The Philadelphia Eagles knew they had to replace four-time Pro Bowler Tra Thomas, who left for Jacksonville via free agency, so they sent 3 draft picks to the Bills for Tackle Jason Peters.

“Of course Tra Thomas is a great tackle,” Peters said. “He left big shoes to fill and I’m ready to try to fill those shoes.”

Eagles coach Andy Ried will miss Thomas but he believes Peters is younger, and much better than Thomas ever was.

“You know my feelings on Tra Thomas,” Reid said. “Tra was a phenomenal left tackle here. We had our 75th anniversary team and Tra was the left tackle. You’re talking about the best left tackle in the team’s history.

“But age does take place in this game and Tra played a lot of years here. We needed to replace Tra and we tried to seek out the best left tackle in football. That’s how we went about it.”

The Eagles must think Peters is the best Tackle in all of football because they gave up an awful lot for him, including their 28th overall pick in next weeks draft and their 4th round pick plus a second day pick in next years draft.

Philadelphia is also gave Peters a contract extension so he’ll earn around $60 million over the next six years with $25 million guaranteed.

“It blew my mind, first and foremost, for [the Bills] to trade me,” said Peters, who never demanded a trade, but missed all of training camp last year in an impasse over his contract situation.

“I was thinking about [the contract] sometimes last year. It didn’t affect me that much. I thought about it some early in the year, but later in the year it wasn’t a big deal.”

Peters is a good tackle, but he’s not worth that much.