Samuel Clemons

It's just a vowel off from Mark Twain's pen name, you see, so there's got to be a whole big blog post riffing off Huck Finn and I could live a month on a compliment and Congress is the opposite of Progress and... (crickets chirping, Krusty the Clown groan)

But, um, wow. (The Eagles just signed Raiders LB/DE/Guy Who Make The QB Fall Down Chris Clemons, a day after inking All-Pro Patriots CB Asante Sameul.) Folks, if I had known that the power of Morris Day and the Time were all that was needed to get the Eagles off their historic free agent ass and in the game, I'd have been filling this blog with The Bird and Oak Tree for months. Who knew Cap'n Andy just needed some Jungle Love?



The only knock that the world might have on Samuel is that When It Counted in the Super Bowl, he didn't come up with the pick on the last drive that would have sealed it, and that his guy (Plax Burress, naturally) made the touchdown catch that lost the game for the third-best 18-1 team ever. (In that there were, um, three 18-1 teams.) He's also 5'-10" and 185 in the official bio, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a division where two out of three opponents have physically imposing #1 wideouts (Giants and Cowboys with Owens, of course), and if you really want to see life through piss-colored glasses, the contract is a mite large (6 years, $57 million).

But he, um, makes interceptions -- 16 in the past two years, which I'm fairly sure is more than the rest of the Eagles' entire team for the past decade. (Sure, prove me wrong.) The contract is the going rate for a top corner. He's got two Super Bowl rings. For the first 58 minutes of that Super Bowl, Plax Burress was getting the Freddie Mitchell Award for his utter lack of an impact in that game. He's 27 years old, which means the Eagles should be getting the best 2-3 years of his career starting right about now. And he gives them two great options -- keep Lito Sheppard and have a potentially dominant nickel back in an era of the NFL in an era of the NFL when that's absolutely critical, or trade him for a need (Arizona for your old pal Fitzy, please).

As for Clemons, he looks like just the right kind of FA signing -- didn't break the bank (he's getting Juqua Thomas money), young and possibly emerging, from a team (the Raiders) that usually makes howlingly bad decisions in who to keep in the off-season. (Randy Moss is on line two. Laughing.) He's also probably the best (relatively) cheap source of sacks available this off-season, and he'll help to keep Trent Cole fresh. He's no Seth Joyner, but he's no Dhani Jones, either. He's here to make QBs Fall Down, not write poetry and get beaten like a Bengal in coverage.

Now, of course, there's no possible way that the team goes out and gets a big-time WR as well, because this is, after all, the Eagles we're talking about here. All Eagles fans need to sit back and be content with these two players, because that's all we're getting, no way, no how. You can just put all of those dreams of Plus Wideout right out of your head right now. Period. End of statement. Andy would never, ever, make me pull a third Time video, on account of how he's a big wuss ever since the Owens Tragedy, and doesn't have the stones to put up with a top talent at the position.

(Too blatant? Nah.)