They did it in 2000, shipping a third-round pick and a fifth-round pick to the Titans to move up seven spots into the second round and draft Bobbie Williams.

They did it again in 2001, trading third- and fifth-round picks to the Dolphins for a second-round pick that a year later became cornerback Sheldon Brown.

Then they did it big-time in 2003, exchanging the 30th pick overall and a second-round pick (which they had gotten from the Packers in exchange for Al Harris) with the Chargers for the 14th pick overall and drafting defensive end Jerome McDougle.

And they did it again a year later, moving up 12 spots in the first round by shipping their own first-round pick, No. 28 overall, and a second-round pick to the 49ers for the 16th pick, which they used to pick offensive lineman Shawn Andrews.

It doesn't always work.

Williams spent four years with the Eagles but could never win a starting job and left via free agency after the 2003 season. McDougle has been hurt for nearly all of his three seasons with the Eagles.

But Brown is a big-time cornerback and Andrews was the Eagles' most consistent lineman a year ago at right guard.

Had the Eagles stayed in their original draft slots, they never would have gotten such players. But that is not the Andy Reid way. The Eagles are constantly looking to trade up or trade down in the draft — especially in the upper rounds.

With highly regarded defensive tackles Broderick Bunkley and Haloti Ngata expected to be top-12 picks in this weekend's draft and the Eagles sitting at No. 14, it just may happen again.

The Eagles have already had preliminary talks with just about everybody picking ahead of them. And a lot of teams drafting below them.

Based on their past history, the odds are good that by the time the 14th pick is made, the Eagles won't be the team making it.


Their pattern is clear. The Eagles love to stockpile draft picks through trades and then turn those picks into better picks.

Sometimes it takes a while. In 1999, they traded their fifth-round pick to the Lions for a 2000 fourth-round pick. Then, a year later, they traded the same pick to the Chargers for a 2001 third-round pick.

It took two years, but just by making a couple draft-day trades they transformed a relatively low-impact pick (No. 169) into a day-one pick (No. 63), and that put them in position to draft defensive end Derrick Burgess — who left via free agency after the 2004 season and ended up leading the NFL in sacks last year for the Raiders.

The Eagles' philosophy of letting aging veterans leave via free agency not only keeps the roster young but generally brings them a host of compensatory picks — with which they can draft more young players. Although these picks can't be traded, they do give the Eagles more flexibility on draft day.

Since 1993, when the NFL began its current system of assigning compensatory picks to teams for net losses in free agency, the Eagles have received 21 extra draft picks. Only the Cowboys (25) and Packers (22) have received more.

This weekend, the Eagles have 10 picks, including three in the fourth round. Those are terrific bargaining chips during negotiations.

“Those fourth-round picks are going to be big if we want to move up,” Eagles general manager Tom Heckert said.

With all the talk of draft picks, free agents and possible retirees in the NFL’s seemingly never-ending (and just begun, believe it or not) offseason, news telling of actual football to be played was nice to hear.

Last Wednesday, the news came down that the Philadelphia Eagles have been named as to play in the preseason kickoff on August 6 at the annual Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. Naturally, the game is mostly secondary to the induction ceremony of this year’s six inductees to the Hall. Here too, the Eagles will play a key role when the late Reggie “Minister of Defense” White is officially inducted into the pantheon of NFL greats.

White became known as perhaps the greatest defensive end ever in a professional career that spanned seventeen seasons, including eight with Philadelphia and six with Green Bay; he holds the all-time record for both franchises (and most likely for a third, the USFL’s Memphis Showboats, for whom he played after college) in career sacks. In his 121 games with the Eagles, White amassed 124 sacks for a gaudy average of just over one per game. He was twice Defensive Player of the Year, thirteen times an All-Pro and thirteen times an Pro Bowler. Upon his retirement, White had tallied 198 sacks (221.5 including USFL stats), then the NFL career record.

The accolades came in droves upon the announcing of inductees, as is usual in such circumstances, and the Minister was worthy of his share. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie stated that White’s “legacy on and off the football field will never be forgotten,” while Coach Reid opined, “In my mind, he will go down as the greatest defensive end in NFL history. He was a great teammate and a fun player to coach.” Having passed away in 2004 due to complications brought on by the sarcoidosis that had driven him into retirement in 2000, White will unfortunately never hear the praise lavished upon him in February nor see what is sure to be an unemotional event in August.

