Wagner & Beags Fans: Good Art on Dawkins...

motordavid · #1 01-04-2009, 05:30 PM

BigR,
Pretty good art. on Dawkins...I've watched him since he arrived,
and is still a helluva player, imo. I would line up on his bar fight
team, too!

Hope the Iggles keep it going this afternoon, so they can break our
hearts next week or...
BR,mD

January 4, 2009

The Eagles’ Dawkins Is Older, Wiser and Still Delivering Punishing Hits

By JERÉ LONGMAN
PHILADELPHIA — When he speaks with reporters, Eagles free safety Brian Dawkins usually wears a hat. A fedora or a peaked knit cap pulled low, or a kind of stovepipe do-rag that compresses under his helmet like a jack in the box. It gives the impression that he is in a hurry to be elsewhere.

Earlier this season, critics suggested that it might be time for Dawkins to hit the road. The best days of his career appeared to be in the rearview mirror. He had seemingly lost a step in pass coverage in his 13th N.F.L season. Even the way he spoke, in jazzy riffs, calling players “cats,” recalled a bygone era.

He would be a free agent after the season, and Philadelphia seemed reluctant to re-sign a pair of 35-year-old legs.

Instead of lapsing into self-pity, or assailing his critics, Dawkins faced the censure as he does a ball carrier — head-on. He gave an impassioned defense of his ability and played the rest of the season as if in a Brad Pitt movie, appearing old at the birth of the schedule and becoming younger by the week.

By December, the curious case of Brian Dawkins led to a wholesale turnaround in perception. He made the Pro Bowl for the seventh time. He was wise now, not wizened, indispensable instead of expendable. The Eagles pushed him closer to the line of scrimmage, where he was as much a linebacker as a safety, where he could do what he does best — blitz off the edge, hit instead of chase.

Last week, against Dallas, Dawkins caused two fumbles that were returned for touchdowns, ripping the ball free as if trying to strip away any notion that he might be too old, too slow. Improbably, the Eagles (9-6-1) made the playoffs with a 44-6 rout. Just as unlikely, Dawkins was named the National Football Conference defensive player of the month.

“You can say, you know, maybe they’re right, or you can look at it as a challenge,” Dawkins said of the criticism he faced. “I know what I can still do. You look at it as an opportunity. You put more things on the pile to burn and utilize.”

On Sunday in the wild-card round at Minnesota, Dawkins’s hammering talent will be vital if the Eagles are to contain Adrian Peterson, who led the N.F.L. with 1,760 rushing yards. Peterson seems more patient in this, his second professional season, Dawkins said, not so quick to bounce to the outside, as threatening in the fourth quarter as in the first. But Peterson has also been susceptible to fumbling. As always, Dawkins will be trying to dislodge the ball as if it were a child’s loose tooth.

“Not only does he lay the wood to you running north and south, he’s also a ball searcher,” Peterson told reporters. “He’s trying to create turnovers.”
Having played the most games (183) in the franchise’s history, Dawkins, not quarterback Donovan McNabb, is the Eagles’ true leader.

Perhaps, more accurate, he is the team’s conscience. Mild-tempered away from the field, Dawkins counsels teammates about football, family life, even their finances. Each week, he gives tickets to high school athletes based on their skill and their grades, then visits with them after games.

“His demeanor, the way he carries himself, he’s a word that describes professional,” Quintin Demps, a rookie safety for the Eagles, said of Dawkins.

On the field, Dawkins is all coiled muscle and intent, a hitter with a comic-book ferocity that is illustrated by the action-hero figurines residing on the top shelf of his locker. It is this ardor that makes him so popular in Philadelphia, where elegance has seldom been as prized as sweat and effort. Winning has been elusive here. The Eagles have not won an N.F.L. title since 1960. What has become paramount in that void is to exhaust oneself in the trying.

“I’ve been around long enough to understand how bad they want another championship here, especially football,” Dawkins said, “and how passionate they are about it and the attitude they have as far as not being ashamed to speak their mind, not being ashamed to have a good time and, really, having a ‘you give everything you’ve got’ mentality. Whatever it is, you give what you’ve got.”

Early in the season, what Dawkins had to give did not seem to be enough. At a game in Dallas, he was left in the vapor trail of tight end Jason Witten on a couple of passes and was caught out of position as Terrell Owens caught a touchdown pass. The Eagles lost, 41-37, and reporters and fans began speaking of Dawkins as if he were an aging actor, perhaps too old to play the part.

Weeks shy of his 35th birthday, he responded with a poignant soliloquy at a news conference, saying: “I know the facts. The fact is, I can play this game.”

Dawkins continued: “I am 34 years old and proud of it. Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to get to 34 playing in the N.F.L. I am going to continue to play at a high level as long as I can. I am going to protect my body, make sure that I’m out there for my guys and I am going to play ball.

“I’m going to play ball at 34. I’m going to play ball at 35 and whatever else comes after that, I’m going to play ball. So if I give up a deep ball, and if you want to say I’m slow, go ahead. Guess what? The next time, I’m going to try to make the same play again.”

Four days later, Dawkins sacked Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in the fourth quarter, causing a fumble and recovering it to end the Steelers’ chances. The Eagles won, 15-6, and Dawkins was named the N.F.C. defensive player of the week.

Throughout the season, Jim Johnson, the Eagles’ defensive coordinator, noticed that Dawkins became more vocal as a leader. After the Giants trampled the Eagles for 219 rushing yards in a 36-31 win Nov. 9, he told his teammates, “We can’t have that.”

Only two teams rushed for as many as 100 yards against the Eagles the rest of the season as they defeated the Giants in the rematch and won four of their last five games.

“He started slow; he’ll probably admit that, too,” Johnson said of Dawkins. “But the last three-quarters of the season, he’s been very steady. He’s playing like his old self. It doesn’t look like he’s slowed down a bit. For a free safety, he’s got great cover ability. He can line up over a slot receiver, or a wide receiver, and still cover them. That’s hard to find. It allows you the freedom to blitz.”

There have been inevitable concessions to age, if no surrender. Still, the end is closer than the beginning for Dawkins. It was evident in the thankful way he greeted fans before last week’s Dallas game, in the urgent way he chiseled the ball from the Cowboys’ hands, in the calming way that he controlled his emotions before this week’s playoff game.
Once the whistle blows, the familiar intensity will sustain him until his body is empty.

“I give what I’ve got,” Dawkins said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/sp...ef=todayspaper

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Wagner · #2 01-04-2009, 05:37 PM

"I give what I've got"

My Idol.

motordavid · #3 01-04-2009, 09:22 PM

BEAGS!

For awhile there, I thought I was watching the usually inept Beags
playing against the luckiest or one of the best teams on the planet...

fortunately, the Eagles woke up and the PurplePeopleEaters played
as they should.

Dawkins, Westbrook and some pink receivers, no one outside of
their agents, have ever heard of...

Does Fox Football have the worst announcers on the planet? Do
Aikman and Buck have combined IQs over 200? I was almost wishing
for Pablum Nance on CBS...

Next week, Beags vs TheMidgets. I may have to root for both/either.
Should be a helluva game.
Back to Desperate Housewives...