Bill Walsh special to Reid & Mornhinweg

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The Eagles' veterans cruised into camp yesterday talking of winning a Super Bowl. If that happens, one of the main reasons will be the offense that coach Andy Reid learned from his mentor, Mike Holmgren, the offense Holmgren learned from its originator, Bill Walsh.

Walsh's death from leukemia yesterday at age 75 was keenly felt throughout the NFL. Reid and Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg cherished their relationships with the man who originated what became known as the West Coast offense, and who dominated the NFL in the 1980s, winning three Super Bowls.

"What a great coach, a great mentor to a lot of us who have taken his system and been very productive with it," Reid said. "A very creative mind and a good person on top of that."

Reid said Walsh "really took a system and developed it and won a lot of Super Bowls with it. He was a creative person. Very well-organized, and a great out-of-the-box thinker. I got to know him; he followed all of his guys. He considered the people that ran the offense to be his guys. He followed all of us, and made us all feel a part of it."

Reid said the scheme the Birds run today is "fairly close to what he did. We don't do quite as much split-back stuff as what they did back then. We see a couple of different defenses than they did, although it's all kind of coming around, the 3-4 defense is coming around, that's predominantly what he set that offense up for."

Reid first met Walsh when Reid was just starting in coaching at San Francisco State and Walsh was coaching the 49ers. Reid went to visit Holmgren, then a 49ers assistant, and was introduced to the coaching legend. Mornhinweg attended 49ers training camp as an undrafted quarterback out of Montana in the mid-'80s, then worked under Walsh when Walsh returned to the 49ers as GM from 1999 to 2001. Mornhinweg, San Francisco's offensive coordinator, left to become the head coach of the Lions in 2001.

Asked his favorite memories of Walsh, Mornhinweg had two.

"In training camp, when he was the general manager and I was the coordinator with the 49ers, on a daily basis when he was there, and that was probably two-thirds of the time, we'd grab 15 minutes or a half-hour every day and talk some football," Mornhinweg said. "And then the other one was when the great Jerry Rice was playing his last game [for the 49ers, Dec. 17, 2000] in Candlestick. [Walsh] came down with about 2 minutes left in the game, it was over, we were going to go into our 'slowdown,' he said, 'Hey, let's get Jerry one more.' And we did. And then the balloons flew, and the game ball [was presented] to Jerry."

Mornhinweg said that Walsh's image, low-key and thoughtful, was accurate up to a point.

"The players that played for him and the coaches that coached for him all will tell you that he was a tough man, he was a tough coach," Mornhinweg said. "However, the perception was that he was a teacher, and he was a very gifted teacher, too.

"He gave me an awful lot of advice throughout the years. I can't remember any bad advice he ever gave me."

Eagles chairman Jeffrey Lurie released a statement on behalf of the organization:

"Bill Walsh embodied everything that so many of us love about the game of football - his intellect, his aggressive and brilliant game strategies, quarterback development, risk-taking, and franchise-building ideas. And the way he coolly executed them is deservedly legendary," the statement read. "His passion for the game was contagious. All of us who had the fortune to spend significant time with Bill and sought his willing guidance will surely cherish every moment spent with this very special man."

Jevon Kearse, looking extremely buff as usual, said he weighed in at 248 yesterday, up from 240 (or less) during the offseason and down from "250, 251" when he checked into the 2006 camp. Kearse's offseason slimness, as he recovered from knee surgery, alarmed some fans, since the Eagles list him at 6-4, 265, but it isn't clear that Kearse's slim-hipped build ever really carried that much weight. Remember, he entered Florida as a safety.

Jevon Kearse, looking extremely buff as usual, said he weighed in at 248 yesterday, up from 240 (or less) during the offseason and down from "250, 251" when he checked into the 2006 camp. Kearse's offseason slimness, as he recovered from knee surgery, alarmed some fans, since the Eagles list him at 6-4, 265, but it isn't clear that Kearse's slim-hipped build ever really carried that much weight. Remember, he entered Florida as a safety.

Kearse was convoying up to Lehigh yesterday with fellow defensive end Juqua Thomas when Thomas' car broke a fan belt, just after they exited the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension near Quakertown. Thomas ended up riding the rest of the way with Kearse.

Speaking of weight, middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter said he weighed in at 256, down 9 pounds from last year's check-in weight (the team traditionally lists Trotter at 262). The coaching staff, or as Trotter put it yesterday, "a little birdie" asked him to shed some pounds to get quicker. "I just feel more explosive, just lighter, not carrying all that weight," he said. "My muscle mass [is up], my body fat is about 7 percent."

Several veterans talked of raised expectations, following the Eagles' return to the playoffs last season. Asked if this is the year the Birds get back to the Super Bowl, Trotter said: "I believe it is. Right now, we're kind of flying under the radar. Those are the teams you really have to look out for . . . We have high expectations in our locker room."

Safety Brian Dawkins and linebacker Takeo Spikes, described as kindred spirits by players who know both men, reiterated yesterday that they are excited about playing together. With Dawkins skipping minicamps in the wake of his wife having given birth to premature twins, they haven't actually practiced together yet, something that should happen today.

Dawkins said it would be great "to finally get to shake my dawg TKO's hand and really kind of imagine what this thing is going to be like once we get it started."

Spikes, acquired in an offseason trade with Buffalo, was asked by a TV reporter what was essential to bring to training camp. He said: "Toilet tissue; Charmin, preferably. And you have to have at least 300 or better thread-count sheets. That's very big for me. If you don't have those two, I don't know if I can go out and perform to my level the next day."

Dawkins and running back Brian Westbrook showed up with their own hyperbaric chambers, something Chuck Bednarik probably didn't tote along to training camp. Proponents believe the chambers, which provide an oxygen-rich environment, facilitate healing by enhancing the absorption of oxygen in the blood and by reducing swelling.

"The recovery time is ridiculous, as far as bringing you back and helping you get through some of the aches that you probably wouldn't be able to get through naturally," Dawkins said.

An Eagles spokesman said all 87 players listed on the roster were in camp on time for Reid's 7 p.m. team meeting. The first full-squad public workouts, with pads, are scheduled for tomorrow. *