Eagles Chick | Philadelphia Eagles Football From a Chick's Perspective

Trotter Released - Who Saw This Coming?

I'm out here on the west coast for over a week, and even out here the news made its way to San Jose.  Jeremiah Trotter released by the Eagles!  WTF?  No really WTF?  Finally we get two decent linebackers that can work together and become leaders on the team and then the wonderkins release Trotter.

Wow.... that's all I can say is WOW.

I'll try and post a little more, but being at a tech conference all week, and no TV news on Eagles makes it tough.

This EaglesChick is pretty darn upset that they released Trotter - who's next Dawkins?

Akers Entertains NASCAR Driver at Eagles Training Camp

Eagles fan favorite, kicker, David Akers welcomed NASCAR driver Martin Truex, Jr. at training camp this past week.   The Press of Altantic City, has a nice write up of Truex, Jr.'s visit to camp, complete with Trotter and Spikes trying to recruit Truex Jr. to the Eagles as a safety.

It seems that Akers has a passion NASCAR and even competes in an online league of racing, competing not only with Truex, Jr. but also Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Denny Hamlin and other NASCAR series drivers.  Akers leaves his better skills to the football field claiming he's not so great at racing even though he loves the sport.

Truex, Jr. on the other hand is 11th in the Nextel Cup standings.  He drives for the Dale Earnhardt Racing team aboard the #1 Bass Pro Shops car.  One might think that its a stretch for a NASCAR driver to be an die-hard Eagles fan, but Martin Truex, Jr. is a Deleware Valley guy.  Born and raised in Mayetta, NJ when Truex, Jr. wasn't winning junior racing championships at New Egypt Speedway - at New Egypt, NJ, he was watching Eagles football games.

Truex Jr., use to have his Sundays pretty free to watch the Eagles, however since winning back to back Bush Series championships when he raced on Saturdays, he's now come over to NASCAR full time and races on Sundays.  I guess he's got the TIVO fired up till November when the NASCAR season ends.

As for Akers though, the Iggles blog is reporting on the discouraging progress reports (info also via Philly.com) from him on his hamstring injury.  Even though Akers hit his first "pressure" field goal from 43 yards to give his teammates the night off on Friday,  he's still struggling to adjust to the changes in holders between Dirk Johnson and Sav Rocca. 

We all know Akers only felt really comfortable with Koy Detmer holding that ball.  Unfortunately for Akers, Koy's gone.  Unfortunately for us, visions of Tony Romo flubbing the game loosing hold for the Cowboys last year keep coming back to mind.  If a holder can't even hold the ball right, it can cost a team a lot more than just 3 points - just as Romo.

Eagles Bring Back Ike Reese... Sort Of

I remember watching Eagles Post Game Live last season, one of the games late in the season - I can't remember which one it was, but they had Ike Reese visiting in the studio.  It had to be post season, because I remember thinking "what's up here, isn't Ike with the Falcons?"  I'd hoped (as I'm sure many other Eagles fans did) maybe Ike was in preliminary talks to come back to the Eagles. 

Not that I believe the Eagles had an inkling that Ron "Jaws" Jaworski would be tapped by ESPN to fill Theisman's slot on Monday Night Football, but I had a sneaking suspicion the Eagles wanted to bring back Ike in someway.  Ike Reese is well liked in Philly, they man is a genuinely nice guy and helped to propel the Eagles game forward before he left for Altanta.

Ike Reese will is set to fill Ron Jaworski's slot on the Eagles Television Network (ETN) for their preseason and regular season game commentary.

"We are happy to bring Ike back to be part of the team," said Eagles president Joe Banner. "We know he will bring the same energy to the broadcast that he brought to the locker room."

If Ike's 5 minute banter with Michael Barkann after that show was any indication how he'll be on ETN, we'll be enjoying these games in a whole new way.  Welcome back Ike!

Eagles Training Camp Rocked!

Last Thursday (August 2nd), I spent the morning up at Eagles Training Camp at Lehigh University.  Wow, what an experience that was.  It was the first time I've ever been able to actually take the time off during Training Camp to head on up to the Allentown area to see the Birds practice, and it was well worth the drive up there.

I managed to get a great spot near the fence between the two fields that allotted me a great view and  the opportunity to get some great pictures.  I also met up with some great guys - true "Green" Eagles fans such as this EaglesChick is.  Between yelling to the players (they guys figured out this chick likes Jeremy Bloom!) and joking with the giant security guy who had to yell "Boy, get off my fence" every half hour, we had a blast. 

So, what did this gal see?  Well for one, all the harping we've done here at EaglesChick.com about that long beard that Donovan McNabb was sporting must've worked!  That long beard has been neatly trimmed, and just for evidence sake, I took a shot of D-Mac's new beard (we'll also give a shout out for Brian Dawkins for filling McNabb in on how really bad that beard looked).

Beyond the aesthetics, this chick saw Donovan looking pretty darn limber.  For a guy who claimed to be only 75%, he sure was rolling out and passing with no problems.  I didn't seem him scrambling all that much, but he looked damn good in practice.  Yes, yes... just practice, but still I expected him to be "not so good", and I was surprised.

The group of us there, Kerry "Umbrella-Man" Henderson", Robert Mobley, Alton Mann and I all commented about the different players.  Then there was always the occasional "who the heck is Number XX", when we'd someone we didn't recognize.  Then we got to wondering about all those people that could walk in between the fields that weren't players or coaches.  How the heck do you get "those tickets".

Apparently, you get tickets from sponsors to get into those "special sections".  But there's one thing that just about everyone around me noted, something very glaring and maybe it's something sponsors or even the Eagles could take up.  99% of those people walking in the "sponsored" sections were Caucasian.  Now, how does that fair for equality?  It's just something of a side note, but something a lot of folks around the fields were talking about of all races.

Now beyond those things that were noted, we also got treated to a fight among the players.  I couldn't see who the both the players were but one was #93 Jevon Kearse (go Freak!).  I managed to capture some of the action on my camera (picture here to the right), but not all of it.  It really took the crowd by surprise as you could hear very loud "oh!"'s and "holy shit!"'s coming from the stands and around the fence.  Apparently that even made the news, I heard at work the next day when coworkers asked if I saw it happen.

So what about the rest?  Well Bloom looks awesome (not just his butt either HA!), he can really move.  He'll need that speed though, at only 5' 11", he's looks so small when standing next to Hank Baskett, or John Runyan.  Tony Hunt looked great too, as did JJ Outlaw (go #18!), Buckhalter ran a bunch of kickbacks too.

I was a bit disappointed I didn't manage to see Brian Dawkins, or Lito Sheppard.  The guys around me joked though I got enough of a view of Bloom to make up for it though. :)

Overall - the trip up to Training Camp ROCKED!  Check out my flickr set for all the Eagles Training Camp Pictures I took, warning there's over 300.  I also took some and zoomed in on them, for better views.

*side note to my training camp pals - apologies for how long it took to get the pictures up, had family emergencies crop up!

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