Les Bowen: The Bottom Line - Lots of targets, one football

SUDDENLY, ANDY Reid is in the unaccustomed position of having to juggle some big-time offensive talent - and the egos that come with that talent.

Is DeSean Jackson really happy with one catch for 1 yard (from Michael Vick, at that) on Sunday? Are Brian Westbrook and LeSean McCoy really interchangeable parts? Now that Jeremy Maclin has joined the party, where's his niche going forward?

"It's definitely frustrating to go from a situation where you're getting all those catches, and then you have a game with one catch," Jackson said last night on ESPN 950's "DeSean Jackson Show." He has 13 catches for 260 yards in four games. "There's going to be times when the other team is going to try to take me out of the game. It was good to see Jeremy go over the top and make those catches ... Jeremy just came up huge ... As long as we're winning, everybody's happy."

Reid and Donovan McNabb said after Sunday's win that the Bucs rolled their coverage to Jackson, a big part of why rookie Maclin always seemed open, to the tune of six catches for 142 yards and his first two NFL TDs.

"He's a competitive little guy, man ... you're going to run into games like that every once in a while," Reid said yesterday, when asked about Jackson's decoy role against the Bucs. "You work through it. He'll get back at it [tomorrow] and then we'll keep trying to design ways to get him the football."

Jackson said he would never go to McNabb and ask for the ball.

"It'll work out," he said. "It'll work out for the best."

"Those things happen," said Reid, who quoted slot receiver Jason Avant's assertion that "when one of the receivers makes a catch, they all make a catch - it's all for one there."

Westbrook made it clear afterward that eight touches a game is not what he has in mind, now that he feels his ankle is healthy.

Reid said the Eagles would rotate Westbrook and McCoy "as long as we need to, and as long as [Westbrook] feels comfortable with his foot. We can increase things, but right now, that's where we're at, and we'll see how it works this week."

DEVELOPING STORY LINES* Winston Justice was matched Sunday against Tampa defensive end Jimmy Wilkerson, who was credited with three sacks. At first glance, that's a big step backward for Justice, whose play at right tackle this season has been a pleasant surprise. But Andy Reid said yesterday he didn't think Justice had a bad day. Reviewing film, Reid saw one sack "that he probably would like to have back." The other two were coverage deals, especially the one where Donovan McNabb was scrambling and Wilkerson eventually caught him from behind. Only a dubious spot turned that from a 1-yard gain into no gain and a technical sack.

* Sunday's rash of injuries to cornerbacks - Dimitri Patterson is out for a while with a quad strain, Ellis Hobbs banged his wrist, Asante Samuel tweaked a calf and Sheldon Brown suffered a mild abdominal strain - might occasion some wringing of hands, if the Birds weren't playing the Raiders this week. Against the Giants, Oakland was penalized 67 yards, passed for 64. The Eagles could play Jeremiah Trotter and Max Jean-Gilles at corner this week and win.

* Speaking of the Raiders, they are 25-76 since appearing in the Super Bowl, 7 years ago come February.

WHO KNEW?That DeSean Jackson and Ronde Barber would catch the exact same number of passes from Donovan McNabb?

If somebody had told you that in the parking lot before the game, you might have shuddered, given McNabb's history with Barber. But Tiki's brother had no bearing this time around.

OBSCURE STATEverybody knows the Eagles are 11-0 the week after the bye under Andy Reid. But what are they THE WEEK AFTER THE WEEK AFTER THE BYE? Ah, hah! You don't get this kind of forward-thinking analysis just anywhere, you know. The answer would be 4-4, going into this weekend's visit to Oakland. Yes, that's only eight games - Big Red's first 2 years, the game after the bye ended the Eagles' regular season. If you want to include the wild-card playoff win after the 2000 season, vs. the Bucs, it's 5-4. The Eagles lost three in a row in that second-week-after-the-bye situation before winning at Seattle last year.

EXTRA POINTQuality of the opposition aside, it would be so much easier to feel good about this team if it just ran the ball better. The debate always goes chicken-and-egg - they don't do it well so they don't do it often, but lots of people (mainly offensive linemen) say you have to run the ball consistently, get in a rhythm, to do it well.

Take away 30 yards of Donovan McNabb scrambles and the Eagles ran 19 times for 46 yards, against a defense that entered the game 30th against the rush. Even the Wildcat, which helped paper over this problem in previous games, did not produce solid gains.

"We need to be more efficient when we do run the football," Andy Reid said yesterday.

A bright spot would be the impeccably-blocked 7-yard Brian Westbrook TD run in the third quarter.

"The more we run plays like that correctly, the more the coaches will have confidence in us to call it," center Jamaal Jackson said after the game. "That's just a matter of us doing our job early on, so they can come back to it. We tried [the same play] early, I want to say, in the first quarter, and got like a yard or something."