The Eagles are considered among the favorites to contend for the Super Bowl this season, but the first 10 days of training camp have been difficult for Andy Reid's squad.

First, the team received the devastating news that longtime defensive coordinator Jim Johnson and succumbed to cancer. Since being hired by Reid in 1999, the Eagles defense has been among the best units in the league.

First-round draft pick Jeremy Maclin did not sign until late Monday night and missed 9 days of camp.

Starting middle linebacker Stewart Bradley is out for the season after tearing an ACL in a knee during a practice Sunday night at Lincoln Financial Field.

Then early this morning, defensive end Juqua Parker was arrested on a marijuana possession charge near the team's training facility at Lehigh University.

According to the Associated Press, Lower Saucon Township police said Parker was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation at 12:33 a.m. near Lehigh University, where the Eagles train.

Parker was carrying "a small amount of marijuana" and was taken to Northampton County Prison, police said. Parker was released after posting $1,000 bail later Wednesday morning, a prison official said.

Eagles coach Andy Reid said he was aware of the incident.

"It's in the law's hands right now. As time goes on, I'll know more," Reid said. Reid said the team curfew was 1 a.m.

So most of the news coming out of Eagles camp has been bad. As a fan, I hope that isn't a pretense to the regular season.

It was a sad day for Eagles fans Saturday when news broke that 13-year veteran safety Brian Dawkins had signed a 5-year contract with the Denver Broncos.

Dawkins, shown at right holding up his Broncos jersey, played more games than anyone in Eagles history and was the heart of a defense that was among the league's best for most of his tenure.

Ironically, the Broncos will be playing the Eagles this season in Philadelphia.

Don't know who is to blame here, but most fans point toward Eagles management. Right now, there is a huge void on the field, in the locker room and in the hearts of die-hard Eagles fans.

Hell just froze over. The Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.

Halftime score:

Cardinals 24, Eagles 6

This first half shows why Andy Reid, Donovan McNabb and Jim Johnson are 1-3 in 4 previous NFC Championship Games.

UGLY!!!!!!

I've waited long enough, seeing that it's just 2 hours before kickoff of the NFC Championship Game between the Eagles and Arizona Cardinals.

I expect the Eagles to win. They are favored to win and they are the better team. And that's what scares me. What sticks in the back of my mind is that the Eagles were the better team in 2003 when they lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and in 2004 when they lost to the Carolina Panthers. The Eagles were favored in those games, too, and they were at home.

The point spread opened with the Eagles as a 3-point favorite and by Friday the Eagles were a 4-point favorite. As of Saturday night, it was 3 1/2 points.

The turning point for the Eagles' season was the 48-20 rout of the Cardinals on Thanksgiving night. Since then, the Eagles have won 6 of 7 games. But don't expect that today.

The Cardinals limped into the playoffs, but have defeated the favored Atlanta Falcons at home in the Wild Card round, before routing the host Carolina Panthers last week to move into the NFC title game.

The Eagles' defense is playing at an incredible level right now, and I expect more of that today. The Cardinals have a more potent passing game than either the Vikings or Giants, but the Eagles should be able to contain it -- if they get pressure on Cards QB Kurt Warner.

The game is likely to come down to 2 things -- how many times the Eagles hit Warner, and who wins the turnover battle. I see the Eagles ahead on both counts -- and a few big plays from Brian Westbrook wouldn't hurt, either.

I see the Eagles winning 27-20 (I hope it's a bigger spread) and headed to Tampa to face the Pittsburgh Steelers in an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl.

FLY, EAGLES, FLY

eagles_vocal.mp3

eagles-long.mp3

I'd like to say I see a victory against the hated New York Giants, but I can't.

The Eagles defense is playing great, but I don't know if the Eagles offense will be able to score enough points, and while the Giants rested with a bye week last week, the Eagles were in a physical game with the Vikings.

Donovan McNabb hasn't had great games at Giant Stadium, and kicker David Akers doesn't kick well, either.

All that, and after the two road teams won Saturday, I don't think the Eagles can make it three out of three.

