Eagles Wake-Up Call: Banner To Replace Holmgren?


Change is coming in Cleveland, and from the looks of things, it’s going to have an Eagles twist.

According to Mary Kay Cabot of The Plain Dealer, Joe Banner will join the Browns’ new ownership group, led by Jimmy Haslam. And that could spell the end of current team president Mike Holmgren’s time there.

Holmgren said he knows Banner through Jeffrey Lurie and Andy Reid, but wouldn’t address the possibility of working alongside the former Eagles president.

“You know what, I’m not going to go there right now,” Holmgren said.

Meanwhile, Clark Judge of CBSSports.com reports that replacing Holmgren won’t be the only change. From his Twitter account:

2 league sources confirmed Banner in Cle as team prez. Said Holmgren, Heckert probably gone. Said 1: “They’re going to blow whole place up.”

Heckert, of course, is former Eagles general manager Tom Heckert.

Once the dust settles, it’ll be interesting to see if Banner grabs anyone away from the Eagles’ organization to join him in Cleveland.

Haslam is scheduled to be introduced at a press conference at 1 p.m. on Friday.

WHAT YOU MISSED

The Eagles made a trade Thursday evening, sending linebackers Moise Fokou and Greg Lloyd to the Colts for cornerback Kevin Thomas and a conditional seventh-round pick. T-Mac’s got all the details.

In my practice observations, I took a look at the Birds’ lack of offensive line depth and tried to answer the question: Who’s at center if Jason Kelce goes down?

Players were dropping like flies yesterday. Here are all the latest injury updates.

Special-teams coach Bobby April appears to be smitten with undrafted rookie free agent Damaris Johnson, who has a real shot to make the team as a punt returner.

And finally, the Eagles made their first linebacker shuffle of camp, replacing Brian Rolle with Jamar Chaney in their nickel package.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

Friend of the blog, Dan Graziano of ESPN.com, stopped by Lehigh and has some practice observations up. Good note on DeSean Jackson, and something I’ve noticed too out here:

I thought DeSean Jackson was very active in Thursday’s practice, and after speaking with him in the morning I took notice of the variety of routes he was running, including the underneath ones. “Defenses game plan on me,” Jackson told me in the morning. “So all the downfield routes, all the deep routes that we always had success with, last year teams tried to prevent that and started backing up deeper. So I think whatever it is as far as underneath routes, getting the ball in our hands earlier and faster just so we can catch and make runs, I think that’s going to be huge for us this year as well. Just not always trying to go deep for the home run.”

Jackson went on NFL Network and advised Mike Wallace and Maurice Jones-Drew: Do as I say, not as I do.

“I would say just go keep working hard and go out there and prove what kind of player you are,” he said. “With them guys, Mike Wallace and Maurice Jones-Drew, actually good friends of mine and hopefully something will happen soon enough and they can get back to playing football. But you know it’s a tricky, it’s a tricky situation. You can’t force anybody, any organization to pay you, so that’s the biggest thing about that.”

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COMING UP

Same drill today at Lehigh. Walk-through at 8:15 a.m. and practice at 2:45. We’re expecting an injury update from Reid in the morning, so stay tuned for that and much more throughout the day.

Follow Sheil Kapadia on Twitter and e-mail him at skapadia@phillymag.com.