Friday, Sept. 5, 2003 | 9:15 a.m.
NFL SNAP SHOT
All-time series -- Philadelphia leads, 7-5.
Last time -- Tampa Bay won, 27-10, in the NFC Championship game in Philadelphia last season.
Notable -- After FB Mike Alstott scored on a short run at the end of the first quarter in the conference title game, Tampa Bay never trailed again. He'll be the foundation of this slugfest, too ... if MLB Mark Simoneau comes close to being a Zach Thomas clone, the Eagles' defense will be fine ... will the Bucs slap Philly with defeats in their last game at the Vet and their first, when it counts, at Lincoln Financial Field? Yes.
Prediction -- Tampa Bay 16, Philadelphia 13.
Can a pilot be acrophobic? Has any clown ever suffered from globophobia, the fear of balloons? Could someone with multiple chemical sensitivity work for HazMat? Would Tyra Banks model if she had allergic contact dermatitis?
If a football player had an allergy to grass, could he stand out in his field?
Donnie Edwards has done just that, surviving and thriving in the NFL.
San Diego's eighth-year linebacker suffers from a host of environmental allergies, including grass, and his ailments peaked during his first Pro Bowl appearance in Hawaii in February.
When he returned home, the swelling in his throat was so bad doctors prescribed steroids, allowing him to eat, for three weeks. Breathing is sometimes challenging for him.
At the Pro Bowl, Edwards commiserated with Oakland wide receiver Tim Brown, who has experienced many of the same symptoms as Edwards.
Brown informed Edwards, who turned 30 in April, that a proper diet mitigates the condition.
"It's eating for your body chemistry, basically," Edwards told the San Diego Union-Tribune last month. "Some foods are really bad for me. Cheese, bell peppers, mint ... wheat? dairy? That was all the stuff I'd normally eat all the time.
"And I never knew my body didn't like it."
His heightened awareness, and health, should further enable Edwards to replace Junior Seau, the longtime defensive cornerstone of the franchise, and excel at weakside linebacker.
Edwards said he was blindsided by results from allergy tests that he underwent in 1997, after coughing, wheezing and congestion had hampered him for years.
That's when he discovered he was allergic -- "really allergic," he said -- to grass.
The flare-ups were controlled by prescription pills for two years, but he was forced to switch that routine to daily shots when his body built up a tolerance to those pills.
After talking with Brown and doing further research, Edwards monitors, and charts, what he eats at every meal. If a certain food agrees with his body, he's allowed to add something new the next day.
The only milk he drinks is soy. Instead of orange or pineapple juice, only pear juice is in his fridge. Wheat and corn are other no-nos.
He started with a basic foundation of a half dozen foods. After devouring a couple pounds of Dover sole and the same amount of beans, he lost 3 pounds. When he gains weight, that's the most tell-tale sign that something is bad for him.
The process has left him more energized, and a nutritionist told Edwards that that's because his body easily metabolizes foods that agree with it.
"It's amazing when you understand what's happening," Edwards said.
Some might be just as amazed at Edwards' progression since he entered UCLA as a relatively scrawny and unknown figure, only to leave with top-five spots on the school's career tackles-for-loss and sacks charts.
The Chiefs picked him in the fourth round, and in his second season he finished second on the team with 136 tackles. He led Kansas City in that category the next four years.
In April 2002, the 6-foot-2, 227-pound native of National City, not far from the Mexican border, returned home when he signed a five-year, $19-million deal with the Chargers. Last season, he had 129 tackles playing next to Seau, who had 84.
Since-departed safety Rodney Harrison could not believe that the Chiefs would let such a premier player like Edwards leave in a salary-cap move.
He moves over from middle linebacker, which will be occupied by youngster Zeke Moreno. There might be growing pains, especially early, but the front seven figures to have more integrity without the amped-up Seau, whose freelancing proved costly.
If there is a more curious or inquisitive individual in the NFL, Edwards would like to meet him. He has vacationed in Scandinavia to learn more about Vikings. At UCLA, he once asked why someone said "Bless you" after someone else had sneezed.
Since his college days, he has claimed Rastafarianism, minus the marijuana usage it is usually associated with, as his religion, and he wears Bob Marley T-shirts under his practice jersey.
He collects military artifacts, flew in an F-18 with the Navy's Blue Angels and was on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, with some teammates, when President Bush delivered his speech to the nation after the war in Iraq.
The large contract fuels his "Donnie Edwards Best Defense Foundation," as well as at least six other charitable endeavors.
Not bad for a scrawny kid from the poor side of a town that had Tijuana in its view, who had eight other siblings and only one parent after his father left the family when he was very young.
He had two paper routes when he was 12, then hooked on with the local Pizza Hut. Much of that money went into savings bonds, for his future.
So far, it's been all he could have hoped for, except for that little allergy. The Chargers play 14 of their 16 games on grass this season, and Edwards has been trying to wean himself of taking those shots.
"I'm going to be on the grass all the time, and I don't want to get that feeling where I can't breathe, because it makes you tired," he said. "We'll see what happens. I tell people all the time it's a good thing I bring a helmet to work, because I work in a hazardous environment."
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