Bob Ford: Now it's reality for Birds

Now that Thursday night's charade brought a merciful end to the exhibition games, there is nothing but a short expanse of practices separating the Eagles from the start of the regular season.

Ready or not, here it comes, and much more than in recent seasons, there is good reason to wonder if the Eagles will be ready or not.

It is a question that goes beyond whether they will be ready for the Green Bay Packers, one of the best teams in the conference. The Eagles might lose that game, perhaps soundly, and still emerge from the rubble with a chance for a productive season.

"We'll get those things fixed and it starts with me," Andy Reid would no doubt say. At least, that is what he has said before.

There are some things that might not be readily fixable, however, and that is the real concern. In some areas, the Eagles are operating with what appears to be wishful thinking, starting on the offensive line.

Center Jamaal Jackson has been rushed back from reconstructive knee surgery, and it is not a certainty he will hold up. The rest of the starters have their own issues, and if you think there are answers to be found among the reserves, then you weren't watching Thursday's game very closely.

The line could be a disaster, and that's no way for a first-year starting quarterback to have to play the game. The organization has a lot of faith in Kevin Kolb, but he earned no more than a C-plus in his exhibition appearances and will clearly need all the help he can get in the real games.

One of his greatest challenges will be learning to take the ball from under center, dropping back, making a play-action fake and picking up his defensive reads all at the same time. At the University of Houston, which ran a wide-open spread offense, he was almost always in the shotgun, with the field and his reads right before him. The Eagles use a lot of shotgun, too, but in order to legitimize the running game, and to keep the defenses honest, he's going to have to be under center sometimes.

Kolb has done part of that work during his three-year apprenticeship under Donovan McNabb, but not for an extended period, and not with the same stakes he faces now. Opposing defenses are going to test him and, given the shaky state of the offensive line, the tests will involve constant blitzes and other little unpleasant surprises.

Because he is the quarterback and because of whom he replaced, Kolb will be the main focus of the season, but he's hardly the biggest question mark. Even beyond the offensive line, there are plenty of potential worries.

With all those questions, it was worth wondering if Thursday night's game might have been used for some real work for the real starters rather than as a costume ball for a lot of guys who will be parking cars next week.

That's not the way Reid operates, though, and it probably doesn't matter in the end. They are what they are, and a scrimmage against a handful of Jets scrubs wouldn't have changed things appreciably.

In Reid's most optimistic view, the defense solidifies around a better core of linebackers and gets an added boost on the line from rookie Brandon Graham. In the best world, Kolb grows into the job quickly and the line holds together well enough to let him work. On the sunny side of the street, the little nagging injuries to DeSean Jackson disappear and the team stays healthy.

All of that would be nice, but an unlikely trifecta. Football tends to punish the unprepared. When Reid opened the 2007 season without a legitimate punt returner, it took only one game for that to cost him.

Every team cuts a corner here and there and hopes the shortcuts work. That's the nature of a 53-man NFL roster. The Eagles cut a few this time around, too, mostly in the wishful thinking being displayed with the offensive line.

It would have been difficult and costly to revamp the whole thing in the off-season - to mark Stacy Andrews down as an expensive mistake, to admit that Jason Peters is a blindside tackle whose motivation appears not to match his talent, to stop hoping Jamaal Jackson has no lingering physical problems.

That would have been an awful lot to do, particularly in the service of a season that has "rebuilding" written all over it, whether the organization cops to that or not.

So, they didn't do it. They are praying for the best and have only a few more practices remaining to avoid the worst.

But at least the exhibition season is over, that four-week sip of tepid air soup that leaves you unsatisfied. Now comes the truth, and it might burn. Ready or not.