Eagles Notebook: WEEDEN A LATE BLOOMER

MOBILE, Ala. - Brandon Weeden is 49 days older than Aaron Rodgers. How NFL teams deal with that will determine where he is drafted this April.

Weeden, 28, spent 5 years playing minor league baseball, with not a lot of success, before deciding to hit "reset" and take one of those college football offers he had turned down when the New York Yankees gave him $565,000, plus full college tuition, to sign as their 2002 second-round draft pick.

Maybe you saw Weeden a few weeks ago, completing 29 of 42 passes for 399 yards and three touchdowns as he led Oklahoma State past Stanford and Andrew Luck, 41-38, in the Fiesta Bowl. Luck, 22, almost certainly will be the first player taken in the draft, by the Indianapolis Colts. He and Heisman Trophy Winner Robert Griffin III from Baylor are not at the Senior Bowl. Of the six quarterbacks who are in Mobile, Weeden has been the standout through 2 days of practice. He definitely seems to have the best arm, and at 6-3 1/2, 219, there isn't a lot not to like. Except, he's old.

Weeden has been aware of this issue pretty much since the day in 2006 he pitched his last baseball, for the Class A High Desert Mavericks, of Adelanto, Calif., "where the wind blows 40 [mph] out to center," he recalled. A 6.03 earned run average there pushed Weeden's career mark to 5.02, which wasn't going to get him to Double A, let alone the majors.

He recalls talking to his agent from an Arizona airport, the agent offering to look for a baseball job for Weeden. Weeden said he'd rather go to college and try his other sport.

"It was an easy decision," Weeden said after the South team practice yesterday. "I always wanted to go back and get my degree . . . A couple days after I came home, [Oklahoma State, where he had once planned to play both sports] made a call and asked me to come up to Stillwater for a visit."

Weeden has developed a polished pitch for why his baseball career is a positive, not a negative.

"I'm more mature [than a 22-year-old]. I'm married," Weeden said. "I've been there, playing a professional sport. I've been through the adversity, I've been through the ups and downs . . . It's a challenge. I'm mentally tough . . . I've struggled in my professional career, and I've also had some success. You have to know how to balance it, let it slide off your back. I was a pitcher, so I've always had the ball in my hand."