Despite the fact that the all the signs are pointing toward LeSean McCoy backing up Brian Westbrook this season, Lorenzo Booker says he expects to be the guy backing up BWest.
I know you're asking yourself. Is this the same Lorenzo Booker who couldn't catch the ball, or run with the ball, or pick up the blitz or anything else required to be a productive NFL running back, last season?
My answer is yes, he looks like the same dude. He's not any bigger or stronger, so I don't know how he's going to stop a blitzing linebacker from killing McNabb other than by getting on the ground and begging the guy to stop.
I don't think a guy, who looks like he weighs a 190 pounds in his football gear, is going to be breaking any tackles.
Still if you heard what Booker was saying after practice yesterday you would think he had amnesia and forgot what happened last year.
"For me to start sweating, you've got to take my job," Booker said. "Come take my job. If you can take it, then take it. We'll see. That's what the whole point of camp and all that is."
He must be prepared to put on quite a show starting late July because you and I know the Eagles don't draft players in the top rounds, give them money and not expect them to play.
The fact that the Birds wouldn't turn to Booker even while Westbrook was ailing with all of his injuries a year ago, says to me that they don't have any faith in him. Booker who must be living in an alternate universe saw it differently.
"I think last year, for me, was more of a redshirt year," said the former Florida State Seminole. "I don't think coming in Coach Reid's intentions were to just throw me out there. He didn't have to. Again, you have Brian and you have Correll" Buckhalter in 2008.
Booker says he's not worried about McCoy taking his job because the former Pittsburgh Panther was drafted in the second round and not the first.
"Had they drafted a running back in the first round that's a whole 'nother commitment," Booker said. "That means the back doesn't really have to work for his job. He's given the job. That's anybody in the first round. When you make that kind of investment in a person, you're going to see what you can get out of them."
We'll have to wait and see what happens at training camp but I think that is when Booker is going to be forced to wake up and smell the coffee. He'll also probably lose that number 25 jersey because that's the number McCoy wore in college.
