"THE FIRST regular-season Eagles game I covered, the late Steve McNair led the host Tennessee Titans to a 27-24 comeback win, Sept. 8, 2002, but that isn't the picture I see when I recall that game.

What I see is Titans running back

Eddie George catching a pass against Eagles middle linebacker Levon Kirkland, and cutting back. Watching Kirkland try to adjust was entertaining. His listed weight was 275, just as it had been years earlier when he was going to Pro Bowls with the Steelers, but Eagles teammates later speculated that "Big Daddy" went about 320 during his year with the Birds, which turned out to be his last in the NFL at age 33. Think ocean liner trying to reverse direction, or tractor-trailer flying down a mountain with its brakes on fire, desperately searching for one of those emergency ramps. Smaller players in the vicinity, from both teams, risked becoming collateral damage. I'm pretty sure Blaine Bishop's life passed before his eyes.

I thought about Kirkland when the Eagles traded for St. Louis linebacker Will Witherspoon Tuesday. Not because of any physical resemblance - Witherspoon is a svelte 6-1, 240 - but because while we've seen the Eagles have to spackle and patch at middle linebacker before, they've never seemed so desperate about it.

In 2002, just as in 2009, the Eagles went into their season trying to solve a problem in the middle. Jeremiah Trotter had left for Washington that spring in a bitter salary dispute. As has been the case a few times over the years (Brian Dawkins, anyone?), management was right that Trotter was not quite worth what Ray Lewis was making in Baltimore, and utterly wrong in its initial assumption that 1999 second-round draft pick Barry Gardner was going to be an adequate replacement (Quintin Demps, anyone?).

By the end of minicamps, the Eagles knew they had a problem, and when Andy Reid mentor Mike Holmgren released Kirkland in Seattle to free some salary-cap room, Kirkland became an Eagle. The plan was for him to split time with Gardner, Kirkland playing in running situations, Gardner when a pass seemed likely. It had the same shortcoming as the recent Trotter-Omar Gaither rotation, as McNair and George illustrated - they didn't have to run on Kirkland and throw on Gardner, they could do the opposite. And there was another problem, which was that for a pass-defending linebacker, Gardner was really pretty slow. Gaither is way quicker than Barry was. That turned out to be the more lethal concern, in the long run - Google "Barry Gardner," "NFC Championship Game," and "Joe Jurevicius" for a more complete explanation."