Both Lito Sheppard and the Eagles denied yesterday’s report that Sheppard had asked the team for permission to seek a trade.  In fact, Sheppard thought Comcast SportsNet’s Derrick Gunn was joking when he called him to verify it.  Sheppard has been plagued by injury problems, but when he’s healthy he is a shut down corner.  He did an outstanding job on Randy Moss with the help of J.R. Reed against the Patriots, and shut down T.O. (and won NFC Defensive Player of the Week) when the Eagles beat the Cowboys in Dallas.  The ‘Birds are already in need for secondary help, and it wouldn’t make much sense to move a player of Sheppard’s ability unless they got another playmaker in the deal.

Sal Paolantonio gives his views on the areas the Eagles need to improve the most.  More or less the same areas we discussed on last week’s show.

Saint Joe’s was in another Big 5 dogfight last night, this time with La Salle, and this time, they couldn’t pull off any last second heroics.   The Hawk’s were listed as one of the last four teams into the NCAA Tournament in the latest Bracketology before last night’s loss.  I’ve gotta believe losing to the lowly Explorers is the nail in the coffin.  They’ve come up short in every chance they’ve had for a Key Win (@Syracuse, Gonzaga, @Creighton, @Xavier) and last night they came up short trying to avoid a Big Loss.  All bets are off when it comes to Big 5 games, especially at the Palestra, but something tells me the selection committee won’t see it that way.

The Sixers get back to business today, following All-Star weekend, in a three-way tie for the eighth and final playoff spot.  Play-by-play man Marc Zumoff makes a point,  counter-point argument for both the playoffs and the lottery.

If you haven’t seen it yet, then its safe to say you haven’t watched sports television for the past 72 hours(CSN and SportsCenter both carried it), but here’s the prank Leslie Gudel of CSN and Brett Myers helped orchestrate on second year pitcher Kyle Kendick.  It raised the bar for pranks everywhere.

As far as the possibility of signing Kris Benson (which happened after the latest show), I probably came off as pretty pessimistic about it.  The signing itself I have no problem with.  They signed him to a minor league deal and they’re on the hook for $100,000 if Benson doesn’t look like he’s gonna pan out.  Classic case of low risk, high reward.  My bigger problem, as it has been all winter, is that they don’t have a natural middle of the rotation and instead have a #4 in Kendrick and four #5’s between Moyer, Eaton, Blackley, and Chad Durbin.  John Infanti of Philscast has begun his NL East preview starting with the rotations.  Without giving too much away, he makes a case for the Phillies rotation as stronger than the Mets, but says that neither one is the best in the division.