Shawn Andrews

THE COMPLETE picture isn't important right now. There is more to the story of why the Eagles placed wayward offensive tackle Shawn Andrews on injured reserve, ending his season before he played one play from scrimmage. The fact that the Birds shut down a former Pro Bowl offensive lineman one game into the season over a confusing back issue screams that there is more to this story than we're being told. Why now, after dealing with all of the migraines Andrews put this team through over the last year?

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - It was his first time back on a football field in almost a year, and Shawn Andrews, true to form, was singing as he stretched before the New York Giants practice on Monday. The 27-year-old Andrews is happy to have a second chance in the National Football League after the Eagles cut him in March because, coach Andy Reid said then, it was time "to move in another direction" from the player they picked in the first round of the 2004 draft. "I like what he did," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said after Andrews worked primarily at left guard with the third-string offensive line.

Shawn Andrews was in a strange place with a lot of familiar faces around him. After a turbulent 2008 season that began with a lengthy training-camp absence caused by depression and ended prematurely because of a back injury in Week 2 at Dallas, Andrews finally returned to the field yesterday for the start of the Eagles' postdraft camp at the NovaCare Complex. The most peculiar thing ? if you discount Andrews' blond Mohawk ? about his comeback was where the two-time Pro Bowl guard put his right hand down along the offensive line.

Shawn Andrews needs a second back operation. Rich Moran, the agent for the Eagles' two-time Pro Bowl guard, said yesterday that Robert Watkins will perform a more extensive surgery than the previous one next week out in Southern California. "He had a discogram last week that verified it," Moran said. A discogram is a procedure in which a needle is placed in the disc in the back. Dye is injected so it can be examined under an X-ray. After being placed on injured reserve before the start of the season, Andrews went through an eight-week rehabilitation period under the watchful eye of Watkins before being told earlier this month that he'd have to undergo a second surgery.

Shawn Andrews visited Robert Watkins in Southern California yesterday and was told his back pain is real and not all that unusual for someone who underwent the surgery he had last year. "He has flared up," the physician said in an interview with The Inquirer. "He does not have an injury to the nerve, and there is no bad sciatic, but he is real stiff, and there is a lot of pain in his back. As he is right now, he's unable to play football because his back is hurt too badly. " Watkins said no further surgery is required, but he plans to give Andrews at least one and possibly two cortisone injections in the near future.

Newspapers are finished. It's true. Old-school scribes can't compete with the modern digital bard. The first story I had professionally published ran 14 years ago. Everything I've penned since then has been garbage - at least relative to the stuff Shawn Andrews is tweeting. Compared with him, we're all Tucker Max, slopping words onto the page and lowering the level of the language. Twitter and athletes is an old story. This isn't about that. This is about Andrews and how Twitter has become his addiction and best form of expression, which is great for the rest of us (though I suspect the Eagles organization might not agree)

CINCINNATI - Tom Lopat didn't know what to expect when Rich Moran, an agent who played for Lopat in Green Bay, asked the retired former offensive line coach to work out Shawn Andrews in Los Angeles. Lopat knew Andrews had missed two seasons, essentially, because of back trouble. From his many years of working with o-linemen, Lopat knew "those backs are not something you take lightly. " Lopat's brief was to assess, over a 4-day period, whether Andrews could withstand the rigors of an NFL-style tryout without breaking down.

The New York Giants must have been getting their Michael Phelps on early Friday morning when they decided to scratch Shawn Andrews a check. It's the only explanation for why the Giants would agree to pay the former Eagles offensive guard anything north of $1 to take up space in their locker room. That, or they needed a singer. Or their trainers needed something to do. Or general manager Jerry Reese just felt like lighting money on fire. Because at this point, to count on Andrews to be anything other than a waste of time and money is pointless.

CINCINNATI - Shawn Andrews became the second former Pro Bowl Eagle in five months to move on to a team within the division when the offensive lineman signed a six-year contract with the New York Giants early Friday morning. This time, however, the move was not of the Eagles' doing - or at least not directly. In April, the Eagles traded away franchise quarterback Donovan McNabb to the NFC East-rival Redskins. A month earlier, they released the chronically injured Andrews, who had hardly played any football in the previous two seasons.

JUST A FEW weeks ago, the Eagles were the talk of the football world as they cast their line into the well-stocked free-agency fishing hole and reeled in one big whopper after another. While there is no disputing that they have assembled an impressive collection of talent worthy of a serious Super Bowl run, there also is no disputing that they are a fragile house of cards that could easily collapse if their young, ready-or-not-here-we-come offensive line can't keep quarterback Michael Vick out of harm's way this season.