Final score: Giants 17, Eagles 10

ESPN's "NFL Countdown" host Chris Berman, as is alter ego The Swami on SportsCenter Friday night, went out on a limb and picked the Colts and Eagles to meet in Super Bowl 43.

Well, the Colts lost to the Chargers, 23-17, in overtime Saturday night. That doesn't bode well for the Eagles.

Another of ESPN's talking heads, Skip Bayless, said Monday on "First Take" on ESPN2 that he see the Eagles as this year's Giants ... meaning winning the Super Bowl.

As a die hard, I wish for it, but I don't really see that happening.

It's been a roller-coaster season for Eagles' fans, capped by last Sunday's 44-6 rout of the hated Cowboys that got the Birds into the playoffs.

I hate to make a prediction on Sunday's playoff game at Minnesota against the Vikings, but except for the offense's performance in a 10-3 loss to the Redskins 2 weeks ago, the team is playing really, really well on both side of the ball.

So here goes my pick: Eagles 24, Vikings 13

Click the link below to hear the Eagles fight song:
eagles_vocal.mp3

After last week's awful, uninspiring 10-3 loss to the Redskins, it seemed the Eagles were knocked from the playoff chase. Too many outcomes had to fall in line on the season's last day for the Eagles to get back into the playoffs: losses by Tampa and Chicago or Minnesota, then a win over the Cowboys.

But around 4 p.m. Sunday, the holiday miracle began to take shape:

Raiders 31, Tampa 24

Houston 31, Chicago 24

So when the Eagles took the field against the hated Cowboys, they knew a win would get them in the playoffs. And win they did.

EAGLES 44, COWBOYS 6

Don't know if it was the emotion on which the Eagles played, or the lack of intensity from the Cowboys, but after a 3-3 first quarter, the Cowboys imploded, turning the ball over 5 straight times which led to 27 Eagles points. But who cares, we beat the stinkin' Cowboys to get into the playoffs. I watched the game at a little holiday gathering at my house. My dad and uncle and cousin from York and I were all going crazy as each Cowboys' fumble led to an Eagle defender running in for a score.

So now the Eagles will visit Minnesota to play the Vikings in a game at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

GO EAGLES!!!

Now that the Eagles have followed up their awful tie with the Cincinnati Bengals with a brutal loss to the Baltimore Ravens that included the halftime benching of Donovan McNabb, it's time to put any thoughts of a playoff run to rest. This season, and perhaps the McNabb/Andy Reid, era is over.

So, here are some Eagles jokes to get you through the rest of the season:

The Philadelphia Police are cracking down on speeders heading into Philadelphia. For the first offense, they give you two Eagle tickets. If you get stopped a second time, they make you use them.

Q. What do you call 47 millionaires around a TV watching the Super Bowl?A. The Philadelphia Eagles.

Q. What do the Philadelphia Eagles and Billy Graham have in common?

A. They both can make 70,000 people stand up and yell 'Jesus Christ'.

Q. How do you keep the Philadelphia Eagles out of your yard?

A. Put up a goal post.

Q. Where do you go in Philadelphia in case of a tornado?

A: To the Eagles Stadium — they never have a touchdown there.

Q. What do you call a Philadelphia EAGLE with a Super Bowl ring?

A. A thief.

Q:What's the difference between the Philadelphia Eagles and a dollar bill?

A. You can still get four quarters out of a dollar bill.

Q. How many Philadelphia Eagles does it take to win a Super Bowl?

A. Nobody knows and we may never find out.

Q. What do the Philadelphia Eagles and a possums have in common?

A. Both play dead at home and get killed on the road.

In his part-time gig as an analyst on Comcast SportsNet's "Eagles Post-Game Live," Gov. Ed Rendell, at right, called the Eagles' performance in Sunday's 13-13 tie with the Cincinnati Bengals "Pathetic, with a capital P."

Well, if anyone would know pathetic, it would be Rendell. After all, he's the leader of one of the most pathetic states in the country regarding economic development, jobs, taxes, roads, etc.

