Cornelius Ingram

It happened on a day a lot like Tuesday. Preseason. No pads. Noncontact. Hot and hazy. Last year, Cornelius Ingram watched his senior year - and perhaps his NFL hopes - flare up in the Florida sun when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Nearly 12 months later, the tight end has showed hardly a sign of the injury, except for some tape. It would be understandable if Ingram was tentative during the first week of Eagles training camp. But on Tuesday he caught every pass thrown to him - a tough one over the middle, a nifty one in the back of the end zone - and he bounced off the turf when a slight collision dropped him to his knees.

Tight end Cornelius Ingram was back at practice a day after injuring his surgically repaired left knee when he got tangled up with two defenders during Eagles minicamp. The rookie was wearing an elastic knee brace, though, and sat out noncontact drills yesterday. He did participate in individual workouts with rookie tight end Eugene Bright. Ingram tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in August and sat out his senior season at Florida after undergoing reconstructive surgery.

Rookie tight end Cornelius Ingram suffered a left knee bruise during the Eagles' practice yesterday. The University of Florida product tore the anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee in August before the start of his senior year. Ingram missed the entire season. The Eagles said the injury yesterday was not considered serious and that the fifth-round pick might return for today's minicamp. Ingram was not available for comment. During 11-on-11 drills, quarterback Adam DiMichele threw a pass to the tight end. Sandwiched between two defenders, Ingram had the football slip through his hands and into the arms of safety Rashad Baker, who made the interception.

You can add Cornelius Ingram to the list of people who weren't surprised the Eagles' rookie tight end needed a second ACL repair. "No, not really, sad to say," Ingram, a fifth-round pick from Florida, said yesterday. Ingram was an early camp phenom, big and fast with excellent hands, who seemed to be playing his way into a role complementing Brent Celek. But late in the second week at Lehigh, the knee that had caused Ingram to miss his senior college season (and plummet in the draft)

They're not in rookie camp anymore. The Eagles put a bow on their minicamp involving rookies and selected veterans yesterday and the team's first two draft picks are ready to show the full squad how much they've learned. Wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, the team's first-round pick, said any reservations he had about improving his intermediate routes were eased after six days of organized team activities held over two weeks. "They're coming along just great," Maclin said. "I think that's no longer a question anymore.

Moise Fokou will start at strongside linebacker this week for the Eagles if Chris Gocong can't go, and Gocong hasn't practiced, after suffering separate hamstring and quad injuries in Sunday's victory over the Giants. What does defensive coordinator Sean McDermott see in Fokou that makes him think the seventh-round rookie from Maryland, who has played mostly on special teams, is up to such a task, against a tricky, multifaceted Dallas offense? "He's the next guy in line, so he's got to be up to the task," McDermott said yesterday.

Nine months ago, Cornelius Ingram sat on a trainer's table at Lehigh and cried. The Eagles tight end had just found out that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee he had injured a year earlier. On Thursday, after practice at the NovaCare Complex, Ingram was beaming. He is in only about phase five of a 10-step process designed to get the second-year player back on the field in game action for the first time in more than 2 1/2 years. But after two days of running, cutting, catching - and falling - during organized team activities, Ingram declared his left knee fit and his prospects bright.

There is something special about Cornelius Ingram. That doesn't mean the 6-foot-4 rookie tight end chosen in the fifth round in last month's draft is about to embark on a storybook NFL career. Having departed the University of Florida, Ingram is in the embryonic stage of his professional football education, and this week's rookie camp is the latest tutorial. In yesterday's practice at the NovaCare Complex, Ingram dropped a pass right in his hands. As he returned to the huddle, someone on the field said, "Come on, number 88, you've got to catch that ball.

Cornelius Ingram hasn't played a down in the NFL. He hasn't played in a meaningful game in more than 20 months. But when the Eagles revealed Saturday that the rookie tight end was lost for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, a position that seemed covered was suddenly uncovered to reveal a giant question mark. Brent Celek, the projected starter, finished last season strong when he leapfrogged over L.J. Smith and onto the first team. And the third-year pro has had a successful training camp by most estimates.

Nine months ago, Cornelius Ingram sat on a trainer's table at Lehigh and cried. The Eagles tight end had just found out that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee he had injured a year earlier. On Thursday, after practice at the NovaCare Complex, Ingram was beaming. He is in only about phase five of a 10-step process designed to get the second-year player back on the field in game action for the first time in more than 21/2 years. But after two days of running, cutting, catching - and falling - during organized team activities, Ingram declared his left knee fit and his prospects bright.

