Into

all-sunshine-all-the-time opening press conference of training camp sailed a dark cloud.

Reid is never cheerier than when telling the media how pumped up he is for another

, the summer home since 1996.

But even his enthusiasm seemed somewhat forced Sunday afternoon on the Goodman Campus.

It’s never a good thing for the Birds or their fans when trainer Rick Burkholder stands unexpectedly next to Reid at a media gathering.

And Burkholder didn’t bring good news Sunday when he announced that veteran defensive tackle

will not participate in training camp because he is not fully recovered from January brain surgery to repair an

. Instead of starting and anchoring the Birds’ line in camp, Patterson will start the season on the non-football injury list.

Reid and Burkholder both said that Patterson’s surgeon, Dr. Robert Spetzler of Phoenix, anticipated six months of healing from the January surgery, where Patterson had a piece of his skull removed, and then replaced, in a procedure called a craniectomy.

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Apparently that’s not the case.

“Not a lot of football players have had craniectomies,” Burkholder said. “We all thought six months would be enough for Mike to be healthy, but clearly he’s not. We want him to heal up fully and be playing again. I am optimistic Mike will be playing again, but he won’t be playing today.” Burkholder said there was “no timetable” for Patterson’s return, but did hint it “may be a couple of months.

“Player safety is our first concern,” said Burkholder, and, given that Patterson’s injury involved pieces of his skull healing, it seems likely Patterson will miss at least some of the 2012 season. Reid, while obviously wanting Patterson back, said the Birds can ride out his loss.

“(With Patterson’s injury) we took precautionary measures and we made sure that at that position, we didn’t come up short,” Reid said, “So, I think when you look at the players that we have there, we have players that were with us last year that contributed. Then, we added a couple of new players in there, (first-round draft choice Fletcher) Cox being one of them and the primary one that can help us out. So ... even though you take Michael out of it, you’re still looking at a strong position. I think we’re going to be OK there.”

That puts a fair amount of weight on Cox, but Reid isn’t too worried about that, either.

“First-round draft picks, you expect a lot out of,” he said. “We’ve had success there, Mike Patterson being one of them, Corey Simon being another. We’ve had success with that position and guys getting in and playing early, so I would anticipate when (Cox) gets in there, he’ll be working with the ones and doing that.”

Reid addressed another non-sunshiny matter,

, saying he didn’t think it would become a cross to bear for the team the way

gaffe became in 2011.

“You know the two different players there. (Young) was a new player coming into town. It was a different situation and he did it without any communication into that or know-how into that,” Reid said. “I’m not worried about that.”

Reid may be singing a different song if the Birds are 2-5 in late October, to be sure, but he doesn’t mind thinking Vick could be right.

Asked if he thinks the Birds can be a dynasty, Reid smiled and said, “I appreciate you asking that. I think the one thing that I’m into, and this is what I know Michael is into also, is you take one play at a time, one practice at a time, you bust your tail and you work hard, and then good things happen. And so that’s what we are going to do and that’s what I believe in. I think you guys know that and that is how I approach it.”

That statement shows Reid, at least, is in mid-season form as he included almost every major football cliché.

But amid all the happy and not-so-happy talk, Reid made it clear he intends to work the players as hard as he possibly can and that while many NFL teams are cutting back on hitting in camp, he still believes in it and the whole training camp experience.

“I love that you’re able to develop some camaraderie,” he said. “We’re stuck in the dorms up there for a few weeks here so you get to know the guy next to you. You understand your teammates and you develop this relationship there. Then, you do the same thing with the physical play on the field. I think it’s important. I think you find out, from a coaching standpoint, you kind of find out who’s going to be with you during the tough times. You’ve got to be one tough son-of-a-gun to do this thing and you develop that out here.”

It’s just that Reid will be developing that with one of his major pieces of the puzzle sidelined for a while. It’s been a remarkably cheery and happy off-season for the Eagles, and they have to hope the Patterson setback is just an isolated dark cloud, not a sign that signals a squall line of storms to come.