Season of Bad Karma

Tonight against the Skins, the Eagles will roll out their fifth starting middle linebacker of the season. Stew Bradley, Joe Mays, Omar Gaither, Jeremiah Trotter and now Will Witherspoon. My God, this is a bad sign.

Before training camp started, there were plenty of reasons to be bullish on the Eagles. Lots of young weapons for the offense. A rebuilt offensive line, featuring Jason Peters and a healthy Shawn Andrews, potentially the best tackle tandem in the league.

Ha!

But starting with Westbrook needing surgery in July, then Bradley getting hurt, then Mays being - who knew? - too small, then the Vick signing and subsequent convulsions, then McNabb getting hurt, the ongoing Kevin Curtis injuries, Gaither coming back then getting hurt again, Andrews going completely flakey and not recovering from back surgery, Stacey Andrews' achy joints, and a million other little pieces... the Eagles have had way too much bad news (not to be confused with Bad Newz). The scary thing is I left out a lot the bad news in that last run-on sentence.

This is a lot of bad news to overcome when you're trying to win the Super Bowl.

Thankfully, I think, the hideously dysfunctional Redskins are up tonight.

The Redskins are in well-publicized turmoil. Jim Zorn is still the coach only because Dan Snyder couldn't convince anybody else to come in and coach the team now. The offensive play caller was, literally, calling Bingo games in Michigan two weeks ago. Their leleft tackle is done for the year. It appears that Jason Cammpbell's biggest problem is lack of talent, not just the revolving door at offensive coordinator.

But the Eagles have struggled against the Skins in recent years, losing twice last year in games that were not only ugly, but boring. And Donovan McNabb seems to have started his annual funk; how long will it last? We never know. But when he's' in one, the Eagles typically look like one off the worst teams in the league - remember last year's' Ravens-Bengals exacta.

So, the Eagles should annihilate the Skins. But they won't. I think they'll win, but the type of victory you turn up your nose at - not something to be proud of.

So the Birds will win ugly tonight, and then we'll spend the next six days talking about how terrible they are and how there's no way the Giants can lose three in a row.