King Dunlap

  Back-to-back false starts are not a good thing anytime, and when Winston Justice blew the snap count twice during yesterday's live morning workout, Andy Reid subbed in King Dunlap for a rep, just to let the Birds' right tackle clear his head. And maybe to remind him that nothing in this world is guaranteed. "I had a mental lapse. That's it," Justice said later. "I just messed up . . . when you jump offsides twice like that, you need to come out and realize what you just did. "I went back in, and I think in the NFL, you have to have a short memory.

Despite rupturing his right Achilles tendon twice within a month last spring, Jason Peters said on Tuesday that he could have played late last season and that he anticipated playing near his all-pro form from 2011 for the Eagles this coming season. The left tackle met with reporters not long after he went through new Eagles coach Chip Kelly's first workout of the offseason. It was the first time Peters formally spoke with the media since his injury last March. He said that he knew Dec. 1, shortly after the Eagles shut him down for the season, that he was healthy enough to play.

IF THE EAGLES lost Michael Vick to injury in the offseason, the alarm would be deafening. The fringy residents of Eagle Nation would hyperventilate if LeSean McCoy tore a chest muscle lifting weights. If DeSean Jackson's right knee buckled at the beach, or if Trent Cole dislocated his shoulder falling out of a tree stand, or if those Pamplonan bulls outrun Jason Babin, the Bleeding Green might slit their wrists. There should be at least as much anxiety surrounding the absence of Jason Peters.

SAN FRANCISCO - He needed this. Let's be real. Kevin Kolb had been through hell the last few weeks. Stripped naked for all of the National Football League to see, Kolb suffered the ultimate indignity by losing the starting quarterback job he never had a chance to really hold, at least not when it mattered. His was a public flogging. It was definitive. And it was final - at least until it wasn't. So given another chance to be the Eagles starting quarterback Sunday night against the San Francisco 49ers, Kolb needed to make the most of it. He needed to show that he could be a leader, that he could throw the ball down the field, that he could be patient and could lead the team to victory.

Free agency allows some teams to alter their rosters and most fans to dream big. The Eagles, after last season's splurge, aren't expected to fulfill the musings of those who want another spending spree in free agency. Most Birds fans, it seems, are fine with this considering how poorly the Eagles spent their allowance last summer. The hope is that the Eagles will target linebacker and perhaps a few other positions of less significance when scouring through the lists of free agents from other teams.

SAN FRANCISCO - With questions about their run defense and their offensive line, the Eagles certainly did not need any additional injuries. On the 49ers' first drive last night, the Eagles lost defensive tackle Brodrick Bunkley to a left elbow injury. Bunkley's arm was pulled back behind him when he was trying to make a tackle. Bunkley was replaced by Antonio Dixon. Late in the first half, Trent Cole left the game with a hamstring problem and headed to the locker room. Juqua Parker, who regained his starting spot at left end from Brandon Graham, replaced him on the right side.

TWO YEARS AGO, before he ruptured his right Achilles' tendon twice in a 7-week period, Jason Peters was the best left tackle in the NFL. You can debate who might've been the best quarterback or the best running back or best wide receiver or the best pass-rusher in the league in 2011. But there's no debate about who was the best left tackle. There was Peters and then there was everybody else. He was that good. An athletic freak with running-back feet inside a massive 6-4, 340-pound body.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - There they were yesterday, sitting pretty on the Tennessee 3-yard line with a little less than 6 minutes left in the third quarter. There they were, 3 yards from a touchdown that would have given them a 23-7 lead and put them well on their way to their fifth win of the season and a very satisfying bye-week vacation. And then, just like that, it all went to hell. In the time it took Titans defensive tackle Jason Jones to blow by center Mike McGlynn and slap a would-be handoff to LeSean McCoy out of quarterback Kevin Kolb's hand, momentum shifted.

It happens fast in the NFL. One year you're a rookie. The next year you finally get a chance to play. By the third year you're playing for your professional life. That timeline essentially sums up Joe Mays' career to this point. Of course, the Eagles linebacker hasn't made it to Year Three just yet. "They say that the average life span of an NFL player is three years," Mays said Tuesday. (It's actually 3.5 years, according to the league's players association.) "I'm going into my third year.

As Andy Reid read the names, it seemed as if the Eagles coach was reciting his starting team. Twelve players will not make the trip to Indianapolis for tomorrow's preseason game against the Colts. Of the 12, 11 are injured. Of those 11, four of them are projected starters on the offensive line. All four linemen could be ready to start when the season opens in less than four weeks, but there is no definite timetable for the return of guards Todd Herremans and Stacy Andrews and tackles Jason Peters and Shawn Andrews.