Takeo Spikes didn’t waste any time answering the question everyone wanted answered.

How healthy are you?

“I’m good. I’m 100 percent,” Spikes said Wednesday, two days after being acquired in a trade with Buffalo. “I think the Philadelphia organization realized that just by taking their time to grade me out – from the first game of the year through the last game of the year.”

The Eagles need Spikes to be 100 percent. If he’s as good as the player who made the Pro Bowl in his first two years with the Bills, the Eagles’ linebacking corps should be significantly improved.

But the 30-year-old Spikes hasn’t played a full season since 2004. He missed most of the following season after tearing his Achilles’ tendon in Week 3. Last year, he sat four of the first five games with a hamstring injury and finished with pedestrian numbers: 70 tackles (according to NFL.com), one sack and a forced fumble.

Spikes recorded over 100 tackles in each of his first six seasons. In his seventh season (second with the Bills), he had 96 tackles and three sacks. But he also registered five interceptions, two touchdowns and 11 passes defended – all career highs.

“One thing I had to understand that there are two injuries in professional sports that you have to deal with that are pretty much career ending,” Spikes said. “One is the Achilles, and the other is microfracture in the knee.

“Leading into [last] season, I wasn’t where I wanted to be at the beginning, but I could still do a lot of things.”

But not everything.

Spikes suffered the Achilles' injury in September of 2005 but didn’t begin rehabbing immediately. Doctors said the recovery time was a year from when he began to rehab.

“That year anniversary passed in late January, early February [of this year],” Spikes said. “So I definitely can tell a big difference.”

But Spikes didn’t want to believe the doctors. He also didn’t want to believe Seahawks linebacker Julian Peterson, who suffered the same injury a year earlier while with the 49ers.

“I wanted to try to prove to them that was wrong, and at the same time prove it to myself,” Spikes said. “It took some time. I got through it. By the end of the season, I felt real strong.”

When training camp begins this summer, he should be even stronger.

“Last year, I was doing more rehab stuff,” Spikes said. “Now this year, I have a full off-season to train.”

With the Bills, Spikes played on the weak side, but when camp opens, he could be on the strong side.

“I’m going to make the plays wherever they put me,” said Spikes, who is familiar with Jim Johnson’s defense.

“Philly is always on TV, so you don’t have a choice but to see them. I like to break down the game from a defensive standpoint.”

Spikes said he played a similar scheme with the Bengals and in his first three years in Buffalo.

“Just seeing [the Eagles] blitz all of the time and doing a lot of fire zones and mixing everything up … that’s what made it so hard to be true – just the idea of having a chance to come here. There wasn’t a better fit.”

Sitting next to Spikes at Wednesday’s press conference was the “other” player the Eagles acquired in Monday’s trade: journeyman quarterback Kelly Holcomb.

The two don’t have much in common. They're both 6-foot-2, but Spikes has 30 pounds on Holcomb and looks like, well, like an NFL linebacker. Holcomb looks more like an algebra teacher. Spikes, who has taken Matt McCoy’s No. 51, will be a starter. Holcomb, who has taken Koy Detmer’s No. 10, is the third-string QB. Spikes has been to the Pro Bowl. Holcomb hasn’t.

But Holcomb has reached a level in the NFL that Spikes hasn’t: the playoffs.

“He gave me a hard time on the way here,” Spikes said, patting Holcomb on the shoulder.

The Eagles are the fourth team for Holcomb, who has played one playoff game in his 11-year career – but he made the most of the opportunity. With Cleveland in 2003, he threw for 429 yards – then a league record for a regulation playoff game – and three touchdowns in a 36-33 loss to Pittsburgh.

“I just want to, like Takeo, be on a winning team, and that’s what we’ve got here with Philadelphia,” Holcomb said. “These guys have been in the playoffs the last umpteen years.”

Which is why Spikes was happy to be out of Buffalo.

“It was almost like it was too good to be true,” Spikes said. “You get the little hints. You see the blogs in the newspaper, and you really don’t know how true it is. But once it came down … a lot of people like to throw grenades, and you’ve got some people who like to pull the trigger. Pull the pin on them is what I say. So Philly definitely did. They stepped up to the plate and pulled the pin. That’s why I’m here.”

He’s with an organization that has reached the postseason in six of the last seven seasons.

“In life, people want credibility,” Spikes said. “I think here, you’ve got that with some of the marquee players here. “

Upon hearing of the trade, Spikes did his due diligence by checking with some of those players – past and present. He talked to former Eagles Troy Vincent and Carlos Emmons. Vincent and Spikes were teammates in Buffalo for a year and a half.

“I talked to Troy several times right before it happened, and he had nothing but good things to say,” Spikes said.

As did Brian Dawkins and Donovan McNabb.

“It was almost like, Come on guys, did they tell you to say that?” Spikes said. “They had nothing but praises.”

They also sold Spikes on something else: the fans.

“One of the first things that came out of their mouths was the fans, the intensity – what they bring to the game,” Spikes said. “It’s almost like modern day gladiators walking into the stadium. That’s me. That’s what I look forward to. I enjoy that.”

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