Said Brown of Kuharich: "I thought he was a great coach. I thought some of my Eagle brothers at the time didn't perform as well as they could have. I thought we let him down. You can't make chicken salad out of -- you know how the rest of that goes."

Brown said he asked to be traded in '68 after Kuharich was fired. "I thought it was unfair (that he was fired), and it bothered me," Brown said.

--N.D. Kalu insists there will be no dropoff at the right end position, even though he will miss the entire season with a torn ACL. Kalu had been the club's starting right end. He'll be replaced by Derrick Burgess and Jerome McDougle. "There will be no dropoff there," he said. "I thought (Derrick Burgess) was the best all-around end we had when he was healthy (he's missed most of the last two seasons with foot injuries), so there will be no dropoff. The only thing that's going to suffer is our depth. McDougle is going to step up. Jamal Green (a fourth-round '03 pick) is going to do the same. He was the steal of the ('03) draft."

QUOTE TO NOTE
"I think some of the guys are going to have to play a lot more. I think Jerome (McDougle) and (Derrick) Burgess are going to be playing a lot more and we're still going to have to rest them once in a while, but they're going to play a lot." -- Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson on the after-effects of N.D. Kalu's season-ending knee injury