Breaking News: Eagles' Andrews has back surgery - out six weeks

Eagles All-Pro right guard Shawn Andrews underwent back surgery and will be sidelined for at least an additional six weeks and up to three months. The Eagles will not place him on injured reserve, however.

"I think the best thing to do with the [G] Shawn [Andrews] situation is to take you through the history right up until this morning," Eagles trainer Rick Burkholder said. "Coming into Philadelphia and into Arkansas, Shawn, in high school, had a herniated disc in his back, which we knew about. He had it injected in high school, did fine through Arkansas and did fine through all his years here. If you recall back to the Dallas game on the 15th of September, he got hurt in the first half, he couldn’t play in the second half. We did an MRI on the next day, Monday the 16th, and it showed that he had the herniated disc in his back.

"It did not look new, it looked like it was the same disc that we knew about coming in. However, he had symptoms now. On the 18th of September he had his back injected. He got no relief from that. He saw Dr. Carrol, our back specialist, on the 21st who said to give the shot a chance.

"He didn’t improve. On the 16th, he had his back injected again and had it improve for one day and then it really leveled off. On the 13th of October he went out to Los Angeles and saw Dr. Robert Watkins, Sr. and, at that time, Dr. Watkins thought that with his history of symptoms and injections that the quickest recovery for Shawn would be to have his back operated on and have a microdisectomy. Yesterday, the 21st, at Marina Delray hospital in California, Dr. Robert Watkins, Sr. did a microdisectomy on Shawn’s L-4/L-5 disc. They’re numbered by how they sit between the vertebrae, so it’s lumbar 4/5. He had good success with the surgery, he took the fragments out and Shawn’s in Marina Delray hospital recovering now."

Max Jean-Gillis will continue to start in Andrews' absence.

"I didn't know what was going on until yesterday, when Coach Reid told me he was having surgery. I hope all is well. I know this is my job now, and I just have to fight for it and keep it," Jean-Gillis said."