Lining up against the Philadelphia Eagles are the Oakland Raiders, who will boast a new Hall of Famer of their own on that August day. Legendary coach John Madden (who was hilariously described in the NFL press release as “best known for his television announcing and video game” before acknowledging his .759 winning percentage and Super Bowl ring) will be entering the hallowed halls with the Minister of Defense. No word yet on whether Madden will actually call the game…

Joining White and Madden in Hall immortality will be Troy Aikman, Harry Carson, Warren Moon and Rayfield Wright.

Lito Sheppard approached Eagles General Manager Tom Heckert after last season with a little suggestion.

“I just told him I thought there were two receivers who were going to be free agents who I thought would be great fits with us,” Sheppard said yesterday. “One was (former college teammate) Reche Caldwell and the other one was Jabar (Gaffney). I guess I should be getting a finder's fee or something now.”

Gaffney, Sheppard's first cousin, signed with the Eagles last week and, after arriving back from a vacation in Brazil, stopped by at the NovaCare Complex yesterday.

Sheppard and Gaffney played together at Raines High School in Jacksonville and at the University of Florida.

“We started hanging out once we got to high school and after that we became like brothers, and we've been that way ever since,” Sheppard said. “We've always pushed each other, as long as we've known each other. If he made a play, then I had to make the next play.”

Gaffney, 25, signed a one-year, $900,000 contract last Thursday. After spending his first four NFL seasons with a Texans franchise that won just 18 games since 2002, he's now with a team that won 19 games the last two years — and that includes last year's 6-10 nightmare.

“It was real tough (in Houston),” Gaffney said. “I never experienced anything like that. I'd never been on a losing team. I know how that feels and I never want to feel that way again.”

Gaffney played on an offense that was ranked 28th or worse three of his four years, an offense that allowed quarterback David Carr to get sacked 208 times in 60 games.

“Before you'd get halfway through your route, if you were on the road, you'd hear the crowd cheering because there was another sack,” Gaffney said. “If you were at home, you'd hear them booing because he got sacked again. It gets frustrating.”


And he believes that playing with this team, with this quarterback, will reveal what kind of player he truly is.

“Everything in Houston was — I don't want to use the term "a mess,' but it wasn't together. ...

“Carr was thrown in there as a rookie and got kind of gun shy back there, trying to get rid of the ball quickly and a lot of times that didn't even work. So being here with a proven Pro Bowl quarterback, a good line and a great offensive system, with great players everywhere, will make a world of difference.”

Gaffney has never been to the playoffs, so he used to come to Philadelphia after his season ended and visit Sheppard.

“Totally different than Houston,” he said. “This is a real organization.”

He was in the stands for the Packers playoff game in 2003, for Freddie Mitchell's 28-yard catch on 4th-and-26. Now he'll be wearing Mitchell's old No. 84.

Gaffney caught a career-high 55 passes last year and 171 in four seasons with the Texans. He averaged just 8.9 yards per catch last year — lowest among AFC wide receivers with 50 or more catches. But he averaged 13.1 yards per catch his first three seasons.

“He definitely runs good routes and has great hands and good size,” Sheppard said. “He's hungry right now. Being in Houston the last four years, he hasn't been able to do the things he's used to doing. He's going to silence a lot of critics.”

Koy Detmer has survived, at least for now. But Mike McMahon and Andy Hall were purged Monday by the Philadelphia Eagles, four days after veteran Jeff Garcia was signed to improve the talent pool behind starting quarterback Donovan McNabb.

McMahon, 27, completed only 94 of 207 passes (45.4 percent) for five touchdowns (with eight interceptions) in 2005, with the vast majority of his action in the final seven games of the regular season when he filled in for the injured McNabb.
The Eagles went just 2-5 in those games and averaged only 16.7 points.

In fairness to McMahon, he was playing most of the time behind a makeshift line that had lost starters Tra Thomas and Hank Fraley to injury. He also did not have running back Brian Westbrook as a weapon for the last four games because of an injury.

And before McMahon began his stint as the fill-in starter, wideout Terrell Owens had been suspended and exiled for the remainder of the season.

But in one of his last press conferences of the regular season, McMahon acknowledged that a quarterback in the West Coast-style offense has to complete a much higher percentage of his passes to be successful.

