Greg Lewis

Eagles wide receiver Greg Lewis has played plenty of night games. One of his favorites requires not the physical skills necessary on the football field, but his mental agility on a chessboard. Lewis, 24, has enjoyed the thinking man's game since childhood. Opponents are not always easy to come by, he said, so at times he has found himself awake in the middle of the night playing the game online. "I like to think," Lewis said. "I am a cerebral type of person. " Lewis, the fourth receiver in the Eagles' offensive system, has six receptions for 70 yards this season.

Wide receiver Greg Lewis scored two touchdowns in a game for the first time in his career in the Eagles' 31-9 victory over the visiting Green Bay Packers on Monday night. Lewis, 26, who became the No. 1 receiver last season after Terrell Owens was booted off the team following the seventh game, was not considered a sure bet to make the Eagles out of training camp this season. But the fourth-year receiver had a solid camp, and has nine receptions for 155 yards and the two touchdowns in the first four games.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Reggie Brown, inactive. It has happened before to the Eagles' receiver, but it is still stunning when the announcement is made before a conference championship game, the clearest of messages from the organization toward a second-round draft choice who once was going to be a star. Once. At this point, they prefer Greg Lewis to him. "It hurts," Brown said, in the losing locker room after the Eagles were beaten by the Arizona Cardinals, 32-25. "I'm a competitor . . . "To sit on the sidelines in the championship game, a place that you dreamed of as a kid, it's hard.

The Eagles signed Greg Lewis to a five-year contract extension yesterday that gives them the rights to the wide receiver through the 2011 season. Details of the signing bonus and contract were not released, but the fact that Lewis received such a lengthy extension is a clear indication of how much the Eagles think of the player who made the team as an undrafted rookie last season. "Greg loves the city of Philadelphia, he loves the Eagles, and he feels they're the best organization in the NFL," said Ken Sarnoff, Lewis' Chicago-based agent.

GREEN BAY - Someone called him "an emerging star. " Jason Avant had another word for himself after yesterday's 16-13 loss to the Packers. "Bonehead," he said. Avant was referring to a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty he picked up on an Eagles' punt midway through the fourth quarter, pushing Green Bay to midfield in a tie game. "It was all my fault," he said. "I can't blame the referee in any way. I almost kicked the guy. I pulled it back, but it looked like it was something.

GREEN BAY - Well, this game certainly put the "special" in special teams. The Eagles would be 1-0 this morning had they declined to send anyone back to return punts yesterday. Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than a 16-13 loss to a Green Bay Packers team that averaged 2.7 yards per rush, 3.7 yards per pass attempt, and did not come close to scoring an offensive touchdown in the season opener at Lambeau Field. Destined to be rehashed more than a few times in the long week before Game 2 against the Redskins at Lincoln Financial Field is the fact that the Packers scored 10 of their 16 points directly off punts the Eagles fumbled away, because neither Greg Lewis nor J.R. Reed had ever fielded a punt in a game that mattered.

UP NEXT Who: Eagles (10-6-1) at New York Giants (12-4) What: NFC Divisional Playoffs When: Sunday, 1 p.m. Where: Giants Stadium TV: Fox Radio: WYSP (94.1-FM), WIP (610-AM) Last meeting: The Eagles won, 20-14, on Dec. 7 at Giants Stadium. The Giants won the first game, 36-31, on Nov. 9 at the Linc. Series history: The Giants lead the series, 82-69-2, and 2-1 in the playoffs. The Eagles' lone postseason win was 23-20 on Jan. 7, 2007. The other meetings were in 1981 and 2001.

WAS IT JUST US, or did you notice the Eagles' offense was smoother, more effective with A.J. Feeley at quarterback? Was it just us, or did it seem wide receivers whose names were rarely heard this season - can you say Greg Lewis? - somehow, magically reappeared out of nowhere? Was it just us or did Sunday night's game against the almighty New England Patriots, favored to kick the feathers off our Birds, turn out to be the most entertaining and most competitive game this season?

AFTER THE PHILLIES were busted in 2010 for using binoculars in the bullpen, Jayson Werth dismissed allegations of sign-stealing thus: "All it takes is for you, as a hitter, to be given the wrong sign once. Then, you never take a stolen sign again. " After former Eagles and current Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb crowed on a radio show Tuesday about stealing signals and calling out plays to the defense from the sideline Sunday, Eagles defensive lineman Derek Landri concurred with Werth's logic.

The best thing about being part of the Cowboys' secondary preparing for the Eagles this week is not having to devise a plan to stop Terrell Owens. He's on their side now. "It was a little fun when he was over there," Cowboys cornerback Terence Newman said. "The fact that he's not there and is here is an added advantage for us, I guess. " That does not mean the Cowboys defensive backs will blow off a group of relatively inexperienced wide receivers, who have not faced a defense like Dallas' this season but have helped the Eagles' become one of the top-rated offenses.

