The Eagles yesterday listed running back Brian Westbrook and safety Brian Dawkins as questionable, which suggests they have about a 50-50 chance of playing. The versatile Westbrook, who tops the NFL in yards from scrimmage with 514, still is bothered by the abdominal muscle he strained in last Sunday's 56-21 win over Detroit. He missed practice again Friday. Westbrook has a history of playing well with little or no practice. Before the Lions game, he didn't return to practice until Friday while nursing a swollen knee, then went out and amassed a career-high 221 yards rushing and receiving.

In a mutually agreed upon deal, Brian Westbrook will have at least a significant portion of his early season paychecks withheld to help pay off the $3 million that the Eagles overpaid him in March of 2006. Westbrook also has returned about a third of the overpayment from the team. As this season goes on, the Eagles will continue paying Westbrook a pro-rated portion of the $2 million base salary that he was scheduled to earn this season while withholding other future monies. Westbrook got his money; it just was not paid out this season. The $2 million base salary he was scheduled to make amounted to weekly paychecks of $117,647, which Westbrook no longer is receiving. It is all part of a complex deal that has been ongoing for the past 18 months that now appears resolved. Back in 2006, the Eagles accidentally overpaid Westbrook $3 million. Since then, the two sides have tried to figure out the easiest way for Westbrook to repay the money, being that the government took $1.3 million of it for tax purposes.

Brian Westbrook not only left the Detroit Lions' defenders grasping at air when they tried to tackle him during his dazzling performance Sunday, but the Eagles running back also strained an abdominal muscle during one of his shifty moves. Eagles coach Andy Reid said yesterday that Westbrook was pretty sore and that his status for this week's practice sessions and Sunday night's game against the Giants would not be known until later in the week. "We'll know better in the next day or two," Reid said. "[The injury] was from a move he made, kind of a freak thing, and it just popped on him. We'll see how it goes. If he can practice, he'll practice; if he can't he won't." Westbrook was thought to have suffered a rib injury, but X-rays on his ribs were negative.

Donovan McNabb threw for 381 yards and four touchdown passes, Kevin Curtis had 221 yards receiving and three scores and the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Detroit Lions 56-21 on Sunday for their first win. Curtis tied an NFL record for yards receiving in a first half, with 205 on nine catches. In a stunning offensive display, the Eagles (1-2) scored touchdowns on their first five possessions and had a franchise-record 42 points in the first half. It was their most points scored since a 56-17 victory at the Chicago Cardinals in 1953.

Starting tight end L.J. Smith, a key receiver in the Philadelphia Eagles' passing game, underwent surgery Friday to clean out scar tissue surrounding his injured groin. Smith will miss Sunday's game and the team said his rehabilitation will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis. A fifth-year veteran, Smith underwent surgery in late May to repair a sports hernia and he missed much of the Eagles' offseason program. Smith aggravated the groin injury in training camp, missed time again, and was bothered by it over the first two weeks of the season. This week, the team said in a Friday news release, the discomfort reached a point where Smith could not practice. "He seemed like he was getting a little bit worse, so we referred him to Dr. [William] Meyers, who did the sports hernia surgery on him," Eagles head trainer Rick Burkholder said in the release. "It was a 20-minute procedure in which he opened up the sheath around the muscle, which gives him a little more room. It allowed fluid to drain out of the muscle that was injured in training camp."

African-American quarterbacks face more pressure and more criticism than their white counterparts, Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb says in an interview scheduled to air on HBO on Tuesday night. McNabb, in an interview on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel," tells interviewer James Brown that African-American quarterbacks such as himself face added pressure because there are fewer black QBs -- and because some still don't want black athletes playing the position. "There's not that many African-American quarterbacks, so we have to do a little bit extra," McNabb tells HBO. "Because the percentage of us playing this position, which people didn't want us to play ... is low, so we do a little extra."

If Jason Campbell becomes a star in the NFL, he might pinpoint Monday night's win as the start of something great. Showing the poise of a veteran, the third-year quarterback in his ninth pro start converted several big plays and got plenty of help from Clinton Portis, Chris Cooley and an opportunistic defense in Washington's 20-12 victory over the Eagles. The Redskins, coming off a 5-11 season, are 2-0 and tied with Dallas atop the NFC East, which Philadelphia was expected to dominate.

The Eagles hope Reno Mahe can restore some reliability to their return game when they play their home opener Monday night against the Washington Redskins at Lincoln Financial Field. To make room for Mahe on the roster, the Eagles released J.R. Reed, who had just signed with the team 10 days ago after Jeremy Bloom, who handled the bulk of returns during the preseason, was cut. Mahe was the Eagles' primary punt returner and kick returner last season, and he led the NFL in punt-return average in 2005. He became a free agent after last season, and the Eagles declined to re-sign him. When no other team signed Mahe, he decided to get on with the rest of his life by moving back to Provo, Utah, where he attended Brigham Young University. "I was able to go back to Utah and position myself to do some really good things," Mahe said. "As far as life after football, I felt as if I was doing just fine. I was in the process of putting together a group home for troubled youths, and I was talking with a station about doing a talk radio show in Utah County. That was only half of it. Now, everything is halted."