Quinton Caver

What the Eagles had in New England was a failure to communicate. "We had four or five mental mistakes in the first half," defensive coordinator Jim Johnson said of Saturday's 16-15 loss to the Patriots. "That's what we are trying to work out. These guys haven't played together. Guys are still learning. " Last year, the defensive players could communicate without speaking. "We knew each other so well," linebacker Carlos Emmons said, "all we had to do was look at each other and we understood.

Nobody is doubting Nebraska placekicker Josh Brown this weekend - not even Brown. Brown kept Nebraska's slim Bowl Championship Series hopes alive yesterday, kicking a 29-yard field goal as time expired to give the No. 9 Cornhuskers a 34-32 victory over visiting Colorado. "This is what you dream about," Brown said. Brown's kick capped a drive that started at the Nebraska 41-yard line with 44 seconds left after Colorado had taken the lead with a touchdown and a two-point conversion.

When the dust had settled, the Eagles had drafted eight players, made six trades, and added three picks for next season. We won't know the impact of these moves for quite some time, but the first look at coach Andy Reid's 2009 Eagles will come Friday when the team opens a mandatory post-draft camp at the NovaCare Complex. The most significant move on the second day of the draft yesterday was the deal that sent two fifth-round picks to the New England Patriots for veteran cornerback/kick returner  Ellis Hobbs . Fifth-round draft pick Cornelius Ingram , a 6-foot-4, 245-pound tight end from Florida, was the Eagles' first pick on the second day of the draft - they traded away two third-rounders - and he's also the one most likely to have some sort of impact as a rookie.

EVENTUALLY, it doesn't matter where you were drafted, it matters what you've done. That reality hit home for safety Jaiquawn Jarrett Tuesday, when he became the earliest-released second-round draft pick of the Andy Reid era. Not 17 months after the Eagles selected him 54th overall, from Temple, in the 2011 draft, Jarrett was cut so the Birds could add Mardy Gilyard, a wide receiver they trimmed from the roster at the end of the preseason. Gilyard might be needed this week against Baltimore, with Jeremy Maclin battling a hip injury and Riley Cooper not ready to return from a broken collarbone.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - It's a long fall from second-round draft pick to roster cut, but Jaiquawn Jarrett appears set to make that descent in record time. Selected 54th overall in the 2011 NFL draft, the safety is battling to secure a spot on the Eagles' 53-man roster. How is that so? When you are splitting second- and third-team repetitions with a journeyman who has three career starts, your job is on the line. Jarrett's demotion came this week after he turned in a mistake-filled performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the preseason opener.

A day after the Eagles released Jaiquawn Jarrett, their 2011 second-round draft pick, Andy Reid admitted that he reached in selecting the safety. "That's my responsibility. I misevaluated that," the Eagles coach said Wednesday. "I think one of the key things is when you make a mistake for your system that you correct it and you can't let your ego get in the way of that. You just can't do it. " Earlier in the day during his scheduled news conference, Reid was reluctant to talk about Jarrett's departure.

Their names were called out on draft days and then forgotten almost as quickly as they registered. Barry Gardner in the second round of the 1999 draft. Quinton Caver in the second round of 2001. Matt McCoy in the second round of the 2005 selection process. At the time they were chosen, the Eagles' brass figured they would be contributing by now. Instead, those players became three strikes against the Eagles' ability to properly evaluate linebacker talent. Without naming those players, Andy Reid acknowledged as much yesterday, a rare concession by a coach not known for publicly owning up to personnel blunders.

It's an urban myth that the Eagles believe they could play defense without linebackers. There is, however, plenty of truth in the belief that the Eagles place lesser draft value on linebackers than they do on quarterbacks, cornerbacks, defensive ends, defensive tackles and offensive tackles. That partly explains why they've never spent a first-round pick on a linebacker since Andy Reid became the head coach in 1999. "I do think the positions we have drafted [first] are the positions we feel are really tough to find, especially the offensive tackles and defensive ends and even the defensive tackles," general manager Tom Heckert said yesterday as the Eagles continued to prepare for the start of Saturday's NFL draft.

The kids are all right. So far, at least. Common wisdom in the NFL says it takes three years to evaluate a draft class. For the Eagles' class of 2001, things are looking fairly bright in the final week of their first training camp. None of the six draft choices is in the starting lineup yet, but that says as much about the progress of the Eagles as it does the progress of the players. Two picks, first-round wide receiver Freddie Mitchell and second-round linebacker Quinton Caver, could be starting before the end of their rookie seasons.

The screams were unforgettable. The Eagles had just lost a game in Arizona. They had trudged off to the tiny visitors' locker room, which has no private space for trainers to work. So linebacker Mike Caldwell's agony was endured in plain sight of his teammates, coaches, and the media covering the game. Caldwell lay on a table, in terrible pain, in the middle of the room. He was dehydrated. "They told me I actually had a mini-heatstroke," Caldwell said yesterday. "The doctors did a great job of getting water into me, but then I was actually overhydrated.