Forgotten in the four weeks and forty-eight hours since the Philadelphia Eagles signed cornerback Asante Samuel on the opening day of free agency is the fact that the Eagles are looking to trade cornerback Lito Sheppard.

The deal hasn’t gone down, and the reason for it isn’t clear.  Though there likely has been haggling about the value of Sheppard, with the Eagles presumably wanting more than what any interested teams would want to sacrifice, the recent trade of cornerback DeAngelo Hall from the Falcons to the Raiders should help to frame the market.

Hall generated a second-round pick in 2008 and a fifth-round pick in 2009.  Sheppard generally is comparable to Hall, with Hall maybe being a half-notch above him.

One way or another, the deal is likely to get done.  As noted in the Charlotte Observer, by way of the Philadelphia Inquirer, talks could heat up during the league meetings in Palm Beach.

But there’s no rush, in our view.  The Eagles can wait until draft day.  If the corner that a team covets is gone before it picks at the bottom of round one, then maybe that team would send that pick to the Eagles for Sheppard.  Or maybe after the dust settles on the first day of the draft a team will ship a first-rounder in 2009 to Philly for Sheppard.

Either way, a deal is likely to happen.  If the Eagles were committed to Sheppard as the franchise’s shut-down corner, they wouldn’t have given so much money to Samuel, who actually is a few months older than Sheppard.