My take on the 53

Final cuts are today, so I'm almost out of time to guess at who the 53 players to make the Eagles active roster should be.

• QB (3) - McNabb, Kolb, Vick. The Eagles could put Vick on the reserve-suspended list and keep Feeley instead, but then Vick couldn't practice with the team. And he needs a lot of practice.
  
• HB (3) - Westbrook, McCoy, Buckley. Finally, the Eagles have a straight-ahead runner who can convert third-and-short. I hope.
  
• FB (1) - Weaver.
  
• WR (6) - Jackson, Curtis, Maclin, Avant, Baskett, Gibson. I'm sneaking Amendola onto the practice squad if I can, because Curtis isn't on the team next season.
  
• TE (3) - Celek, Curtis, Myers. Matt Schobel is a year overdue for a visit with the Turk. Myers is keeping a spot warm for (hopefully) Ben Watson after trading Feeley to the Pats.
  
• OL (9) - Peters, Herremans, Jackson, Andrews x2, Justice, Jean-Gilles, Cole, McGlynn. Andy Reid usually keeps 10 linemen, so I'll probably be wrong here, but I can't find a tenth guy who's earned his way onto the team. With two rookies and King Dunlap eligible for the practice squad, this seems like a good position to go a man short.
  
• DE (6) - Cole, Babin, Howard, Parker, Abiamiri, Clemons. I'm tired of Clemons and his non-production, but I guess he serves a role on special teams. I'm trying to trade him if I can't get a TE for Feeley. Goodbye Bryan Smith, we hardly knew ye.
  
• DT (4) - Bunkley, Patterson, Laws, Klecko. I dropped an OL to keep Klecko, but he's definitely earned a spot. I'm very comfortable cutting King Dunlap to keep him.
  
• LB (6) - Gocong, Gaither, Jordan, Mays, Wilhelm, White. After the first four spots, there isn't anyone that's earned a place on the roster. But someone has to play, right? I'd keep Wilhelm just because he has experience, which is in short supply on this LB corps. White is purely a special-teamer, and his spot could be taken by Tank Daniels...it's a toss-up between those two.
  
• CB (5) - Samuel, Brown, Hobbs, Hanson, Ikegwouno. No one's played well enough to earn that fifth CB spot, so I'm defaulting it to the highest draft pick. Jack's got the most talent, and since he's basically a rookie after being injured all last year, his mistakes are most forgivable.
  
• S (4) - Mikell, Demps, Harris, Jones.
  
• Special (3) - Akers, Rocca, Dorenbos.
  

Practice squad candidates - Amendola, Fanaika, Tupuo, Fukou, Dunlap, Gaines.

There weren't many players I'm sorry to see go. The hardest player to cut was Kyle Eckel, and he hardly registers a blip on the talent radar. But he's a hard-worker with versatility and was very helpful to the team last season. He's easily done more to earn a spot than the sixth LB, but I need that last guy for special teams.

There's a very disturbing trend this year for the Eagles - almost always as I go through this process, there are promising players at each position that I'm struggling to choose from. Instead I found several spots where no one had stepped up and I was forced to pick from a collection of equally bad underperformers. It may not seem like a big deal if the fifth CB or the fifth LB isn't very good, but competition at the bottom of the roster makes the whole team better. I don't want to overreact to the preseason, but this is shaping up to be a long year for the Birds.