EAGLES NEWS

It is a sad day today for the Eagles fans, players, and coaches for, we have lost one of our own. He was the Eagles defensive coordinator from 1999-2008 and one of the game's all-time masterminds, but sadly he was not invincible. In 2001 he was first diagnosed with skin cancer but he beat it then and stood firmly on the sidelines as a calming influence over a defense that routinely skirted routine and convention in favor of invention and imagination to stay at the top of the NFC defensive ratings season after season. That is until late last season when there was suddenly an empty space on the sidelines that hadn't been there before. Where was he? relegated to talking through a microphone in a small booth not visible to the naked eye of most, where he suffered in a silence from back pain that wouldn't go away. A trip to the doctor after the season finally revealed the worst news of all. The painful back was in reality the cancer announcing its return. He fought bravely from then on, even pushed himself through one more rookie mini camp despite not being able stand, but this time the fight ended in defeat, for the cancer had spread to his spine where no treatment could alleviate it. And so earlier today we lost him but perhaps the one consolation through all the grief is that we ever had him at all. We had him through five trips to the NFC championship game, mostly painful but rewarding nonetheless. We had him on that one glorious trip to the pinnacle of the sport, that so tantalizingly almost was. We had him through a decade of greatness at a level neither seen nor even dreamed of before in this town. And it is only now that he is gone that we finally realize we had him at all. So long old friend. You'll be missed but never forgotten.

RIP Jim Johnson 1941-2009