During a Monday press conference, Eagles coach Andy Reid was asked about whether the situation involving cornerback Lito Sheppard is any closer to being resolved.

Reid refused to address it. “I’m not going to get into all of that,” he said.

But the issue continues to hover over the team, like the scent from the byproducts of a beans-and-bananas brunch.  Will Sheppard be traded?  Or will he spend another year with the team that clearly wanted to trade him?  If so, will he be happy with a base salary for 2008 that equates to less than ten percent of Asante Samuel’s guaranteed pay?

Our guess is that Sheppard eventually will be traded, and that the Eagles are acting like they’d be willing to keep him in the hopes of not getting fleeced by a team that thinks it’s shopping at a Philly fire sale.

Reid also addressed a few other topics of interest on Monday.

On rookie receiver DeSean Jackson, Reid said this:  “He came in here and we all heard he was fast and he can catch the football, but until you get here, you don’t know that.  He looked like he had good quickness, good speed and he caught the ball okay.  Those were all things that we were looking for.  Again, there’s a lot of work ahead, this is just [in] shorts.”

Reid talked about the offseason shoulder surgery to linebacker Rocky Boiman: “[It was his] shoulder. It was a fairly major [operation]. I can get you the information on it. He’s back now; it happened a while back. He’ll be ready for contact once he gets to training camp. Until then, we’ll limit him.”

Another Eagles player had a different procedure — something was lanced from the forehead of tackle Tra Thomas: “It could be a pimple,” Reid said. “I don’t know exactly what [it] is, right now. We’ll find out when he gets back.”

Who says the offseason isn’t sexy?