THE NOVACARE parking lot was filled beyond capacity yesterday.
That's what happens when you are one of the eight remaining teams in the NFL playoffs and your next opponent represents media central - the New York Giants.
Add in the fact that the Eagles and Giants are NFC East rivals meeting for the third time this season, with a berth in the NFC Championship Game at stake, and it was easy to see why there was so much creative parking going on.
Donovan McNabb has been on this amplified stage before.
He understands the deal. He knows how to play the game. He knows how to avoid the traps.
He knew the familiar questions that the unfamiliar faces were going to ask, and he was prepared.
And this time, when the Eagles quarterback tried to make light of some of the hot-button issues that invariably end up as bulletin-board material, he actually was funny.
Asked about how the Giants' defense had struggled down the stretch this season, McNabb said: "Sometimes during the course of the year, you don't play as well as you did early on. None of them got benched."
It was the self-deprecating kind of humor that epitomizes how relaxed, comfortable and focused this team appears to be heading into Sunday's showdown in Giants Stadium.
Heaven knows, there have been enough recent distractions concerning McNabb that a news conference such as this easily could have turned down a road no one in Midnight Green wanted - except McNabb managed it as efficiently as he has managed the Eagles' offense of late.
Bob and weave.
"It's hard to say," McNabb said when asked whether the Eagles' Dec. 7 victory at the Giants was the catalyst to their season-saving surge. "It could've been [beating Arizona on Thanksgiving night] or it could've been other games.
"I think just from those particular games, we all understood what we were capable of doing and doing it consistently in order to win."
OK, so what about his benching at halftime of the Baltimore Ravens game, McNabb was asked for the umpteenth time. Did it motivate him, or is it just coincidence that he's played lights-out football since then?
Thrust and parry.
"I think it's completely coincidental," McNabb said. "I don't think that played a factor into the way I'm playing now."
Could it have affected the performance of other Eagles?
"It may have," he responded. "But I can't speak for them, so you would have to ask them."