BETHLEHEM - Two years ago, Cornelius Ingram was a very popular guy up here at Lehigh. He was a fifth-round pick getting first-round media attention. On a clear day, he could see forever. He was a chiseled 6-4, 250-pound tight end with 4.5 speed and glue-stick hands who wowed everyone, including the coaching staff, with his impressive play in the spring camps and OTAs and in the first few days of training camp. Then he tore the ACL in his left knee for the second time in less than a year, and just like that, a promising young player became yesterday's news.

The Eagles used to have this pale, skinny little safety from Montana. They would call him up whenever they needed help in the secondary and on special teams. He would show up and play with very little preparation, throwing his body around. Tim Hauck was an Eagle from 1999-2002, but the final three seasons, he was brought in as an emergency fill-in after training camp, once as late as November. This bit of history seemed relevant yesterday when Colt Anderson joined the team, having been plucked from the Vikings' practice squad.

Two-hundred-seventy milliliters of fluid in your left calf, arising from a problem in your left knee, is quite a bit to have sloshing around down there. Nine ounces. No wonder Cornelius Ingram's left calf was about three times the size of his right last week, at the point when the Eagles had him stop practicing and go get the whole thing checked out again. The diagnosis was a Baker's cyst, a swollen, fluid-filled bursal sac behind the knee, often associated with arthritis or cartilage damage.

When you see Cornelius Ingram practicing, two things are impossible to ignore - he's running nowhere near 100 percent and he has an inflamed left calf. Despite a calf that has swelled considerably, the Eagles tight end, who is trying to come back from back-to-back left knee surgeries, continues to practice. "Being off for two years, I don't want to let anything as small as this affect what I'm doing," Ingram said Tuesday after practice at the NovaCare Complex. "I'm just trying to stay positive and stay out here on the field, because it's one of those things where it's going to go away on its own. " Ingram said that he had an ultrasound of his knee and calf last week and that the Eagles' medical staff found only a buildup of fluid.

BETHLEHEM - There is an interesting dynamic at an NFL training camp. Room assignments usually are determined by position. A running back bunks with another running back. A linebacker bunks with another linebacker. A tight end bunks with another tight end. You get the picture. Anyway, this often means that players competing for the same job are thrown together in the same cramped, little dormitory room. Sort of a football version of sleeping with the enemy. Only the enemies often become friends.

BETHLEHEM - The wideout with the rock-star hair looks big enough to be a tight end. "I tell him all the time - every time we eat, I'm like, 'Dude, you're eating more than me. After a while you're going to be over here with the tight ends,' " Eagles tight end Cornelius Ingram said yesterday, when asked about his friend and former Florida teammate, rookie Riley Cooper. "Take that [jersey No.] 14 off, get you an 80. You're going to be over here with us in the three-point stance. " Ingram goes 6-4, 250; Cooper is listed at 6-3, 222, so he might have quite a bit of eating to do before Ingram's prediction becomes reality.

BETHLEHEM - Newly acquired Eagles tight end Nate Lawrie won't slam the door on a career in politics. Maybe he'll start a couple of businesses. Or go to law school. The political science degree from Yale can open a lot of doors - except maybe the one marked N-F-L, where he is the only Yale grad currently playing in the league. (Eagles first-year secondary coach Dick Jauron is also a former Bulldog.) Brute over brains has been the culture of the league, but Lawrie has a little of both, and the fact he is both run-blocker and route-runner is why the Eagles brought him back to Philadelphia this week for a second look.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Cornelius Ingram still looks the part. He still stands 6-feet-4, with a chiseled 250-pound body and a powerful grip that can swallow footballs or an extended hand. The question is, can he still play the part of the standout athlete, the kind good enough to play varsity basketball as a seventh grader, become a legend in his tiny Florida home town, go to the University of Florida for basketball and football and wow training camp observers as a rookie in 2009 before suffering his second devastating knee injury in two years?

There is no McDonald's in Hawthorne, Fla. No Burger King. No fast-food establishments at all. When a Subway came to town, it was a big deal. So when Cornelius Ingram goes home to the town located near Gainesville, he usually eats at the Burger Barn. The owner has something for the Eagles tight end to sign. And wherever Ingram goes, rock-star treatment ensues. He walks down the street and people hunt him down for photos and autographs. He loves his hometown, he really does.

Nine months ago, Cornelius Ingram sat on a trainer's table at Lehigh and cried. The Eagles tight end had just found out that he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee he had injured a year earlier. On Thursday, after practice at the NovaCare Complex, Ingram was beaming. He is in only about phase five of a 10-step process designed to get the second-year player back on the field in game action for the first time in more than 2 1/2 years. But after two days of running, cutting, catching - and falling - during organized team activities, Ingram declared his left knee fit and his prospects bright.