Jamar Chaney

There's been a merry-go-round at linebacker for the Eagles over the last few seasons, but the team made efforts this offseason to make it stop with the acquisitions of DeMeco Ryans and Mychal Kendricks. It might start spinning again on Sunday in Cleveland. Kendricks said Thursday after practice that the coaches had each of the Eagles' six linebackers practicing in various alignments in several packages on defense. "I would expect for all of us to be playing because that's what we're game-planning with," said Kendricks, who is expected to start at the strong side.

TAMPA - Two significant defensive lineup changes for the Eagles Sunday, neither of them having anything to do with the wide-nine, but both seemingly for the better: Rookie linebacker Mychal Kendricks, the strongside starter all year, went to the weakside. Jamar Chaney, who hadn't started since the Pittsburgh game Oct. 7, took over the strongside spot. Then, with Kurt Coleman left home because of a sternum bruise, special-teams ace Colt Anderson got his first safety start since 2010.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The Eagles have room to add another defensive tackle, with free agents Derek Landri and Trevor Laws still unsigned. Mike Patterson, Cullen Jenkins, Antonio Dixon, and Cedric Thornton are under contract, but the Eagles carried five defensive tackles last season. Thornton, an undrafted rookie, could be expendable. The Eagles could be targeting one of a number of attractive defensive tackles in the first round of next month's draft. General manager Howie Roseman agreed that it is a position of strength in the draft.

TAMPA, Fla. - Brent Celek sustained a concussion on the first play from scrimmage in Sunday's 23-21 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Celek was helped off the field after a one-yard catch and returned to the locker room for examination. He is the third key starter on the Eagles offense to suffer a concussion this season. Michael Vick and LeSean McCoy continue to sit with lingering concussions. There was no word after the game on the severity of Celek's concussion. "For him to go out, I'll tell you it was a pretty good [hit]

REVIEWING the wreckage of the Eagles' 24-23 collapse to the 49ers while wondering how many hours Juan Castillo plans to go without sleep this week:   By the numbers *  LeSean McCoy, who entered Sunday's game as the league's second-leading rusher, had just just nine carries against the Niners and only four in the second half of a game in which the Eagles had a 20-point lead. Andy Reid, who repeatedly has said over the years that he likes to run the ball in the second half after getting a lead, denied that yesterday.

THE EAGLES go into training camp this weekend with few starting spots in question. Right now, only two starters seem at all shaky — Brian Rolle at weakside linebacker, who will have to fight off Jamar Chaney, and Kurt Coleman at strong safety, who will be challenged by free-agent signee O.J. Atogwe. You could throw fullback in there, if you deem that a true starting position; the Eagles employed a fullback on only about 16 percent of their snaps last season. The incumbent, Owen Schmitt, departed for Oakland in free agency.

When the Eagles selected Casey Matthews in the fourth round of the NFL draft, there was little doubt what the team intended for him. "I know he can step in and be your Mike [middle] linebacker," Andy Reid said. It wasn't just wishful thinking - the coaching staff and player personnel department liked Matthews very much - but if he fulfilled Reid's assertion, that would grant one of the organization's fondest wishes: finding a long-term middle linebacker. Sure enough, Matthews was the first-team man in the middle from the very start of training camp at Lehigh and, just as Reid predicted, he stepped in and held the job when the regular season began.

JAMAR CHANEY didn't need to confer with any Eagles coaches to know what the acquisition of DeMeco Ryans was going to mean for Chaney, the Birds' incumbent starting middle linebacker. "He's going to start off at the MIKE, that goes without saying," Chaney said last night, a few hours after the news broke that the Eagles had sent a fourth-round pick in next month's draft to the Houston Texans for Ryans, a two-time Pro Bowl middle linebacker. The teams also exchanged third-round draft choices.

FOR MANY Eagles fans, a central question again this week, heading into Atlanta, will be, "Is Casey Matthews up to this?" We're just a week into the season, but the query already seems to have become rhetorical. The view from the couches and bar stools is that he is dreadfully overmatched. Maybe you've heard, Matthews is the Eagles' rookie middle linebacker, coming off a performance in the opener in which he looked less than instinctive in the scheme, and struggled to get off blocks, as he had during the preseason.

Andy Reid is sticking with one rookie and going with another. Despite criticism that Casey Matthews wasn't up to the task of being the starting middle linebacker after his rocky outing in Thursday night's preseason game against the Steelers, the Eagles coach stuck with the rookie at Saturday's walk-through. The Eagles' entire starting linebacker crew, in fact, did not change after the 24-14 loss in Pittsburgh. Jamar Chaney stayed at strong-side linebacker and Moise Fokou was still at weak side.