''As a West Coast quarterback, you don't want to be around 50 percent; you want to be around the low 60s,'' said McMahon, whose career completion percentage is roughly the equivalent to his 45.4 percent for his one season with Philadelphia.

The Eagles had signed McMahon as a free agent after the former Rutgers University player spent four seasons with the Detroit Lions. He started seven games with Detroit, but was unable to unseat Joey Harrington as the Lions' starter.

Hall, 25, was an Eagles' sixth-round draft pick out of Delaware in 2004. He did not see regular-season action with the team.

Detmer, 32, has completed 184 of 354 passes for 10 touchdowns (with 14 interceptions) during his career with the Eagles, which began as a seventh-round pick in the 1997 draft.

Place kicker David Akers has repeatedly stated a preference for working with Detmer as a holder, and the Eagles' successful kicking game warranted Detmer retaining the No. 2 spot on the quarterback depth chart for most of his time in Philadelphia.

But Garcia, a former three-time All-Pro with San Francisco who spent the past two seasons with Detroit and Cleveland, said he already had talked to Eagles special teams coach John Harbaugh about his willingness to hold for placements. The Eagles also could employ punter Dirk Johnson, a former Division II All-America defensive back, in that role.

In addition to McNabb, Garcia and Detmer, the Eagles have former Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang on their offseason roster. Chang spent preseason time with Detroit and Arizona in 2005, and the Eagles have allocated him to NFL Europe's Rhein Fire.

Runyan returning?: There is increasing speculation that right tackle Jon Runyan could re-sign soon with the Eagles after finding little interest on the open market as a unrestricted free agent.

Canton-bound?: An Eagles vs. Oakland Raiders Hall of Fame Game matchup was reported briefly Thursday afternoon on the Eagles' official Web site.

An Eagles official later said he could not immediately offer independent confirmation or details. But the appearance would make sense, with the late Reggie White and former Raiders coach John Madden in this year's induction class.

A Hall of Fame game appearance could be expected to increase the Eagles' preseason schedule to include it as a fifth game, and could lengthen the amount of time the team will spend in training camp.

And that's extra practice and preseason-game time the Eagles undoubtedly can use, since they will be coming off a 6-10 season and looking to introduce some new players into their lineup.

Look who's talking: Jabar Gaffney, the former Houston Texans wideout signed by the Eagles as a free agent last Thursday, will share his thoughts with the media today in South Philadelphia.

Gaffney's first appearance was delayed because he was vacationing.

This is all about scenarios, about setting up one domino to clank into another and to, in the end, see a plan come into place. The 4 p.m. deadline came and went on Thursday and the Eagles did not exercise their franchise tag or their transition designation, so as the team's delegation hunkers down in Indianapolis for the ultra-important Scouting Combine, we wonder what is next.
The Eagles sit at this off-season table in great shape, a hand flush with space under the salary cap, a roster they think is deep and talented and six picks in the first four rounds of April's draft. Free agency looms on March 3, and with it come a multitude of scenarios.

Let's first discuss the decision to not use the tags. It's not surprising that none of the Eagles' 10 pending unrestricted free agents received the tag designation. Jon Runyan is the most talked-about of the group, of course, but there are players like N.D. Kalu and Keith Adams and Chad Lewis and Juqua Thomas and Darnerien McCants and Jack Brewer to consider.

All 10 of the team's pending UFA's are scheduled to hit the market at 12:01 a.m. on March 3, at which point they will be free to sign with any team. That is not a one-way ticket out of town, as we learned last year when the Eagles signed Jeremiah Trotter, among others, after he visited teams during a much-publicized tour in free agency.

See, the Eagles have the power here. They're set up to do what they want, and because they've got their strategy in place and have all the assets listed above, just about anything can happen. In the case of any of these free agents to be, the Eagles probably have a gauge on what they think the market will be like for those players.

Then again, things change and you have to be adaptable.

So the deadline on Thursday really didn't mean a thing, really, other than the fact that the Eagles decided to not tie up millions of dollars on a player at this point before the free-agency festivities begin.

The Eagles have given absolutely no indication of what they intend to do with any of their free agents -- unrestricted or restricted -- and they haven't discussed for one second publicly what might happen in free agency. It's a maddening, brilliant game being played out in 32 cities. Every team strives for secrecy and the culmination of its plan that has been hashed out these last eight weeks.

