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Christine M. Flowers: Eagles avoid Bad-Boy All-Stars

AS THE swallows return to Capistrano, the Eagles fly home to Lehigh. No matter which Harvard prof is miffed, which president is having problems with his health-care project or which wise Latina is about to make history, the only thing that really matters at this point in the dog days is that football is a month away.

AS THE swallows return to Capistrano, the Eagles fly home to Lehigh. No matter which Harvard prof is miffed, which president is having problems with his health-care project or which wise Latina is about to make history, the only thing that really matters at this point in the dog days is that football is a month away.

Which is probably a good thing, since we need to get these guys busy. With too much time on their hands, they tend to run amok.

I'm not talking about our Birds, who're fairly boring in the bad-boy department. No illegal dog-fighting. No self-inflicted thigh wounds. No flashy girlfriends. (Hank Baskett has a flashy wife, but that doesn't count since she looks to be pretty domesticated these days with a bun in the oven.)

I'm talking about the other ones, the superstars from teams that specialize in obnoxious - albeit talented - players, many of whom seem to have a problem with their X chromosome, getting themselves into messes because of damsels in tight dresses.

Take Tony Romo. (Please!)

The whiny captain of the Cowboys spent a few offseasons romancing blond songbird Jessica Simpson. They were all over the place, squeezing and cuddling and making goo-goo eyes at each other, which didn't sit well with the Dallas fans who'd already had enough of T.O.'s shenanigans. When he was with Jess, Romeo Romo's game was off, though he denied she had anything to do with the decline.

But apparently he realized that the type of scoring he was doing wasn't going to get him to the playoffs, so he unceremoniously ditched his sweetie on her birthday. She was expecting a kiss, and got a kiss-off instead. His timing was despicable, and I think he's a worm.

As a football fan (though not one who'd ever root for the 'Boys), I applaud his work ethic. But at least Romo didn't have the same type problem as Ben "What Wimp Wears a Motorcycle Helmet" Roethlisberger. The Steelers QB has been slapped with a claim that he raped a hotel employee, which he vehemently denies. (Why did the woman never even file a police report?) But the accusation is out there, and party-boy Ben put himself in a vulnerable position by inviting her to his room to fix his TV, instead of playing the field.

Then we have pretty boy Tom Brady, who broke up with his model/fiancée a few days before he found out she was carrying his son.

Talk about a late hit. You'd think they would have reconciled for the sake of the baby. (No, way too retro.) Instead, he makes a pass at model Gisele, she likes his forward motion, they score - and the reception is fabulous.

Except now he's as ubiquitous as the Gossip Girls, and you wonder if the Patriots are going to be as thrilled with his overexposure as the readers of Vanity Fair and People.

And it's not just the Randy Andys that are having problems with their game. Some of them are more popular with lineups than hookups.

The most obvious is Michael Vick, who seems to be headed back to the gridiron a little more than a year after he went up the river for aiding blatant cruelty to animals. He did wrong, paid a penalty and could be back to run another day.

That's not the case with Plaxico "Was That My Thigh?" Burress. The star wide receiver has been dropped by the Giants, and no other team has shown any interest while his legal status is in limbo. Burris is facing up to two years in state prison because Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau refuses to give him a sweet deal.

Which means that the gridiron great better hope he looks good in orange (and I'm not talking Dolphins).

Ever since Jim Thorpe got paid for playing amateur football and lost his Olympic medals,

we've had to deal with fallen football heroes. The most outrageous case of gridiron glory gone horribly wrong is the infamous O.J. Simpson, who made a mockery of our justice system.

Then you have those who are just annoying, like Brett "It's Time for AARP" Favre. You wish he would have taken MacArthur's advice and just "faded away." Instead, he's beginning to look like Blanche Du Bois in a "Streetcar Named Desire," desperately searching for love (and a contract).

So thank goodness for our Birds. They may be sorta boring (and some have a wee problem with, um, weed) but at least they're not an insult to the memory of the late and much-beloved Jim Johnson.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.