After the Eagles' awful 13-13 tie with the now 1-8-1 Cincinnati Bengals, head coach and vice president of player personnel Andy Reid should be fired when the plane lands in Philly...if not over Pittsburgh!!!

It's obvious he is clueless as to what the problems are, let alone be able to fix them. He and quarterback Donovan McNabb have run their course with the Eagles. It's time for them both to go.

How many Eagles fans reading this are tired of Andy Reid and the way he's running the team?

I don't know who ticks me off more: Andy Reid the football coach, or Andy Reid the executive vice president of football operations.

Reid's on-field decisions are just brutal. The offense starts the game so sluggishly, as a fan you wonder if that unit has evened practiced all week. And why Reid insists on running the ball in short-yardage plays in the fourth quarter when he hasn't given the running game a chance to work for the first 3 quarters is bizarre. An interesting stat from Sunday night's loss to the Giants: the Eagles are 5 out of 14 when running the ball on third or fourth down and a yard to go, yet they are 3 of 3 when passing in the same situation.

Of course, part of the problem may lie with Andy Reid the personnel guy. The last 2 years, the Eagles have traded out of the first round of the draft (in 2007, it was to the stinkin' Cowboys!!). This year, they lucked out by having DeSean Jackson fall into their laps in the second round. But trading a fourth-round pick for rarely-used running back Lorenzo Booker hasn't worked out. And using a 2007 third-round pick on recently cut running back Tony Hunt was a mistake.

Maybe if Reid went out and brought in a real fullback, it might help the running game.

His post-game and day-after press conferences are a waste of time. Everyone knows that after a loss, Reid will take the blame and say how he has to do a better job to get his players in a better position to make plays. I'M TIRED OF IT!!!!

Should the Eagles miss the playoffs this year, it will be the third time in four years that has happened. At some point, owner Jeffrey Lurie has to seriously consider letting Reid go as the team doesn't appear headed in the right direction.

A few years ago, though the Eagles had yet to win a Super Bowl, Lurie called the Eagles "the gold standard" of the NFL. After the Phillies' World Series win, the Eagles don't even carry "the gold standard" in their own city.

Eagles wide receiver Hank Baskett made the greatest catch of his career last weekend, and it wasn't in the team's 26-7 win over Seattle.

Baskett became engaged to Kendra Wilkinson, at right, one of Hugh Hefner's former girlfriends and one of the stars of the E! network's "Girls Next Door."

Hefner has given his blessing and said the wedding will take place at the Playboy Mansion in June.

To read more, click here.

By the time the eighth inning rolled around in Monday night's Phillies-Dodgers NLCS Game 4, I had pretty much convinced myself that the series would be tied.

It was a mood-altering game until that point: Phils score 2 runs in the first, and the Dodgers get 1 back. Then the Dodgers take the lead, and the Phillies tie it, but leave the go-ahead run at third base. Then the Dodgers get two more runs for a 5-3 lead after seven innings.

So I was just laying in bed, biding my time until the final out when I could go to sleep. And then it happened.

First, Shane Victorino -- the man Dodgers fans love to hate -- tied the game with a two-run homer. Then an out and a base-hit later, Matt Stairs launched another homer into the right-field bleachers, shown in the photo above, to give the Phillies an improbable 7-5 win, a 3-1 series lead and one victory away from the World Series.

Of course, I was then too excited to sleep, so I watched "Post-Game Live" on Comcast SportsNet, then "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN for their expert analyiss, finally able to turn in at 1:30 this morning.

But it was worth it, capping off a nice two-day stretch of fandom. Why? The Eagles won a game they needed to on Sunday, but it wasn't just the 40-26 comeback win over the 49ers, but everything that came along with it: division rivals Redskins and Cowboys losing Sunday and the Giants losing Monday, all to teams they shouldn't be losing.

Those outcomes kept the Eagles trailing the Giants by 2 games and the Cowboys and Redskins by 1 in the NFC East Division.

The Eagles have a bye this week, and it will probably benefit them since all the talk will be about the Phillies as they look to wrap up a spot in the World Series, then go for the city's first championship in more than 25 years.

