Eagles Make More Moves!

Whew, its a good thing I just stuck with the Offense yesterday, cause the Birds made 3 more moves overnight (for me). I woke up and the found out the Birds had signed former Steelers & Jets DT Kimo von Oelhoffen. Generously called a veteran, the 36 year old lineman will be looked to provide a steady vet leadership to a young front 7.

That pretty much ended Ian Scott's brief stay with the Eagles. Shame too, because Scott was a good player in Chicago, but simply couldn't get on the field fort he Eagles due to a knee injury. The Eagles did not place him on the Physically Unable to Perform list (or PUP list) which would have given Scott six more weeks and delayed the Eagles decision as whether or not to keep him (Ex. any player PUP'd cannot play until Week 7 - at minimum. I believe team have until Week 9 or 10 to activate the player onto their 53-man roster, place them on injured reserve or release them.

I think when he wasn't cut by the Eagles yesterday, even after he hadn't played and UFA DT Jeremy Clark had an excellent camp that the thinking in Eagledom was that the Eagles chose Scott over Clark because he's more of a proven commodity - and the Eagles already have two young 2nd-year DTs and probably weren't looking to have a rookie added to the mix. Reagor was signed primarily for his veteran savvy and his experience on winning ballclubs. KVO brings a similar pedigree. He's been on a Super Bowl winning team.

But the REAL surprise (and delight to many) was the return of, uh, return man/safety J.R. Reed. You see, JR was an unsung hero for the special teams during the Eagles Super Bowl run in 2004. While most folks focused on the how McNabb and T.O. torched the league and how Trotter's return to the middle sparked a defense renaissance (and rightly so); what went less noticed was how good the Eagles special teams were that season. I mean our return game consistently set up the Birds with good to excellent field position. I can remember talking with my Dad about that. Several times a game it seemed, the Eagles would turn mediocre field position (say between their own 15-30) into really good fp with a good punt return, or following another team scoring, the kick return team would crank out another good return and hand the ball to McNabb & Co. near mid-field - giving the O a chance to get those points back.

Well anyway, the Eagles claimed J.R. Reed off the waiver wire (he played for the vaGiants for 8 days but we'll forgive him) and it hopefully it signal the return of our return game, which has been stuck in neutral the past two years without J.R.

Oh yeah, the Eagles also claimed middle linebacker Pago Togafau on Sunday. HA, first "von Oelhoffen and then Togafau - is the Front Office trying to make poor Merrill Reese go nuts? A rookie free agent out of Idaho State, Togafau spent training camp and the preseason with the Arizona Cardinals. The 5-foot-10, 250-pound Togafau had 16 tackles in the preseason. He led the Bengals in tackles in each of his last three seasons and finished his college career with a total of 361.

To maintain the 53-man roster limit, the Eagles released linebacker Akeem Jordan and safety Marcus Paschal. (and I'd already come up with something about them for my analysis of the defense roster spots). Now I could imagine the Birds will try and stash both of the those guys on their practice squad. And if Togafau flops, Jordan will be back.