Three weeks later, after last night's 30-10 whipping of the Cleveland Browns at Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles haven't merely positioned themselves to make that run of the table, they are playing the type of football that makes the playoffs a possible outcome.
"We put everything together and we're playing some pretty good ball right now," Eagles safety Brian Dawkins said. "We are a very, very confident group and we're looking forward to this next game."
The Birds have looked so dominant in beating Arizona, the Giants in New York, and now Cleveland, it's hard to think they won't keep things going at Washington on Sunday and in the season finale at home against Dallas. This, however, is where the heartbreak comes.
Even if the Birds finish on a five-game win streak and actually reach 10 victories, the current wild-card standings make it an iffy proposition, at best, that they will qualify for the playoffs. Ten victories might not be enough.
"You can't worry about that right now," Reid said. "You take care of the things that you can control . . . I hope we're looking at our scoreboard. We need to make sure we're concentrating on the Philadelphia Eagles and nobody else."
Unfortunately, a few somebody elses will have a big say in the Eagles' playoff fortunes, no matter what the Birds do.
There is a solid possibility that 10 wins won't be good enough in the NFC this year. Only once since the NFL expanded the postseason to six teams per conference in 1990 were 10 wins not good enough for an NFC wild-card berth. That was in 1991, when the San Francisco 49ers, Falcons, and, yes, the Eagles all finished 10-6. Atlanta got in the playoffs on a tiebreaker.
