As time lengthens and memory shortens, the details of Dec. 21, 1980, become fuzzy. But there is some connective tissue to today's game - hope of the playoffs. The 1988 Eagles are still waiting to pop the cork on success. The 1980 team was already familiar with the champagne taste of the postseason. Those Eagles were headed for the Super Bowl. All they needed to win the NFC East was to lose in Dallas by fewer than 25 points. It was an almost surreal game, with Dallas jumping ahead by 25 points in the fourth quarter and the Eagles rallying to lose by eight, 35-27, then celebrating wildly as if they had won while the Cowboys stalked away disgustedly as if they had lost.
"It was so strange to be in a game where we lost and won something big at the same time," Baker said.
The Eagles entered the game 12-3; Dallas was 11-4. A victory would give the Eagles the NFC East title outright. So would a loss by fewer than 25 points, thanks to an arcane tiebreaker - net points in the division. Dick Vermeil, the Eagles' coach, figured there was only one way to make the Super Bowl - win the division and get a bye and a week off. As a wild card, forget it.
"I didn't believe we could play well enough three weeks in a row to get to the Super Bowl," Vermeil remembered. "We weren't that physical. Sometimes the running game can be shut down in cold weather. We didn't have a guy to
throw the short pass to and break the game wide open.
"I thought we were the third-best team in the NFC that year. Atlanta, Dallas, and we were third. But I thought we'd be better than Dallas in the championship game at home, especially in the cold and with the city so emotionally involved. I've never been in a city that felt that way."
