State of Sheldon; McNabb's silence

Reporters staked out the locker of disaffected cornerback Sheldon Brown on Friday in what is likely to become a daily ritual unless Brown calls it off.

Brown and Ellis Hobbs seemed to be alternating opposite Asante Samuel in the morning session. Afterward, Andy Reid said he did not want to get into his feelings about Brown's publicly demanding a trade and sparring in the media with team president Joe Banner, but "I would rather not have people do that."

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't" want such things happening, Brown said when that was relayed to him. "I don't like it when people don't tell the truth. I spoke out and told the truth."

Brown has said he made his public trade demand after hearing team president Joe Banner say Brown's dissatisifaction with his contract had not been brought to his attention, when Brown knew it had. Banner has said he tried to avoid the question because he thought Brown wanted to keep the matter private.

Reid said he spoke to Brown after the only remaining Eagles defensive starter from Super Bowl XXXIX reported for minicamp. Reid declined to elaborate.

"It was basically a conversation on the field about playing the game of  football," Brown said. "It was not a conversation about what we're talking about."

Silence of McNabb

As was foreshadowed in Thursday's Daily News, Donovan McNabb did not hold his usual minicamp news conference, after welcoming his new teammates in a blog post.

Andy Reid, asked whether McNabb's declining to speak opened up speculation about his feelings regarding his contract, said McNabb was "upbeat and positive and into that practice as you would expect him to be ... Donovan hasn't said anything about it. He's here to work and work his tail off."

Reid did say the decision not to hold the new conference was made by McNabb.

Asked about McNabb's leadership in relation to his silence, Reid said, "He's done a great job, at least he did today and he has over the last ten years of leading this football team. That to me is very important, that he continues to do that and obviously somewhere he'll talk to you along the line here. I haven't really talked to him about that, but somewhere he will talk to the media."

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