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In an unfortunate turn of events for the Philadelphia Eagles and their fans, ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas reports that the Panthers will resign Jordan Gross and then place the franchise tag on Julius Peppers, and this should all happen in the next 24 hours. It seems like these moves will drastically effect what the Birds do this off-season.


Well done by Carolina, they seem to have kept Gross and will still get something back for Peppers. It looks like several players will be purged to make this work including CB/Punching Bag Ken Lucas. Carolina has pretty much rendered my last free agency piece obsolete, so here goes another shot, but this time we're using bullets.

* Sign TJ Houshmandzadeh.
* Replace Runyan and Thomas both with Vernon Carey and Stacy Andrews, both free agents. Each player is 27-years old, and a four-year pro. Both men represent an upgrade, and Andrews provides a double bonus of: 1. Despite being an accomplished player already, Andrews still has a lot of room to improve as a player, due to a late start as a player and mutiple position changes early in his pro career, but the skills are there in spades. 2. Stacy is Shawn Andrews older brother, the best way to improve the Eagles O-line over last season is to get the best guard in football back on the field, hopefully Stacy can provide a support system for Shawn and help him return to form in 2009.
* Trade up if need be and draft both Brandon Pettigrew and Beanie Wells. Wells may be there at 21, but if not I can live with McCoy. Pettigrew is a must, the more I read about him the more it seems like this guy is the real deal. So give up the 28th and your second-round pick if need be and get both these guys in here.
* The extra money used to acquire Carey and Andrews will probably rule out getting Jason Brown from Baltimore. Resigning Nick Cole, a RFA, is now more of a priority as he and Jackson will compete for the starting center job in 2009.
* The D is still pretty good, so making very little changes probably won't cost you too much. This is still a top-5 defense without adding a single player, despite losing Lito. Sheppard also may be used as a piece in a deal to move up in the first round. Hansen still needs resigned, Considine still needs to be taken out to a large field and set free.

Greg