Jeffrey Lurie

The dynamic may have shifted slightly, some tinkering may have been done, but the Eagles still conduct business as they always have. And yet, the narrative, after what unanimously has been declared a successful offseason, has been that the Eagles have significantly altered their philosophy or shaken up the front office after a disastrous 2011. Not true. They have made changes. However, they are micro adjustments that owner Jeffrey Lurie hopes will have a net macro result - the Eagles finally winning a Super Bowl.

Age: 58 Born: Sept. 8, 1951, Boston. Education: Bachelor's degree from Clark University, a master's degree in psychology from Boston University, and a Ph.D in social policy from Brandeis University. Job: Bought the Eagles from Norman Braman for $185 million in 1994. Previous jobs: President and chief executive officer of Chestnut Hill Productions, a Los Angeles-based film company he formed in 1985. Family: Lives in Wynnewood with wife Christina and their teenaged son and daughter.

Christina Lurie leaves the Eagles conference room at the NovaCare Complex in South Philadelphia, then turns and has one final thought. "Give a plug for Inside Job ," she says. Inside Job is the most recent documentary that Christina and Jeffrey Lurie, the owners of the Eagles, have executive-produced through their documentary film company, Screen Pass Pictures. They are filmmakers by trade. Jeffrey Lurie made three movies - V.I. Warshawski , Sweet Hearts Dance , and I Love You To Death - before leaving Hollywood to buy the Eagles in 1994.

What began as an act of good faith on Jeffrey Lurie's part might turn into a nasty tug-of-war. The Eagles' owner said yesterday that he will seek compensation from the Miami Dolphins for losing Bob Ackles, his chief contract negotiator and director of football administration. Ackles, who had one year left on his contract, will move to the Dolphins as assistant general manager. He will be rejoining Jimmy Johnson, with whom he had worked in Dallas. "We're asking for compensation," Lurie said.

Jeffrey Lurie is eager to buy the Eagles. Owner Norman Braman is in no particular hurry to sign on the dotted line. As this cross-continent melodrama drags into its fifth week, Braman decided yesterday to use the long Easter weekend to comb through the terms of the record $185 million sale, frustrating Lurie, his high-priced lawyers and his bank for another day. In other words, the Miami car dealer who has made a national reputation as...

The Eagles opened full training camp yesterday with all 80 veterans and draft picks in town and under contract - a claim no other NFL team can make. "I think it means a lot to (the coaching staff), and I think it means a lot to the players," said head coach Rich Kotite. "I think everyone is excited about everyone being here and doing this thing together. It's the first time in my coaching career I've been involved in something like that. " Not bad for a rookie owner. Jeffrey Lurie's family motif was absolutely contagious yesterday.

How much is a pro football team worth? The bottom line, of course, is that it's valued the same way everything else is: It's worth what people are willing to pay for it. So if film producer Jeffrey Lurie wants to ante up $185 million for the Philadelphia Eagles, $25 million more than has ever been paid for a football team, maybe that's what it's worth. A cool $185 million may seem like an awful lot of money, but people who study the business side of professional sports franchises say values have been moving up fast, and will continue to do so. "Values are clearly moving in that direction," said Timothy Mueller, the director of sports-industry consulting for the KPMG Peat Marwick, the consulting and accounting firm.

Jeffrey Lurie loves pro football so much that he is apparently willing to shell out $185 million for the Eagles. But the similarities between Lurie and a stogie-puffing, chest-thumping, headline-craving, old-boys'-network-aspiring professional sports team owner end right there. Lurie, the 42-year-old heir to a publishing fortune, appears to be a real '90s kind of guy. He has a Ph.D. in social policy from Brandeis University. His doctoral dissertation was titled "The Depiction of Women in Hollywood Movies.

Blockbuster Video king Wayne Huizenga stayed in hiding until his purchase of the Dolphins was finalized last month. Even though he was probably more well-known in Miami than Fidel Castro, Huizenga refused to discuss the team, his plans or even football, for that matter, until the NFL approved the deal. In New England, Boston businessman Robert Kraft - who loves to bask in the limelight - declined to talk about the Patriots until his purchase of that team was official, too. The CIA has leaks.

