This Is Outstanding

From the DN:

Eagles starting right tackle Winston Justice will write a weekly column for the Daily News to provide his insights into the team. His columns will usually run Wednesdays, beginning next week.

Have a question for Winston? Send your question along with your name and hometown to dnsports@phillynews.com. Winston will answer the best of those submitted in future columns.

The proliferation of athlete's blogs hasn't really given us much insight into these guys.  They're usually packed with anodyne statements that often seem written by someone else.

Winston has a reputation as a thoughtful guy.  Given that a real media outlet is running his column, I have hopes that are, if not high, at least less low than usual.

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I loved this piece by Hofmann.  Analytical, numbers driven, and on the surface it seems totally fair. 

I'm still studying the close game issue.  I've been coming at it a couple different ways and I don't want to put anything out there that's half-baked.  I'll file Hofmann's piece away and see how it matches up to the other stuff I'm looking at when it's ready to go.

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Does Trotter suck this badly:

Gocong, the Eagles' strongside linebacker, is preparing to start at middle linebacker this week, for the first time since high school. He's also returning from missing last week's Dallas game with quad and hamstring injuries that still require treatment. Will Witherspoon, just getting comfortable at middle linebacker after arriving last month in a trade with the Rams, will move over to the weakside, where usual starter Akeem Jordan is not expected to play with a knee injury suffered last Sunday against Dallas.

And Moise Fokou will play SAM. 

Don't get me wrong, early on when there was much "Trotter's back" euphoria, I was pointing out in the video rewinds that he actually kind of wasn't back.  So I have no misconceptions about his current conditioning, response times, etc.

With that said, Moise Fokou. 

Three possibilities here (and they're not mutually exclusive):

1. Trotter continues to look pretty bad, even in practice.
2. The Eagles sort of want to see what Gocong can do in the middle anyway, since he's got better size that Witherspoon and there's no guarantee Stewart Bradley is going to be 100 percent by the beginning of next year.
3. Trotter will actually have a role, but they don't want to go around broadcasting that fact and putting a target on his back.

As Bowen points out, Gocong isn't a three-down backer, even inside, so your nickel group will presumably remain Tracy White and Will Witherspoon, with Chris Clemons occasionally being called upon to stand around in the middle of the field and look lost.

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Jason Peters, warrior whatever word we should really be using instead.

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This one cracked me up:

"Obviously, the Eagles have shown they'll make exceptions for certain players," said an agent who has had several Eagles players as clients over the years. "And DeSean probably is in that special category of guys they might be willing to make an exception for.

"But the Eagles don't trust Drew and they don't want to deal with him. They don't want to give in to him and make him look good. I think if DeSean had any shot of [getting a new deal], he's lowered that chance by hiring Drew."

One of Rosenshark's competitors has issues with the way he does business!?!?  That's amazing.

The problem with this line of thinking is that DeSean isn't some second-contract guy who spent all his signing bonus money and now wants to cry that his salary isn't that great for a couple years.  He's a second-round young guy who is underpaid precisely because that's the way the NFL system works. 

The Eagles have no desire to see DeSean go anywhere, and they have little desire to see it even get as far as free agency.  Back before they changed all the CBA rules, DeSean may even have had his extension by now.

I'm sure his jackass agent is going to try to structure the deal with some crazy escalators and stuff so that DeSean can hit the market for his third contract when he's in his prime, but you know what?  That's what agents are supposed to do. 

I think this gets done.  It gets done quietly.  And Rosenass uses it as one more piece of evidence that he can get things done.

On a related note, someone should get fired for this:

DeSean Jackson's agent switch, to Drew Rosenhaus, is official. Jackson told reporters yesterday that he does not intend to create a distraction. He implied that his former DeBartolo Group agents weren't paying him sufficient attention.

That agency really should have hired Bounty to just follow DeSean around everywhere.  "You good, DeSean?  You need anything, anything at all?  Ok, just checking, you know where to find me."