GO PHILLIES!!

As October dawns, it's a great time to be a sports fan:

• The National League Eastern Division champion Phillies, above in an AP photo shown celebrating their division title, open the Division Series Wednesday at home against the Milwaukee Brewers.


• The 76ers, with new power forward Elton Brand, at righ in an AP photo, began training camp on Tuesday. The team expects to contend for the NBA Eastern Conference title this season.


• The Eagles, despite their awful loss Sunday night in Chicago, are still among the top teams in the NFC. Unfortunately, they play in the best division in football.

• Undefeated Penn State has risen to No. 6 in the country in college football. The Nittany Lions' chances to play for a national championship may come down to an Oct. 25 game at Ohio State.

Let's hope that when Halloween comes, I'll feel the same excitement.

The next 10 days will tell a great deal about the fate of the 2008 Phillies.

Four home games against the Dodgers, two more against the division-leading Mets and then four games in Chicago against the Cubs are what lies ahead for the under-achieving squad.

Just last week, the Dodgers swept four games from the Phillies in Los Angeles, so you'd think the hometown team would like to extract a little revenge from the West Coasters.

As I write this, the Phillies trail the Mets by 2 1/2 games, so depending on the outcomes of this weekend's games, the Phils may need to win both games from the Mets just to stay alive in the pennant race.

And the Cubs only have the best record in the league as they vie for their first World Series title since 1908.

So the outlook for the next 10 games isn't promising, especially with the impotent bats of leadoff hitter Jimmy Rollins, shown above in an Associated Press photo, and cleanup hitter Ryan Howard. Rollins is just 3-for-33 since calling fans "frontrunners" on the recent West Coast trip. Howard has three hits in his last 35 at bats, with 18 strikeouts in that span.

Come Labor Day, either the Phillies are still in the race for a playoff spot, or fans can start chanting "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!"

The Philadelphia Eagles organization received a great honor today.

No, they weren't named Team of the Decade, nor did they get a bye into the Super Bowl.

The honor occured off the field, and didn't involve any of the players. No, this award went to one of the cheerleaders.

In its September issue released Tuesday, Maxim magazine -- in its NFL preview -- named rookie cheerleader Janelle Stangl as one of the league's four "most gorgeous" cheerleaders.

Stangl, shown above in a photo from the Eagles, was the only member of the organization to be mentioned in the issue.

To check out the story and more, visit maximonline.com

Eagles fans received some bad news Tuesday. No, Brian Westbook isn't holding out, nor did Donovan McNabb get injured at training camp.

This time, the bad news came from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has instituted a new fan code of conduct. The new code is aimed at
conduct that the league said "detracts from the gameday experience."

It includes bans on:
* Behavior that is unruly, disruptive, or illegal.
* Drunkenness and signs of alcohol impairment that result in irresponsible behavior.
* Foul or abusive language or obscene gestures.
* Interference with the progress of the game, including throwing objects onto the field.
* Failing to follow instructions of stadium personnel.
* Verbal or physical harassment of fans from the opposing team.

Spectators who violate the code of conduct will be ejected from stadiums and barred from coming back -- meaning Lincoln Financial Field could get pretty empty.

A cook at a fast-food restaurant in Washington state apparently can't get over the Seattle Seahawks' loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL.

According to the Associated Press, the cook near Port Orchard, Wash., has
been accused of spitting on a hamburger ordered by a man wearing Pittsburgh Steelers clothing.

Sheriff's deputies say the 37-year-old customer was with his daughters at a Port Orchard-area eatery. He reportedly traded remarks with an employee about Super Bowl XL in which the Seahawks lost to the Steelers.

When the customer opened his food container, he says there was spittle on the burger. He demanded a refund and called the fast-food outlet's district manager.

The manager told deputies a 24-year-old man might be responsible. The next day, deputies went to the man's house and smelled marijuana. The man was released after being booked for investigation of fourth-degree assault and possession of marijuana.

So heed this warning New York Giants followers: you better hope an Eagles fan who works in food service doesn't know about this.