I think this is a fascinating prelude to what is going to be a riveting off-season of action. There are so many aspects to consider, so many angles to play. The Eagles skidded to a 6-10 season in 2005 and look for a big rebound now. How do they get there? What steps need to be taken in the next couple of weeks to get the football team headed back in the right direction? How active will the Eagles play the free-agent market?

Obviously, Runyan's situation has drawn the most attention and you know all the scenarios. He loves it here. The Eagles love him. Runyan is a durable, rugged, skilled player, and the Eagles know that if he hits the market, he'll get some attention. Certainly, you would imagine, the lines of communication will be open in the event that the two sides could get something done if there was a mutual interest.

But how much of a factor is the young depth along the offensive line last year? The Eagles found out that Todd Herremans is a promising player, that Jamaal Jackson is going to contend for playing time, that Adrien Clarke is ready to make a serious push, and that Shawn Andrews was a Pro Bowl alternate last year.

Interesting. And unclear what happens in the next 10 days or so.

We'll all find out together as the March 3 period races closer. Things can certainly change between now and then, but the path is here for the Eagles' free agents to go out and peddle their wares. The Eagles, of course, have the ability to bring back the players they would like to have back, to play the cards from a position of strength.

Around the league, there are teams in a couple of different categories. There are few like the Eagles, a team that still has the core of the team that went to the Super Bowl two seasons ago, that has a fine blend of youth and experience, and that has great cap space and a roster it really believes in. There are teams that are maxed out in the salary-cap arena. There are teams that are trying to make the push from bad to respectable and from respectable to playoff contender.

And when the bell rings at 12:01 a.m. on March 3, all 32 teams reach a new phase in their off-season plan not exactly knowing what the team down the block is doing, but having to predict a series of scenarios, anyway.

That's what this whole off-season game is about: Predicting what the other teams will do and forging a series of plans to reach the goals your team has set forth. It's a complicated series of strategies that unfold quickly and, at times, with a blinding fury and endless questions.

It's one of the best times of the year for every fan, and for Eagles fans, you are on the eve of a period of time that is as exciting as any in a calendar year. How many of you will be sitting at your computers at 12:01 on March 3? I know I'll be here, waiting for word on what might happen next.

Multiple teams are thought to have interest, including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New York Jets.

Owens infuriated the Eagles during his second season with the team when his attempt to renegotiate his seven-year contract was rejected.

He was banished from the team in November by Andy Reid after well-documented run-ins with the veteran head coach, team management — and quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Any team willing to trade for T.O. must also be willing to take on the remainder of his Eagles contract or work out a new deal with him. Owens has five seasons left on his current contract, and is due to receive a $2.5 million roster bonus and a $5 million roster bonus on March 1.

He is due to earn $770,000 in base salary next season.

If Rosenhaus is not able to find another team for Owens, it is thought that the Eagles will release him before the March 1 deadline — when the league begins its new calendar year.

Owens received $8.5 million in bonus money after he joined the Eagles in 2004. His relationship with the team, however, turned sour in the off-season because he felt that his $3.25 million in salary was too low based on his caliber of play.

T.O. fired agent David Joseph in late March and hired Rosenhaus, a move that triggered months of controversy, and eventually helped lead to his suspension without pay for the final five games.

Despite playing in only seven games, Owens still led the Eagles with 763 receiving yards and six touchdown catches.

Eagles tight end Mike Bartrum has been named to the NFC Pro Bowl roster as the squad's long snapper.

"I feel honored to be representing my team at the Pro Bowl," said Bartrum. "It will be a very special experience for me and my family. Honors like this don't come along very often, and I plan to make the most of it."

A veteran of 12 NFL seasons, this will be Bartrum's first Pro Bowl appearance. Widely regarded as one of the best long snappers in the league, Bartrum has also served as a reserve tight end for the Eagles since 2000. In that span, he has appeared in 96 regular season contests and 12 postseason games. As an Eagle he has 9 receptions, four of which were for touchdowns.

In 160 regular season games, with four different NFL teams (Chiefs, Packers, Patriots, Eagles), Bartrum has recorded 11 receptions and six touchdowns. Only one other player in NFL history (Patriots LB Mike Vrabel) has as many TDs with less than 15 career regular season receptions.

He joins linebacker Jeremiah Trotter, the lone Eagle voted to the Pro Bowl, and safety Brian Dawkins, who was named this week as a injury replacement.