Me and my pal Sean got to talking again last night. No beers this time out. Just some sober chitchat about the upcoming Eagles season. The main topic of conversation centered around our beloved Birds being pegged by many to be the leading Super Bowl contender in the NFC.

Not surprisingly, Sean is worried they won’t be able to handle the pressure. He didn’t go so far as to compare them to last year’s talented but dysfunctional Cowboys team. He knows better than to make that correlation in my presence. However, he did express dismay about relying on the rookies and newly acquired free agents to all ease into their new surroundings.

His point is a valid one. Even I’m not confident the offensive line and safeties will be in sync come week one. Can Juan Castillo get the new guys and those shifting positions ready in time? Can Sean McDermott decipher the puzzle that is Mikell, Demps and Jones? It will likely take a few games for these questions to shake out. Will the team suffer in the process? I don’t think so, but it’s not a certainty.

My point to Sean was as follows. The Eagles were favorites in 2002, 2003 and 2004 and handled it just fine. You don’t go to four consecutive NFC title games without being able to sustain being on top. Yeah, the faces were different back then. But the two most important were not. Reid and McNabb. They’ve been tied at the hip since ‘99 and remain so today. You can argue whether or not these two are the right duo to hitch a championship wagon to, but you can’t argue the success they have shared together.

Sure, Dawkins is gone. Nobody, not even Reid, can predict how Dawk’s absence will affect the defense and team as a whole. Was he really the “heart and soul” that everyone, including me, made him out to be? Maybe. But there should be 52 hearts and souls on a team, not just one. You can’t tell me that Mikell and Westbrook don’t want to win as much as Dawk did. Or Samuel and McNabb. Or Cole and DeSean. Or Bradley and Herremans.

From my perspective, all these guys should want to win even more now that Brian has moved on to Denver. Don’t you think they are all sick and tired of being bombarded with “how will you survive without Dawk” questions? I know I would be.

Motivation is a weird thing. Athletes have fragile egos. The constant talk about the guy who used to be in the locker room won’t sit too well with the guys currently sitting in the locker room. The best way to silence the queries and calm the worries of fans is to go out and kick ass. That’s what good players and good teams do. They don’t mope around reminiscing about past glories. Those who do will find themselves out of a job, fast.

I’m not concerned about the Birds being favorites. In fact, I believe they relish the contender role. They’ve been there before. It’s hardly foreign to them. Therefore, they should feel right at home. But all this talk is nothing but preseason expectations. Living up to expectations is the hard part. If any team understands that, it’s the Philadelphia Eagles.

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