"THERE WERE NO protesters outside the Eagles' practice facility on the second day that Michael Vick practiced. A beefed-up

security presence appeared to be a little less beefy. But it is early yet. The Eagles know this well.

After the initial storm, there has been some time now for reflection. There would appear to be three ways that the Vick experiment could fail:

One, if Vick disgraces himself off the field, or does not successfully engage in the process of building a relationship with the animal-rights community so that he might use his notoriety for good - a notoriety forever etched in the public consciousness by his guilty plea to charges of killing dogs and bankrolling a dogfighting operation.

Two, if Vick is an ineffective player on the field. This is about football, after all, and everyone knows it. All of the rhetorical pretzels that were twisted last week were because the guy is presumed to have a special ability. And, well, he had better.

Three, if the opponents of this move put so much public pressure on the Eagles' corporate sponsors that the financial implications are such that the team decides it cannot afford to continue.

The first two ifs will remain that way for a while. The first test will be financial - specifically, how much pressure might be put on the Eagles' sponsors. The club Web site lists 44 "corporate partners," including the Inquirer and Daily News. That list was briefly removed from the site, it was reported on Saturday, but it has returned. Club president Joe Banner said yesterday that he has no idea if or why the list came down, however briefly.

"I would say that about a half-dozen sponsors called on Friday," Banner said. "One thing they wanted to do was find out what our thinking was. Another thing they said was that they wished we could have given them a heads-up so that they could have prepared their corporate communications people.

"We will continue to talk to our corporate sponsors. We will reach back out to them. A couple have issued statements so far. As far as I know, nobody was angry and nobody threatened to cancel. But some did want to understand our thinking, and we spent some time with them."

Banner said that, overall, the team is encouraged by the response it has received from fans. But he would only be guessing about what might be coming."