The dynamic may have shifted slightly, some tinkering may have been done, but the Eagles still conduct business as they always have. And yet, the narrative, after what unanimously has been declared a successful offseason, has been that the Eagles have significantly altered their philosophy or shaken up the front office after a disastrous 2011. Not true. They have made changes. However, they are micro adjustments that owner Jeffrey Lurie hopes will have a net macro result - the Eagles finally winning a Super Bowl.

BRIAN DAWKINS did not limp into retirement. There were lots of things the Eagles' all-time greatest safety expressed gratitude for Saturday at the NovaCare auditorium, and that accomplishment was near the top of the list. "I know I'm shedding tears because I'm thinking back and reminiscing, but this is a happy time for me. I chose to walk out the way that I'm walking out," Dawkins told a group that included about 15 former teammates, a bunch of Eagles employees from all levels of the organization, team chairman Jeffrey Lurie, dozens of reporters, fans from the season-ticket advisory board, his wife, Connie, and their four children.

Connie Dawkins didn't know what to expect. Her family was flying back to Philadelphia from Colorado for some sort of Saturday news conference at the NovaCare Complex, because her husband was retiring from football. They'd been in Denver three years. This seemed like a lot to go through just to pose for pictures and talk to reporters. "He's been gone for a while. I just said, 'I hope they haven't forgotten you.' We're in Denver, we don't hear the [Philadelphia] radio or see the papers," Connie said Saturday, after the Eagles announced they will retire Brian Dawkins' No. 20 in a Sept.

We already knew the who and the where, and on Tuesday evening, the NFL added the when to the equation that Andy Reid and the Eagles will try to solve beginning in September in what might be a do-or-done year for Reid, or might be just pretty much like every other season since 1999. It has been a significant wait for the Eagles to enter the new millennium, but maybe the 2012 schedule that was released in an overwrought unveiling by the league, will be the ticket to the land Reid promised the franchise would someday visit.

TEN DAYS AGO, they were in Palm Beach, Fla., at the NFL owners' meetings - Jeffrey Lurie, Andy Reid, Howie Roseman, all of them. Amid the old money and the pounding Atlantic surf and the $22 room-service omelets, the Eagles had no idea they were about to be confronted with a roster crisis: the ruptured Achilles' tendon of All-Pro left tackle Jason Peters. Roseman, the Eagles' general manager, was in Palm Beach with his family. He said he arrived back from the meetings last Tuesday.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Right now, the Eagles' backup quarterback options are Trent Edwards, who spent last season out of the NFL for reasons unrelated to injury, and Mike Kafka, who could not supplant Vince Young on the depth chart in 2011. Andy Reid may head into the coming season with Edwards and Kafka as his reserves behind Michael Vick. But history would suggest that the Eagles coach would prefer some greater stability at quarterback. Of course, there is stability for next season, and then there is long-term stability, and the selecting of a quarterback relatively high in the draft would help address both concerns for Reid.

SO, NFL FREE AGENCY starts tomorrow at 4 p.m., and Eagles fans, like fans everywhere, want their team to gobble up anybody who might help get the Birds to the Super Bowl. Just one problem with that. Who won the Super Bowl last month? The Giants. OK, name all the big-time free agents who contributed to that title. There was . . . ah, nobody. Not a single key contributor joined the G-men as a 2011 free agent. In fact, the Giants took some grief for that inactivity, back when the Eagles were snapping up all the "bargains" in the frenzied post-lockout free- agent bazaar.

Remember the Eagles' sneak-attack signing of Nnamdi Asomugha last July? Well, don't expect a repeat blockbuster acquisition from the Eagles when free agency kicks off Tuesday at 4 p.m. As much as Birds fans may be hoping for their team to drop another bomb - Mario Williams? Vincent Jackson? Peyton Manning?!? - the Eagles are likely to let other teams fend for the top free agents in this year's class. That doesn't mean they won't address areas of specific need like linebacker, running back, or backup quarterback.

Andy Reid said he would watch the Super Bowl and then, first thing Monday morning, it will be back to work trying to get the Eagles into the next one. In that way, Super Bowl Sunday, not Feb. 2, has become Groundhog Day for Reid. Since the Eagles made it to the championship game seven years ago, Reid has always been free on that day to study the teams that survive to the final round. What will he see this year that separated him from walking the sidelines where Bill Belichick of the Patriots and Tom Coughlin of the Giants will control their teams?