Aside from Marlin Jackson, some 'tweaks' to Eagles players

By last evening, left guard Todd Herremans was back from his visit with Charlotte, N.C., foot specialist Dr. Robert Anderson, proclaiming via Twitter that "all is well" except for the plane's foul stench.

Eagles coach Andy Reid said Anderson "thinks it's going to be all right." Reid said Herremans visited with Anderson last year, before his August stress-fracture repair, performed by Dr. Steven Raikin, of the Rothman Institute at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Middle linebacker Stewart Bradley brandished a paintbrush during the Eagles Youth Partnership's annual Playground Build, at Wister Elementary in Germantown, and Bradley said he wasn't concerned about his "tweaked" left calf, which he felt was brought about by dehydration during Wednesday's OTA.

"My leg just cramped up, really," said Bradley, who was wearing a white compression-type stocking, with a diagonal stripe of tape reinforcing his calf muscle. "I don't foresee any problem."

At the Wister event, the Daily News was unable to track down running back LeSean McCoy, who sat out yesterday's workout, but a team spokesman said McCoy "tweaked" an ankle Wednesday.

So, other than the Achilles' tendon rupture safety Marlin Jackson suffered on Tuesday, the latest flurry of Eagles injuries does not seem to amount to much. Certainly, that is how Reid sees it.

"That happens, you get a little cramp here and a cramp there," Reid said. "Other than [Jackson], I'm not concerned."

Asked how he felt about the young team's depth, Reid said: "I'm fine with the depth. We have plenty of people in those spots who can play."

Of course, that wasn't so much the case last season, when Bradley's torn ACL, the revolving door at free safety, and a frequently changing offensive-line cast helped the Dallas Cowboys heave the Eagles out of the first round of the playoffs with a thud.

It hasn't set well with many fans that Jackson, the former Colts corner who apparently was Plan A for filling the free safety hole, is already out for the year, apparently. He was signed coming off back-to-back ACL surgeries; last year, the Eagles' planned starting right guard, free-agent signee Stacy Andrews, was coming off an ACL. Andrews was slow to recover and to adapt to the offense, and he ended up barely playing, though he is scheduled to start this year.

The team seems less than averse to taking a gamble on a guy with an injury history, to the point where fans on message boards now make mordant jokes whenever there is news of a player elsewhere getting hurt ("future Eagle!").

"Sometimes, things do happen," Reid allowed. "We know there's a risk, when you bring in someone who might be coming off an injury, but at the same time, you have enough players who have made it with that type of an injury to make it worthwhile."

General manager Howie Roseman said: "I think we do our research, and we go into it with a cautious eye, but if the risk matches kind of the upside on it, we feel like we'll hit on a few and it'll all be worthwhile. It's like when you go in the back of the draft, and you get a seventh-round pick. You know you won't hit on every one, but if you keep shooting at 'em and keep taking those picks, the one you hit on maybe makes a difference . . . We're just trying to improve the football team. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't."

Jackson might have been the most appealing safety option in a terrible year for free agency, distorted by the new rules surrounding the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement.

"As we've discussed, free agency this year was a different animal," Roseman said. "There was half the [usual] number of players. Half the guys were older guys. We thought with Marlin, Marlin's a great character guy, when he's been on the field he's been really productive. We thought it was something, we were excited to see how it would work out, and we feel bad for Marlin, but by the same token, we've got some young players that we're excited about there."

The Eagles did not address their offensive line this offseason in free agency or through the draft. Nick Cole is the center until Jamaal Jackson's ACL rehab is complete; Jackson is unlikely to be 100 percent until well into the season. Herremans, the Birds' most consistent blocker after missing the first five games because of the foot surgery, currently is being replaced by Max Jean-Gilles, the massive guard who underwent lap-band surgery to drop some weight.

"I don't know what's going to happen, but wherever they need me, I'll be ready," Jean-Gilles said. He played right guard last season in place of Andrews, but Jean-Gilles said, "I'll play left, right - I did it before, so it's nothing new."

Jean-Gilles said Herremans told him he was "going for a second opinion" but gave him no idea of how serious a problem he was having.

In one of Herremans' tweets yesterday, he assured followers that his visit to Anderson was "just a checkup. Making sure everything looks good."

Right tackle Winston Justice was asked if, after all of last season's scrambles, it seems frustrating to be mixing and matching again in OTAs.

"It might be a little frustrating, but the guys we have in place right now will get the job done," Justice said. "They were there last year; it's not like they're new guys. They are guys who have been in the program for years, so it's not that big of a dropoff. I think Max or Nick or Mike McGlynn will take care of the business over there, until Todd comes back . . . His whole outlook is that he's coming back. We're all looking at that, too, that Todd's going to be there, and that he's going to be an important part of the lineup, like he is every year."

Tackle Fenuki Topou is out with a pectoral muscle injury, the Eagles said . . . Seventh-round rookie safety Kurt Coleman isn't in this camp because his Ohio State class hasn't graduated, but he has signed a 4-year deal that makes him the second Eagles draftee to sign, leaving 11 to go.

For more Eagles coverage and opinion, read the Daily News' Eagles blog, Eagletarian, at www.eagletarian.com.