"He blocks, never complains, never asks for the ball, but when the ball comes his way, he makes the most of his opportunities and refuses to go down without a fight. That's Eagles tight end Brent Celek in a nutshell.

On Wednesday, Celek had surgery to repair a sports hernia and also had another surgery to fix a torn labrum in his left hip. What's even more remarkable about this is on Thursday, Celek told me he played with both injuries for the entire 16-game season. Are you kidding me? Can you imagine the pain he must have gone through all year long, never letting on to the media about the discomfort he was in at all times.

Through the first five games of this season, Celek only had seven catches for 73 yards. Over the last 11 games his contribution to the passing game entailed 53 catches for 738 yards and five touchdowns.

Celek told us during the season that he always admired former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis for the way he refused to go down on the first contact and was always battling for that extra yard. How many times did we watch Celek bounce off tacklers, or drag tacklers for extra yards, and to now find out he did all this with two injuries for an entire season! "