Some LBs at Senior Bowl might fill Eagles' needs

MOBILE, Ala. - Luke Kuechly isn't here. Dont'a Hightower, ditto.

Those are the standout linebackers most fans have heard about, who figure to be targets if the Eagles, drafting 15th overall, select a linebacker in the first round for the first time since Jerry Robinson in 1979.

Kuechly and Hightower, from Boston College and Alabama, respectively, are entering the April draft with eligibility left, and since the organizers call what's going on in Mobile this week the Senior Bowl, they weren't invited. But other linebackers were. While we can be reasonably certain the Birds will try to upgrade their linebacking in the offseason, we can't know whether they will try to do it in the first round, later in the draft, through free agency, or by making an offensive-line coach a linebacker. (We were kidding on that last part.)

The Eagles just might add more than one linebacker this offseason. So talking to some of the better-regarded guys at that position practicing for Saturday's Senior Bowl seemed like a prudent thing to do yesterday.

First off, some of the fellows they call linebackers here wouldn't be linebackers for the Eagles, or any 4-3 team - this applies to, say, Alabama's 273-pound Courtney Upshaw, who figures to be a 3-4 linebacker, or maybe a 4-3 defensive end. He is primarily a pass rusher.

Of the 4-3 linebackers assembled in Mobile, the guy with the best pedigree might be North Carolina's Zach Brown, who is projected as a first- to second-round talent. Brown, who measured 6-1 3/8 and weighed in at 236, projects as an outside, cover linebacker in the pros. That probably isn't the Eagles' biggest need, but then again, they didn't send any LBs to the Pro Bowl, did they?

"My speed in coverage, and blitzing," Brown said, when asked what he thinks are his main assets.

He knows the knock on him is that, at times, he wasn't physical, didn't impose his will on blockers.

"I want to show [here] I can get off blocks, I can be strong at the point of attack. A lot of people feel like I can't," Brown said. "When I was playing during the season, I used a lot of finesse moves to get around the blockers. Now the finesse has got to go away."

North Carolina State's Audie Cole also projects more on the outside, maybe strongside. At 6-4 1/8, 248, he would dwarf anyone on the Eagles' current linebacking corps, even if his flowing brown locks do bring to mind Casey Matthews.