Really, this is just the flip side of the same coin. The reason the Eagles' miserable losses were so excruciatingly frustrating is the same reason they could very well make a deep run now that they've slipped through the side door into the playoffs.
"Especially the way we played tonight," said left tackle Tra Thomas, who has been on a 3-13 team, wild-card teams and a Super Bowl team. "We definitely feel like a team that can make it. We just have to keep riding this wave."
"If we keep playing like that," said right tackle Jon Runyan, "we can do a lot of damage. That's going to be the biggest thing, to keep preparing and playing like that. That performance out there, that's one of the top performances I've seen around here."
Runyan, like Thomas, has seen a lot of Eagles' performances, covering the full spectrum from awful to awesome. Actually, you don't have to have a decade in the NFL for that. The Eagles (9-6-1) hit both extremes in the span of one week - stinking it up against Washington a week before blowing the Cowboys away.
Make no mistake. The Eagles deserve full credit for seizing an unforeseeable opportunity and bullying a Dallas team that also had a playoff berth at stake. Not only did the Eagles claim that final NFC playoff berth, they left their most despised rival in the kind of ruin that almost assures big changes in Big D.
Tony Romo? Wade Phillips? Terrell Owens? Adam Jones? All the cartoon characters in Dallas owner Jerry Jones' locker room are targets now. Romo's annual meltdown can't be ignored. Phillips, who was punting on fourth and 2 while losing 44-3, has to go. Owens has crossed into total buffoonery as the talent that redeemed him fades. The notorious Pacman made it rain points on the Eagles.
As Cole Hamels might say, the Cowboys officially are choke artists.
