Well, the only good thing to come out of yesterday’s loss to Dallas was that my prediction of an 11-5 season was spot on. Other than my genius being unveiled yet again, there weren’t exactly a thousand points of light in Irving, Texas. The Eagles were thoroughly manhandled by the Cowboys which capped possibly the most telling fact about how good the Eagles are: they finished the season without a win over a playoff team.

Why does that matter? Well, technically it doesn’t. The NFL isn’t beholden to the beauty-pageant framework of determining a champion in the way college football is. At the end of the day, teams’ wins and losses are the only things that matter in terms of their positioning in a run towards the Super Bowl.

With all that said, what better way to judge a playoff team’s likeliness to advance in the playoffs than looking at their recent record against other playoff teams? Unfortunately for the Birds, the Rams, Chiefs, Giants and Redskins will not be in the postseason. But the Cowboys will. So will the Saints and so will the Chargers. In fact, if the Eagles are going to make the Super Bowl they’re going to have to beat the Cowboys (whom they’ve lost to twice) and they’re likely going to have to beat New Orleans in Louisiana (they got crushed 48-22 by the Saints in Week 2, at the Linc).

While much is made of the apparent historical difficulty of beating a team 3 times in a season (what Dallas would need to do in order to advance next week), 4 teams have done exactly that during the past decade. Remember, of course, that in order for a team to beat another one 3 times in a season, both teams would have to make the playoffs. That means that both teams are pretty good, as they’ve both advanced to the postseason. Therefore the relative disparity between the teams is theoretically fairly slim and so the likeliness is that one squad shouldn’t be 3-games better than the other.

So where are the bright spots for the Eagles? Certainly Brent Celek is one as his lone ability to catch balls over the middle makes him a wildly-erratic quarterback’s best friend. And assuming Dallas’ secondary falls asleep, DeSean Jackson can run his singularly-effective 100-yard dash route (whether McNabb can refrain from overthrowing him is another question). Other than that, the Eagles don’t have too much to bank on.

The irony of the Eagles’ approach is that they don’t have the personnel to run a pass-heavy offense. They just don’t. Macklin and Jackson are capable of making big plays but not capable of handling the workload of an offense that passes more than it runs. And with an uncertain Brian Westbrook, an unproven LeSean McCoy and a butterfingered Leonard Weaver, the Eagles ability to run a West Coast-style offense is severely limited. Their reliance on the big play has rewarded them with 11 wins this season but against good teams, 70-yard bombs are few and far between.

What will happen on Saturday night in Dallas is anyone’s guess. But insofar as it’s reasonable to talk about it before the game, Dallas has to be a prohibitive favorite. Their personnel, style of play and quite frankly, the results, have shown them to be a far better team. Only intangibles can save the Eagles now, and that’s no way to position yourself as you head into the playoffs.