind-sided by a veteran player.
The news that they had traded for Bills All-Pro Jason Peters drew widespread praise from both fans and pundits, many of whom are quick to call the team cheap and unwilling to make a blockbuster deal.
But the very next day the thunder bolt was coming from starting cornerback Sheldon Brown; he’s unhappy with his long-term contract and either wants a new deal or be traded. The blast puts the team right back in the crosshairs again.
It might not seem at first that the two are related. I disagree. Here’s why.
Brown fired the first shot in the Birds’ latest public relations war, making it known yesterday that he would just as soon move on after being unable to reach an agreement on a new deal with the team.
Brown finds himself in a circumstance that many Eagles players have chafed under over the years. He signed a long-term deal and got some signing money. He now has several years left on that contract, but he doesn’t like the terms, insisting he’s now woefully underpaid.
The Eagles – as they almost always do – say they don’t want to hear it.
They informed Brown he has a deal and should stick to it. But they did something else yesterday that also raised a few eyebrows.
The team rarely airs its dirty laundry in public. That’s why it was somewhat surprising that they fired back with a statement of their own after Brown went public. The team said they have no intention of trading Brown and that the corner’s attempts to force a trade actually “devalue him in a trade if we are not willing to consider it, which we are not.”
It would be easy to see the Eagles’ side of this standoff, except for one thing: That press conference they held Sunday to introduce Peters.
Peters was involved in a similar contract dispute with the Bills, and the Eagles were only too willing to step up and take him off their hands.
Just another day in the long-running soap opera, “How the Eagles Turn.”
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