The Eagles failed to add a center either through the draft

Now it is up to second-year man and 2009 second-round pick LeSean McCoy Jeremy Maclin to step up and be the running back the team needs to both balance the offense and take some undue pressure off Kolb this season.

The former Pitt star looked good early in the season. He averaged 5.1 yards per carry in the opener against Carolina. He rushed for 84 yards and a touchdown in a start in place of an injured Westbrook against Kansas City. He ran for a 66-yard touchdown against the Giants. And he had back-to-back games of 99 and 76 yards against Chicago and Washington respectively.

And that was it.

After gaining 528 yards on 123 carries, an average of 4.3 yards per carry through the first 11 games, McCoy finished the season with just 109 yards on 32 carries, an average of 3.4 yards per carry over the last five games.

In the playoff loss to Dallas, he was a non-factor with five carries for 24 yards.

The Eagles are going to need the early-season McCoy to reappear and it will Asante Samuel start with how he does in camp.

Center of Attention: Jamaal Jackson, not that he was being confused with Jim Otto, will not start the season after tearing his ACL late last season. The Eagles failed to add a center either through the draft, or free agency, so the job falls on Nick Cole, who did OK at right guard, but not so OK in place of Jackson in the losses to Dallas at the end of last season.

Cole, at 6-0, 350, ranks as the shortest starting center in the league and is four inches, although 25 pounds heavier than Jackson.

Andy Reid says he's fine with the undrafted Cole (an aside here, but the Eagles football jerseys haven't had a starting center they drafted since David Alexander, who was drafted by Buddy Ryan in 1987) starting in the middle of an offensive line that also has questions at right guard with the health and ability of Stacy Andrews and at left guard, depending on Todd Herremans' bad foot.

Again, Kolb, as any quarterback, is going to need to be protected to succeed and the interior of the line did not play well last season.

And it does not appear to be any better heading into camp.

Growing up in Hawthorne taught Cornelius Ingram most of what he needed to know about life. It was on the dirt roads and rolling hills of the rural town that he first picked up a football, cut lawns and spent summers with a tight-knit group of neighbors and teammates.

But on his return trip to the town, before training camp for his second year with the new Philadelphia Eagles jerseys, Ingram really got a grasp of all that he had to be thankful for.

Ingram jogged around playfully and interacted with nearly 100 area youths and several dozen more well-wishers at his annual football camp held at Hawthorne High School's football field Saturday morning. There was no limp, nor sign of an athlete that had torn the same left ACL two years in a row; just that infectious smile that UF fans remember so fondly.

"Really, tearing (the ACL) again was a blessing," he said.

Normally, a repeat injury to an athlete's knee could mean a premature end to a blossoming career. It started when Ingram tore the ligament just before the start of his senior season at UF.

"The graft just failed," he said, still wearing a bit of disbelief on his face. "When the graft fails, everything shuts down. It wasn't the surgery or anything like that. It was just the graft failing. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it don't."

Predraft physicals showed the potential for a second tear, causing the once-projected second-round tight end to tumble to the fifth round. Two days into his first training camp, the ligament failed again. But it was this tear that turned out to be a blessing more than a burden.