THERE IS an old saying in sports that is as true today as it was the first time it was uttered decades ago. You can't make the club in the tub. For those few of you needing a translation, the tub is the whirlpool in the training room where injured players often can be found trying to heal their pulled hamstrings and sprained ankles and sore shoulders and aching backs so that they can get back on the field and back into the consciousness of...

AT THIS POINT, I'll be a little surprised if the Eagles don't trade Kevin Kolb to Arizona in a deal that involves Cardinals cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Obviously, nothing can be done until the NFL resumes business, which could happen by the end of the week, probably not before. There is still time for some other team to jump in with a breathtaking offer. But that's unlikely. Everybody working in the league really hasn't been in a state of suspended animation for 6 months; the teams that want Kolb have known for a while that they want him, and they've known what they are willing to give.

DANNY WATKINS showed up as a potential Eagles pick at 23rd overall in some mock NFL drafts over the past month or so, but people who thought they knew Andy Reid quickly dismissed that idea. Before last night, Reid had never drafted for the interior of his offensive line higher than the fourth round. (The idea with Shawn Andrews always was that he would eventually move outside.) Watkins, a tackle at Baylor, is universally projected as an NFL guard, as he acknowledged to reporters minutes after the Eagles made him their first offensive-line first-rounder since they tabbed Andrews, in 2004.

In the last eight drafts, the Eagles have selected in their designated spot in the first round only twice, most recently in 2006. Here is a rundown of their deals involving first-round picks: 2003: The pick: 30th: What happened: Traded to San Diego to move up 15 slots to select Miami defensive end Jerome McDougle at No. 15 in exchange for a first (cornerback Sammy Davis) and a second (free safety Terrence Kiel). 2004: The pick: 28th: What happened: Traded to San Francisco to move up 12 spots to select Arkansas guard/tackle Shawn Andrews at No. 16 in exchange for a first and a second.

For years, the Eagles had a reputation for selecting too many offensive linemen early in the draft. The problem was it wasn't true. Only once in his dozen years drafting has Reid selected an offensive lineman in the first round - Shawn Andrews, 2004. And the Eagles haven't addressed that position earlier than the fourth round since they took Winston Justice in the second round of the 2006 draft. Reid and company prefer to load up on linemen lower in the draft or via undrafted free agency in the hopes of finding a few gems they can develop.

INDIANAPOLIS - Compared with Eagles president Joe Banner's media tour last week, general manager Howie Roseman's session with reporters yesterday at the NFL scouting combine was kind of tame. Roseman didn't set any deadlines for coaches to win the Super Bowl, he was reluctant to even acknowledge the possibility of trading Kevin Kolb, and he drew no parallels between the Birds and any other franchises. Roseman did strongly indicate that the Eagles, who neglected the offensive line in last year's draft, won't do so again, given what Roseman and many other observers consider a much deeper pool of o-line talent.

MOBILE, Ala. - The defensive tackle bull-rushed at Gabe Carimi, but the Wisconsin offensive lineman wrestled him to the ground. The tackle got up, but the aggressive Carimi clocked him again. And then again, even after the whistle blew, the 6-foot-7, 315-pounder gave the beaten tackle another shove. It was a sequence this week at practice for Saturday's Senior Bowl, and it reminded one of a former Eagles tackle who made up for any lack of physical skills with attitude: Jon Runyan.

MOBILE, Ala. - The very early mock drafts tend to be pretty close to useless. But this year, some feature the Eagles' getting Wisconsin tackle Gabe Carimi in the first round, 23rd overall, and that actually could happen, if Carimi doesn't go sooner. Carimi said Eagles scouts have been among those expressing interest. NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock said yesterday that Colorado's Nate Solder, Boston College's Anthony Castonzo and Carimi, all members of the North squad for the Senior Bowl, look like first-rounders, pretty much in that order, for now. The Eagles, who haven't taken an offensive lineman in the first round since Shawn Andrews in 2004, certainly figure to target the right side of their offensive line early in the draft.

Take a close look at this Eagles team and you will find one that was built specifically with the Dallas Cowboys in mind. It took a little more than 11 months, 12 games, and many twists and turns along the way, but when the Eagles travel to Dallas for Sunday night's game they will finally learn if those modifications will bear fruit. So what if a victory over their NFC East rival Cowboys won't be as sweet as this game was meant to be? If the Eagles beat 4-8 Dallas they will top an opponent that swept them in three meetings last season, embarrassing them in the season finale and the following week in the playoffs.