Eye on the Eagles

On what went through his mind when he saw TE L.J. Smith go down:
“Actually, I didn’t get a chance to see it. I was on the other field, and I just kind of saw him in the fetal position. Any time you see any of your players go down, you ask who that player is and what happened, and if he’s okay. Having pretty much that same injury, with the torn groin, and having it surgically repaired and coming back out here, it’s something you’ve got to battle through. Right now he’s going through another phase of it. I hope everything kind of works itself out and he’ll be back out here being able to be the L.J. we all know.”

On whether it was a bad feeling for L.J. after knowing how much the same injury bothered McNabb:
“When I was diagnosed with mine, it became a phenomenon across the league. Early on, they didn’t know exactly what it was. They just said it was kind of a torn abdominal muscle. Also, they thought it was kind of an abdominal strain. Once it led to a torn groin, they kind of found out exactly what it was. After I heard that L.J. was diagnosed with it and had to have it surgically repaired, I just kind of gave him insight about it and tried to give him a little bit of information of what he had to go through to prepare himself for trying to come out here and play at a high level.”

On what kind of advice he would give L.J. now:
“I think the good thing for him is that it happened in the offseason. He was able to go through a rehab process before training camp. They took him slowly through a lot of the drills out here in the beginning of training camp, which led to him being able to compete. It was kind of unfortunate what happened with the strain, or whatever he was diagnosed with after he got hurt out here on the practice field. The thing that I tried to tell him early on was just to go slow with it. Days when it feels like everything is healed, it’s really not. There’s scar tissue in there, you continue to stretch, and have someone go in there to dig out that scar tissue. Just kind of be patient with it—everything will get better in time, but patience is everything.”

On whether he wrestled with the decision to have surgery on his sports hernia before the 2005 season:
“With my situation, I came in with a sports hernia, which is a torn abdominal muscle. That led to me tearing my groin. People have played with the actual sports hernia and had it repaired at the end of the year or played through it for years. I was just fighting through my torn abdominal muscle, which led, in that Dallas game, to me tearing my groin completely off the bone. At times, when you have the sports hernia, the surgery is pretty much for the doctor to clip two tendons in your groin and go up and reattach the abdominal muscle, which he had to do both with me. I tore four tendons off the bone in my groin, and he had to repair two and go over and clip the other side to alleviate some of the pressure, and then go and attach the abdominal muscle. As excruciating as that sounds, imagine that surgery and how it feels afterwards. But, God willing, I was able to come out here and do the things I was able to do after the surgery, and with the rehab and a little bit of rest.”

On whether he was surprised that he had a setback:
“Not really, because that was kind of the thing that the doctor would always tell me, was don’t be shocked about having a setback or something may occur afterwards. I never had to go through that mode, probably because I had mine surgically repaired and I just pretty much had to rest all through the end of the year and all throughout the offseason.”

On how his knee feels:
“There are days where you go consistently with it feeling fine. You warm it up and stretch it out before practice, come out here and move around. That’s why you see me stretching while I’m standing around, because you don’t want it to get cold and then have to start all over again. The confidence is there, knowing that it is repaired and that it’s fine, but you just kind of have to go through a mode where sometimes it’ll stiffen up a little bit, where you may have to get on a bike or stretch on the sidelines and get out there and get moving. I think the mindset of it is that you have to know it’s repaired and it’s fine to do the minor things. Like I said, just move around a little bit and get it going. When you can step out on the field, you can do exactly what you can do.”

On whether his injury ever bothers him psychologically when he is on the field:
“Out on the practice field right now, no. I can’t speak for everyone. There may be a game situation- but that’s going to be a process that I think I have to go through. It’s just getting out there in a game situation and having that same mindset just like out here in the practice field. It’s kind of like riding a bike. If you haven’t ridden a bike for a while then you get back on- you’re forgetting stages of saying, ‘Oh, everything’s fine, I can get back on and adjust real quickly.’ But, there’s going to be times where you have to adjust and something’s going to pull you away and say, ‘Hey, you’re going to have to do this over, now and you’re going to have to get in that rhythm now.’ And knowing this game situation, and this is the speed of it, and you’re going to have to adjust quickly.”

On whether the Eagles will have a good offense if L.J. Smith misses a significant amount of time:
“It’s tough any time you lose any of your weapons. I think with the three of us though, myself [RB Brian] Westbrook, and L.J., we’re able to work the inside of the field. And with [TE] Brent [Celek] and with [TE] [Matt] Schobel, obviously, with the experience L.J. has in this offense, not to say it’s a step down or upward or whatever it may be, they’ve worked well together. We would love to have L.J. out there. But, knowing the situation, we want him to be healthy and ready to go when he comes back. But with Schobel out there, and Brent learning, it takes a lot of pressure off of Brent knowing that he is a rookie, he’s learning the offense. And, Schobel having that experience of playing in the NFL and playing last year in this offense, he can help us out in many ways as well.”

On whether he wants to get reps Monday vs. Baltimore:
“We’ve been communicating leading up to that. Either today, tomorrow, or Saturday whatever it may be. But, I would love to play. Is it the right time? We’ll communicate about that. But, I will be stepping up there some time throughout this preseason. I just look forward to that opportunity.”

On his thoughts about Head Coach Andy Reid’s concerns for him playing on artificial surface:
“That I’ve never been through this situation and I’d have to step out on astroturf or grass. I’ve trained all throughout on grass. I’ve never really trained on astroturf after the injury. So, to answer that fully for you- I’m sorry if I’m not able to. But, just trying to give you something. I can see where Andy’s talking about getting back out on natural grass knowing that we’ve practiced on nothing but natural grass- wanting to be able to get back out there in a game situation and do it.”

On whether he is worried that the injury list is getting long:
“That I’m not on the list, no (jokingly). I’ve been on that list. But, the good thing for us is the fact that it’s nothing serious. This is the preseason, and this is the time where you are able to eliminate some of those little injuries that you can have in training camp. Seeing the guys in the training room being high spirited, knowing that they will be back. It’s exciting for all of us to know that, and have the confidence to know that those guys will be back out there when the whistle blows, when it’s time.”

On how guards Max Jean-Gilles and Scott Young have looked because of Shawn Andrew’s injury:
“I try not to look at the guys and look at the numbers when they’re in there. I try to have that confidence, and try to provide that for them knowing that I have confidence in them. So, when guys rotate you don’t look to see who’s in and say, ‘Oh well, can he do this, can he do that?’ You try to provide confidence for them to let them know that no matter who’s in there, we have confidence that they’ll be able to get the job done. If it’s Max, if it’s Scott, whoever it may be- or even with Winston - you just try to let them know that you’re in here. We’re confident that you’re going to get the job done. Let’s just get ready to roll.”