AFTER THE PHILLIES were busted in 2010 for using binoculars in the bullpen, Jayson Werth dismissed allegations of sign-stealing thus: "All it takes is for you, as a hitter, to be given the wrong sign once. Then, you never take a stolen sign again. " After former Eagles and current Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb crowed on a radio show Tuesday about stealing signals and calling out plays to the defense from the sideline Sunday, Eagles defensive lineman Derek Landri concurred with Werth's logic.

Former Eagles wide receiver Greg Lewis has caught on with the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings signed Lewis yesterday after releasing veteran wide receiver Bobby Wade. Lewis, a free agent, was let go by New England this week. The Eagles traded him to the Patriots in March for two low-round draft picks. Lewis was with the Eagles for 6 years, including Vikings coach Brad Childress' last three seasons as offensive coordinator. New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum admitted the team should have disclosed Brett Favre's torn biceps tendon on mandatory weekly injury reports over the final third of last season.

The wait is over. The quarterback has finally spoken. (Kind of.) It's been about two weeks since ESPN reported that Donovan McNabb sat down with Eagles management and demanded they upgrade the team. Since then, a lot has happened. Through it all, people waited patiently for McNabb to speak up, to tell us what he thinks about how the Eagles front office has restructured the team. After all, wasn't that the whole point of the ESPN story - that McNabb would be evaluating the evaluators?

Another star wide receiver is on the free-agent market, but the Eagles apparently are more focused on finding a replacement for the recently departed Brian Dawkins. An Eagles source made it clear yesterday that the team had "no interest" in a reunion with Terrell Owens, who was released by the Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles then rid themselves of an equally surly but far less talented receiver, trading Greg Lewis to the New England Patriots. The biggest news, however, was that the Eagles had pinpointed a possible replacement for Dawkins by inviting free-agent safety Sean Jones to the NovaCare Complex today.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Reggie Brown, inactive. It has happened before to the Eagles' receiver, but it is still stunning when the announcement is made before a conference championship game, the clearest of messages from the organization toward a second-round draft choice who once was going to be a star. Once. At this point, they prefer Greg Lewis to him. "It hurts," Brown said, in the losing locker room after the Eagles were beaten by the Arizona Cardinals, 32-25. "I'm a competitor . . . "To sit on the sidelines in the championship game, a place that you dreamed of as a kid, it's hard.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - The ball hit Kevin Curtis in the hands. Maybe Rod Hood clipped his feet, maybe he did not, but the ball hit Curtis on both hands well ahead of the first-down marker, with a lifetime of clock remaining for Donovan McNabb to engineer his second game-winning comeback of yesterday's NFC Championship Game. That's right, second. Who among us didn't think, the way the entire second half had gone, that McNabb already had engineered one of the greatest come-from-behind championship game victories in history?

UP NEXT Who: Eagles (10-6-1) at New York Giants (12-4) What: NFC Divisional Playoffs When: Sunday, 1 p.m. Where: Giants Stadium TV: Fox Radio: WYSP (94.1-FM), WIP (610-AM) Last meeting: The Eagles won, 20-14, on Dec. 7 at Giants Stadium. The Giants won the first game, 36-31, on Nov. 9 at the Linc. Series history: The Giants lead the series, 82-69-2, and 2-1 in the playoffs. The Eagles' lone postseason win was 23-20 on Jan. 7, 2007. The other meetings were in 1981 and 2001.

THERE WERE a lot of reasons for Donovan McNabb's impressive performance in the Eagles' 48-20 Thanksgiving night win over the Arizona Cardinals, not the least of which was the fact that the Cardinals have a pretty lousy pass defense (a league-worst 26 touchdown passes allowed). "Donovan played better," offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said. "Virtually every position played better. And there were some other things as well. " One of those "other" things was that Mornhinweg and head coach Andy Reid finally abandoned the fire drill they had been running at the wide-receiver position.

There have been games this season in which some of the Eagles' wide receivers covered more ground running from the sideline to the huddle and back to the sideline than they did after making catches. Apparently, Andy Reid has decided he was doing Donovan McNabb no favor rotating six receivers. It was messing up the timing, the coach said yesterday, about 10 hours after the Eagles kept their season meaningful with a Thanksgiving night, 48-20 blowout of the Arizona Cardinals. And in Reid's pass-happy offense, timing is everything.

Andy Reid, as Philadelphia knows well by now, has a lot of unshakable beliefs: Speak little. Reveal less. Throw first. Damn the critics. Stay the course. There's another, less fervently held, perhaps, but just as regularly practiced, that could factor into the outcome of the Eagles' matchup tomorrow with the Cincinnati Bengals: Six wideouts are preferable to three. While Bengals coach Marvin Lewis figures to start T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson and Chris Henry and stick with them through ups and four downs, Reid will shuttle his six-pack of wideouts in and out. Now that Reggie Brown and Kevin Curtis are healthy, the Eagles have been playing them all. All six played in the loss to the New York Giants.