Eagles tight end Brent Celek spent some time Tuesday afternoon chatting with fans on NFL.com and discussed a variety of subjects, including his faith in quarterback Kevin Kolb, his favorite player growing up, who he considers the best tight end in football and who will be the team to beat in 2010.
Below is a sampling of some of Celek's responses. To read the full transcript of the Celek chat, click here.
On his confidence in Kevin Kolb, and his reaction to DeSean Jackson's comments in The Sporting News: "I feel totally confident in Kolb, first of all. I feel like he'll be one of the best (quarterbacks) in NFL. All of us young guys are excited to play with him, and the team is behind him and believes in him."
With (regards) to DeSean's remarks, I think they were taken out of context. I feel like he was misunderstood. I feel like all he was trying to do was back our (quarterback) in Kevin, and it got skewed somewhat to be taking a shot at Donovan, which I don't think he was."
On the team's goals for 2010: "Our ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl, and we have to go through the division first, but we feel like with this team we can make a run. We're very confident, but we understand it's one game at a time."
On who he considers the best tight end in football: "I have to stay with Tony Gonzalez, just for the fact he's done it consistently for so many years. I think that's what it takes to be a great (tight end), to do things consistently. You don't have to do any one thing great, but be good at everything, and do that over a long period of time. That makes you great."
On his favorite player growing up: "Boomer Esiason for the Bengals, because I'm from Cincy. But my favorite player ever was Jerome Bettis, which is kind of odd, since the Bengals and Steelers were such rivals. But I was a big Bettis fan."
On how long it took his body to recover from the season: "For me, this season, it actually took )three-to-four weeks), just because at the end of the season I was pretty beat up. It actually took me getting back to workouts to feel good again. That's when I really started to get back to normal. There's a period of (three-to-four) weeks where I was still very sore.
On his pre-game meal: "I usually eat the same thing, whether it's a morning or afternoon game. Two chicken breasts, some scrambled eggs, pasta, and some broccoli."
On who will be the team to beat in 2010: "It's so hard to tell right now, you can't really know until the beginning of the season. Some teams just come out of nowhere. Off the top of my head, in the NFC, though, I would imagine inside the division, the Cowboys will be good. And the Saints, of course ... Falcons and Packers, too."
On the team's confidence: "I would say our confidence is very high. Our mindset is confident, mainly because we know we have a lot of doubters out there and it makes us closer as a team and makes us want to do better. We love that anyone thinks of us as an underdog."
-- Posted by Bo Wulf, 6:30 p.m., May 11
