Bill Conlin: Everything clicked for Eagles to reach playoffs

WHEN THE INACTIVES were announced over the press box PA a couple of hours before history was written at the Linc, I thought there was a glaring omission on the Eagles list. They saved the mild surprise for last, L.J. Smith. And if you watched the tight end mishandle the football like a cross between a greased pig and a live grenade in the Redskins debacle, you were hardly shocked.

But where was the most obvious inactive? Where was Andy

Reid? The coach had dropped the ball week after week in his never-ending, seldom-accomplished goal of "putting players in better position to win."

Ninety-seven years after the World Champion Philadelphia Athletics had a player nicknamed "Home Run" Baker, the Eagles have a coach who should have been nicknamed "No Run Reid."

Imagine a five number combination lock on a safe filled with diamonds - or Super Bowl tickets, if you will. The first four numbers had been dialed into place and it was up to the Eagles to give it one twirl to hit the number that would click the tumblers and swing open the door to January and the Feb. 1 grail in Tampa.

On that one twirl, either Minnesota or Chicago had to lose and the Bears obliged, coughing up an early 10-0 fourth-quarter lead to the Texans. The Vikes pulled it out. The Tampa Bay Bucs had to lose at home to coach Jon Gruden's former team, the Oakland

Raiders. The Bucs obliged, completing a December swoon that was almost Mets-esque.

Suddenly, the Eagles, enduring the first fan mutiny of the Andy Reid era, were eyeball-to-eyeball with the Dallas Cowboys. They were All-In in a game of Texas Hold 'Em when the Birds awoke on a warm, windy morning holding a pair of deuces.

Click . . . The tumblers turned. Slap . . . The River Card was dealt. Two of spades.

All that remained to seal the wacky drama of one of the most bizarre Sundays in Eagles' franchise history was a little matter of pistol-whipping the despised Cowboys.