It started way back in August with a meaningless Brian Westbrook one-yard touchdown in the Eagles versus the Raiders Hall of Fame game and ended with a meaningless 21 yard Nate Kaeding field goal in the Pro Bowl...and finally the 2006 season has officially come to a close. The Colts Super Bowl victory was like months ago and we gave them their full four seconds of kudos and accolades...but now it’s time to get back to business: The 2007 season is open for business!

Screw the pitchers and catchers, as far as I’m concerned Football is 12 months a year. We go from Free Agency to the Draft to OTC’s to Training Camp to Preseason, Regular Season, Playoffs, Super Bowl, Pro Bowl and then back again. No need for basketball, or baseball or that other sport that I can’t remember what they call anymore…just football, football, football! Between the NFL Network and the NFL on Sirius, there’s truly no need to watch or listen anything else anymore. Sometimes someone will ask me “do you watch 24, or Lost?” I have no idea what those shows are. I watch things like the documentary on the “Get Back Guy”. Know who the Get Back Guy is? He’s the guy that each team employs to make sure that all of the coaches and players stay back off of the field and don’t incur a penalty during the game. For three hours every Sunday he runs up and down the length of the field yelling guess what?…“Get Back!” The Get Back Guy…an invaluable asset to every team and one damn fascinating documentary subject. 24?…sheeeez, give me a break.

Alright enough mumbo jumbo, if the Eagles are going to win the big one in 2007 they’re going to need to get some things done. But the good news to me is that there’s not a ton that they need to do. Let’s go through the needs…..

BIG NEEDS

Andy needs to take care of his current family business. We might be interesting under Morninwheg or Jim Johnson for a while, but we’re not winning the Super Bowl with them. We need Big Red.

Linebacker(s): I think most Eagles fans feel that Lance Briggs is out of the question, and I may be one of them, but let’s fantasize for a second about this 26 year old 6’ 1” 240lb. Black man…hmmm, that didn't come out right. If you had to rank the Eagles needs from a position standpoint, you’d have LB’s and Safeties at the top of the list, which is obvious. We still need to do something about the defensive line and then there’s that between-the-tackles RB thing, and some special team help…but really the LB/Safety issue is head and shoulders over everything else. So we don’t have a lot of needs, which I think makes it reasonable that they pursue their top needs aggressively. Briggs is coming off only his fourth year in the league and entering the prime of his career – exactly the type of player that the Eagles covet. One thing I know for sure is the Eagles don’t like to get into bidding wars. If they make Briggs an offer, it’ll be right out of the gate and they’ll give him a small window of opportunity to take it, and then they’ll go in another direction. Odds we make an offer: 25%. Odds he takes it: 50%. According to my statistics friends…that makes it a 12.5% chance we get him.

Safety(s): Lewis is out and Considine is not the replacement. Dawkins played like a madman last year, but he’s like 52 years old. Remember the year the Eagles drafted Lewis along with Sheppard and Brown? We had Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent back there and everyone though they were nuts. Well, they’re on the verge of waiting too long to do it again.

NOT QUITE AS BIG NEEDS

I’m always willing to give the Eagles, that is Andy, Banner and the rest of them, the benefit of the doubt. So I’ve rode along with the Buckhalter thing for a while, but seriously, how can they not get a big fat banger to get that tough yard? I heard a rumor that Washington actually signed TJ Duckett to keep him off our team. So let’s see how did that work out? He had 38 carries for 132 yards. Damn! That's a pretty good game (if you’re not Larry Johnson), but wait a minute...that was for the entire freakin’ season! The season that is now referred to as "5 Wins and 11 Losses" and a another in a long string of Danny Snyder NFL failures. I love than man! He’s young, rich and awesome for the Eagles annual playoff hopes. As for Duckett, the upshot is that he cost the Redskins a draft pick and he’ll back on the market next month. He’s heading into his 6^th season and is younger than Lance Briggs. How can they not at least take a look?

Besides Danny Snyer, I love Donte Stallworth. I love his runs-like-a-duck speed. I love his enthusiasm for playing with the Eagles. I even love those dreadlocks…hell, we need more badass dreadlocked guys on our team, know what I’m sayin’? I even love his hamstring problem (even though it’s chronic and he’s had it since day one in the pros) since it’ll help to keep his market value down. He sure is nice number one WR for us – especially since the egomaniac left town. He’s actually only a few month older than Reggie Brown and another one of those entering-the-prime-of-his-career players. With Brown as the 2 (or maybe 1A says me!) and the gaggle of Hank Baskett, Greg Lewis, Jason Avant and maybe Jeremy Bloom behind him, all of a sudden the Eagles are good at WR for the foreseeable future…maybe the rest of Donovan’s run. I think the Eagles make a “fair” offer and give him that same small window of opportunity that I talked about before. They don’t want to “played”. I’d love to see them make the offer before FA, but it’s the difference between giving New Orleans a third and fourth round draft pick. Odds Stallworth is here in September: 50%.

Special Teams: I was having a conversation with Reno Mahe the other night as he was seating me at Chickie and Pete’s and I was telling him how I loved his spirit and the tenacious way that he hold onto the ball, but as we slowly made our way the table I told him that we really needed a scoring threat. Something like having Jeremy Bloom play in 2007 and be something special would be exactly what the doctor ordered for the Birds. Reno agreed with me as he bumped into the first patron we passed and fell to the floor, menu tucked firmly under his arm. I sat myself from there.

Kicking: David Akers went from the-next-guy-in-a-long-line-of-crappy-kickers to a Pro Bowler and made everyone in Philly love him. But he’s 32, almost as old as me (not really) and starting to show some signs of wear. The problem is that you can’t just dump a guy like that, you need to ride him out until it become too painful to watch. It hopefully won’t happen this year, or even next, but what’s become apparent is that we need to get one of those “Kickoff Specialist” guys to give us a chance of backing the other team up. Akers would probably admit this himself, he kind of looks like an honest guy to me.

NEEDS THAT AREN'T REALLY NEEDS, BUT MIGHT BE THINGS THE BIRDS DO

Tight End: I really thought this was going to be LJ’s year. I think TO (curse his name) got in the way of LJ’s development and then he lost McNabb as TO was serving his 9 game time out. Yes, he still didn’t get a full season with McNabb this year, and he did show flashes, but I’m not sure he’s going to turn that corner. I’m gonna give him one more year (like what I’m giving matters), but I have this hunch that the Eagles take a Tight End in the first half of their draft. Just a hunch though.

WHAT WE DON'T NEED

To resign Garcia

Offensive line help

To see Dhani Jones’ guitar move anymore

And lastly, to hear any more of those nasty Donovan trade rumors, like paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, trust me, he would be dearly missed.