Brian Westbrook and Ashley Shafer

By ASHLEY SHAFER
I really love writing and sharing my opinion from a woman’s perspective about the OTA’s, preseason games, my favorite players and my honest opinion of where the Eagles stand throughout the season. But what I love even more than voicing my opinion are the opportunities that I have to interview truly incredible football players and sharing their lives and stories.

This month I had the extraordinary honor of being able to interview a very genuine and down-­to-­earth man. Spending eight of his nine seasons in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles and earning two Pro Bowl selections, it’s easy to say that running back Brian Westbrook not only left his mark in Eagles history but he left his heart there as well.

Westbrook and former Eagles linebacker Maxie Baughan will be inducted into the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame at halftime of the game against the Giants in October at Lincoln Financial Field.

“The most important thing for me is that I don’t think people are made perfect and they need help. It’s important to let the young people, and fans know that it’s OK to give back,” he said. “Part of my mission is to help those behind me because I know I wouldn’t have been as successful as I was if I didn’t get a helping hand. One of the missions of my foundation, Brian’s Blessings, is to make sure we give people help as they need it.

We’re going to do everything we can to achieve that.”

Over the course of his remarkable career, this NFC Champion had over 6,300 rushing yards and nearly 4,000 receiving yards. After retiring with the Eagles in August of 2012, Westbrook spent the next year catching up and spending time with his family.

“Being an athlete, you don’t normally have time celebrate birthdays, Christmas, New Years and things like that,” Westbrook said. “Most of your time is taken up by practices or meetings and other obligations. You just have no way of realizing how much time you’re missing from your family and those who are dear to you.”

Aside from football, Westbrook has another passion.

“I have a horse farm down in Maryland. I spend a lot of time there reconnecting,” he said. “I think ‘reconnecting’ is a great way to describe it because a lot of the time when you’re in the NFL you’re kind of out of the loop with other things. When football is your world you’re just not as connected with the real world.”

As this season approaches, Westbrook has his eye on one player who not only stands out to him, but reminds him of his football experience.

“I really like wide receiver Jordan Matthews. I love the way he approaches the game,” Westbrook said. “He’s not a diva­-type wide receiver; he wants to go out there and get better every chance he gets. He has the type of attitude, the attitude that I had, where I may not be the best physically, I may not be the fastest but I’ll outwork you and I think with that attitude he can do a lot of good things in the NFL.”

Taken by surprise, along with the rest of us Eagles fans, Westbrook found Chip Kelly’s most recent agenda non­-traditional, yet epic.

“In most situations when you lose a Pro Bowler it’s hard to find another guy, in any position, to replace them. Chip Kelly, in the off season, was able to pull off something pretty amazing and very rare. I think very highly of LeSean (McCoy), his ability is very strong, but for Chip to be able to go out and get DeMarco Murray, that’s rare to lose a Pro Bowler and gain a Pro Bowler in return,” Westbrook said.

As the season quickly approaches, Westbrook enlightened me on his thoughts for the season.

“From the pre-­season games, it’s obvious that the tempo, the speed at which the team operates on offense, the way that it’s structured and run, is making it very, very hard for other teams to look good at all,” he said. “What we’re seeing from the Eagles is that they have the ability to score in multiple ways, defensively, offensively and special teams. I think with the way that the defense is set up, if they can stay off the field as long as they
did last year this team is going to be really tough to deal with.”