Eagles

Donovan McNabb said on his NBC Sports Radio show on Monday that he will officially retire as an Eagle this fall and that the team suggested he do it on Sept. 19 when former coach Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs visit Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles did not comment on the matter. Attempts to reach McNabb on Monday evening were unsuccessful. He first told a Syracuse radio station earlier in the day that he would retire as an Eagle, although that has always been the plan. The former Eagles quarterback has not played since 2011.

Little morsels of information have been leaking out of the NovaCare Complex since Chip Kelly held his first practices with the Eagles last month, all of which were closed to the media. Running back LeSean McCoy said the first three-day minicamp felt like a track meet. Tight end Brent Celek said Kelly's method of communication would change the NFL. Wide receiver Jeremy Maclin revealed that Michael Vick was ahead of Nick Foles in the quarterback competition. It's what they in the entertainment business call "a soft opening.

Part one of a series. The Eagles gather for their first "organized team activity" - otherwise known as "practice" - on Monday. It will also be the first time Chip Kelly has the entire 90-man roster on the field together. He will spend the next four weeks evaluating his team and organizing his depth chart before a month-and-a-half break before training camp. But Zach Berman and I will get you up to date on the roster and spend the next two weeks assessing where the Eagles stand at each spot.

Denise Benn spent Mother's Day last year enduring the effects of chemotherapy, trying to treat the cancer that invaded her colon and worried her five sons. One of those sons is Arrelious Benn, now an Eagles wide receiver and in better spirits than a year ago. One of the reasons is the health of Denise, whose cancer is in remission. On Saturday, one day before Mother's Day, Denise joined her five sons on Team Arrelious, created for the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure, a 5K walk/run in his native Washington.

If Chip Kelly drafted Matt Barkley, a quarterback virtually no one thought he could be interested in, then there is no reason to think that he can't start this season. History says fourth-round quarterbacks hardly ever start in the NFL, let alone as rookies. But the NFL is evolving and in certain segments becoming more like the college game than vice versa. And there's something about the Great Kelly Unknown that suggests anything is possible. There are some pertinent reasons to support Barkley's candidacy, among them his decision-making, accuracy, and moxie.

THE GOAL FOR rookies after the NFL draft is simple. Make the team. Make it through the rookie minicamp, participate in the organized team activities and impress enough at training camp and in preseason action to make that final, 53-man roster. Eagles second-round tight end Zach Ertz and seventh-round defensive back Jordan Poyer have to wait a little longer to start impressing the coaches due to an NFL rule that dates to 1990. The rule states that players cannot attend more than one minicamp until after final exams.

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.

There will be expectations heaped on the shoulders of Lane Johnson, but they may come earlier than normal, even for a top-five draft pick, because of the position he plays. From 2006 to 2012, seven tackles were taken in the first five draft picks, and all six started in the season opener. The Eagles will most certainly want Johnson to start right away. But can he, considering how little he played on the offensive line in college? Asked after his first practice as an Eagle if he felt that he needed to start from Day 1, Johnson said Friday: "I just feel I have to kind of work every day and do my best, and I think if I do that then good things will happen.

Matt Barkley's welcome to Philadelphia included a swarm of reporters invading almost every sliver of personal space surrounding him. It was evidence to the Los Angeles-area native that the closest thing to a Hollywood star in this city is an Eagles quarterback. At Friday's rookie minicamp at the NovaCare Center, Barkley was the biggest attraction. He was not the Eagles' first-round pick in the recent draft. He was not even the second- or third-round pick. But the fourth-rounder with the ballyhooed college resumé at Southern California has three days to impress the coaching staff before Michael Vick and Nick Foles arrive for Monday's organized team activities and take practice reps away from Barkley.

MATT BARKLEY is here to play. The Eagles' fourth-round rookie quarterback made that clear yesterday afternoon when he met with reporters following the first workout of rookie camp, which continues through the weekend. The full squad assembles Monday, the first time reporters can watch the team under new coach Chip Kelly. Barkley said Michael Vick and Nick Foles are "outstanding men," who "have both done great things," but "you come in knowing that you have a job. They're trying to take that job as well.