As for the participants in the game itself, they get 60 minutes of playing time to memorialize a season that has lasted the six months since training camp. Without a reliable set list, there's no way to know if the game will be as entertaining as the halftime band, or even as entertaining as the various talking dogs and flatulence jokes employed annually to trick the nation into buying beer and auto insurance. Some years, as local fans know, are better than others.
Although it hasn't seemed likely most of this season, and although there are several good arguments against the premise, there is no real reason the NFC representative in this season's Super Bowl can't be the Eagles.
The who?
Yeah, the Eagles.
This is less a declaration of confidence in the Eagles themselves as a lack of confidence in the rest of the conference. With the possible exception of New Orleans - which tried its damnedest to lose in St. Louis two weeks ago - there isn't much out there to prevent them from taking another run at it. There is only the one team that actually stands in their way.
The who?
That's right. The Eagles.
Today's game against Washington might actually be a litmus test for their whole season. If last week's game in Chicago was a "must win," according to Donovan McNabb, and "our Super Bowl," in the words of Quintin Mikell, this game against the Redskins is just as important and just as treacherous, even though it hasn't generated the same hyperbolic fuss.
Win today and the Eagles are 7-4, set up for a late-season push that should at least win them one of the two wild-card berths in the conference, if not the East division outright.
