Brian Dawkins

Earl Wolff already has mastered one aspect of winning the approval of Eagles fans. The safety cited the franchise's icon at that position as his inspiration. "Before I even started playing safety, I watched Brian Dawkins," said Wolff, the Eagles' fifth-round pick out of North Carolina State. "Once I made that move to safety, that's when I fell in love with him. Honestly, my first couple of years, that's what I watched before the games. I'd put on a Brian Dawkins highlight film, and now I'm here.

Andy Reid said he still thinks the Eagles can win the Super Bowl, even without Brian Dawkins. "You can take the team we have today and go compete for a championship in the National Football League," the Eagles' coach said. "Now, you may have to move some people around to do some things there, and we have to get a little bit more depth at some positions, but with the people we have here, we know we can compete for a championship. " Reid's comments came during a discussion with an Eagles employee and were posted on the team's Web site yesterday.

YOU CAN REDUCE Brian Dawkins' career to numbers on a sheet of paper, if that is your preference: Pro Bowls (eight), sacks (26), interceptions (37), forced fumbles (37). For some, that undoubtedly is all he was. Even the people who saw him on television sometimes, while living in Yuma or Utah or the Yukon, and saw the way he could simultaneous unite one team while dismembering the other, did not entirely understand. You really did have to be here. As arguments go, it is kind of weak.

Brian Dawkins posed a simple question: If all those fans who wear No. 20 to Eagles games could play one football game, how would they play? How would they react? "Would you do a flip? Would you crawl? Would you do those things?" Dawkins said. "Probably so. Because you're so excited to play those games. " That was Dawkins' approach when he played safety for the Eagles from 1996 to 2008 - 13 seasons in which he delivered ferocious hits and inspirational locker room speeches and became one of the most beloved Philadelphia athletes the city has ever cheered.

The eager rookies who charged into the first day of full-squad, full-contact workouts have their careers ahead of them. The enthusiastic free agents who treated Day One like a starting gun have just weeks, or maybe days, to make the most of their opportunity. But neither group - nor anyone else in a green or white jersey yesterday at Eagles training camp ? seemed to seize the day like the 34-year-old safety with 12 NFL seasons and six Pro Bowl berths on his resume. "At times, I felt like I was a little too hyped up," Brian Dawkins said after the morning workout at Lehigh University.

The Eagles' defensive players have seen the horror flick. See Joe Run, starring Indianapolis rookie running back Joseph Addai, played in all the tiny theaters inside the NovaCare Complex earlier this week. It was even scarier than the previous week's feature film, Travis' Long Runs, starring Tennessee running back Travis Henry. A few weeks before that, it was Freddy Finds the End Zone, featuring Jacksonville's Fred Taylor, that frightened the Eagles' defenders into covering one eye as they watched the carnage.

The level of angst is always directly proportionate to the quality of the player. When quarterback Donovan McNabb goes down with an injury, there's a natural tendency among the inhabitants of Eagles Nation to dismiss the season as lost. We know from experience that the Eagles can survive, even thrive, without their franchise quarterback, but panic would no doubt set in again if McNabb went down this season. And what about the Eagles' six-time Pro Bowl safety and undeniable defensive leader?

The answer to why the Eagles will or won't trade up to draft either Eric Berry or Earl Thomas is essentially the same: In a matter of six months last year, the Eagles went from a Hall of Fame-caliber free safety to a rookie who hadn't ever played the position. That fact - and the subsequent results - would suggest doing whatever it takes to get one of the two bona-fide stud safeties in this year's draft. But the Eagles, who have never drafted a safety in the first round under coach Andy Reid, may not see the value of expending so much for a position they devalue.

Within days, they were gone. The men who brought Brian Dawkins to the NFL, who trained him and mentored him and counseled him for his first three years with the Eagles, scattered at the end of last season. Ray Rhodes and Emmitt Thomas, the coaches who drafted and taught him how to play at this level, were fired. Irving Fryar, the 37-year-old wide receiver who served as the Eagles' spiritual leader, retired. Michael Zordich, the 36-year-old safety who showed Dawkins the ropes, finished his contract - and apparently his career - and went home to Ohio.

Donovan McNabb said goodbye late Monday night. No, he didn't say that word to the Eagles. The quarterback said so long to his old pals Brian Dawkins and Tra Thomas, both of whom have left the Eagles via free agency. "I?usually don't remark about teammates unless asked, but I felt it was necessary to share my thoughts on a couple Yardbarker.com blog. "I have been a part of the Philadelphia Eagles for 10 years and I have not played a game, attended a practice, sweated in training camp, built a playground, or participated in a Carnival, and more importantly dreamed of a championship parade, without Brian Dawkins and Tra Thomas being a part of it. "We all had a goal of bringing a championship to this city and while we didn't achieve that goal, we have had a lot of successes during our time together.