Eagles prove they’re once again the NFL’s best team with a breathless win over Cowboys

Exhale.

The Eagles endured a last-minute rash of injury and idiocy and enter their well-earned bye week a one-loss team with a 28-23 win over their chief rivals. They left Philadelphia to relish a win over Dallas for two whole weeks.

They even provided two weeks’ worth of drama to rehash.

The Cowboys got the ball with 46 seconds to play only to see starting cornerbacks James Bradberry and Darius Slay exit the game on consecutive plays as the defense disintegrated at the hands of Dak Prescott. As if that wasn’t enough, the Birds committed three penalties in four plays. But, like twin Lazaruses, Bradberry’s knee felt better and Slay’s shoulder stopped hurting, and both returned in time to quash the Pokes’ last-gasp efforts, and the defense stopped playing like dolts.

» READ MORE: Darius Slay and James Bradberry were banged up on the Cowboys’ frantic final drive, but the Eagles hung on

What a game. It had everything: Ten penalties for each team; six Eagles starters getting hurt, and four returning to play; scoring and replays and big plays and redemption. It equaled the eight weeks of buildup as a Referendum Game.

Even bloodless Jalen Hurts was impressed.

“What an incredible win. What a sense of perseverance on this team,” said Hurts, his heart rate rising to nearly 50 beats per minute. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pretty, but he gets it: “It takes what it takes. Whatever it takes.”

Hurts was among those who got hurt, when DeMarcus Lawrence’s helmet crashed into the left knee he’d injured five weeks before. Hurts went down, got up, clenched his teeth through a timeout, but never left the field.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said, refusing, again, to address his injury. “It was a gritty win.”

Great teams win gritty games. The Eagles, against the team they hate the most, proved themselves the league’s best team.

The circumstance made the game a perfect means for evaluation and reflection. The Eagles were 7-1, which made this the ninth of 17 games, so exactly in the middle if the campaign. It featured the Cowboys, 5-2 and the only realistic challenger to the Eagles for both the NFC East title and, if things went to script, the only realistic challenger for the conference title.

Things went to script. It was a fun script.

It ended with Dallas losing, and that’s always fun.

The Eagles played better offense. They played better defense. They made fewer mistakes.

They coast into their bye week 8-1, having beaten their rival, even while diminished. They have a handful of severe tests remaining. So what, most of them said; at this point, eight wins and $5 gets you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

So this:

They were 8-1 at this point last year, and they were the NFL’s best team all season, at least until the second half of Super Bowl LVII. Given what we saw then and what we see now, there’s no reason they shouldn’t go just as far, or farther, this year.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, Phillies’ Bryce Harper, and James ‘The System’ Harden: A study in contrasts

The quarterback played on one leg. They were down to their third right guard. They lost their star tight end to a straight-arm accident, and, of course, those two cornerback casualties, however brief.

Great teams consider those less obstacles than mere inconveniences.

Hurts compiled a 130.2 passer rating, completed 73.9% of his passes, and found both DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown for touchdowns.

» READ MORE: Sources: Eagles’ Dallas Goedert suffered a fractured forearm vs. Cowboys

Brandon Graham got a sack-and-a-half on consecutive plays inside of 3 minutes, and they were the plays that nearly ended the Cowboys’ chances. He now has 72 as a pro, all as an Eagle, and it’s why he’s paid $5 million to play less than one-third of the game’s snaps.

In a league rife with mistake-prone pretenders, the football at Lincoln Financial Field was worthy of being the league’s featured event.

The game was not just close, but was eerily similar for the first 35 minutes. They were tied after 13 minutes. They were tied after 25 minutes. The Eagles trailed by three at the end of the first half, then led by four just three minutes into the second half.

How close was it?

Prescott stepped out of bounds, unnecessarily, six inches short of converting a two-point conversion that would have cut a five-point deficit to three with 6 minutes, 23 seconds to play. Later, the Cowboys twice got close enough to try a field goal, but needed a touchdown. Huge play.

Both teams ran good runs and threw good throws and caught good catches. They’re both good teams. The Eagles were just better.

» READ MORE: The education of Jalen Carter: Cold tubs, Eagles vets in his ear, and 401(k)s

Will that still be true in the rematch five weeks from now? The Birds lost tight end Dallas Goedert to what is probably a broken forearm, and lost linebacker Nakobe Dean to a foot injury, and a team source said neither seems likely to play much again before Thanksgiving.

When the season resumes the Eagles visit Kansas City after the bye, then host the Bills and the 49ers before their trip to Dallas. But with 49ers and the upstart Lions having proven fallible, and with a big over the Dolphins already logged by the Eagles, and with the Chiefs looking like a tiring dynasty, Sunday evening’s contest left this inarguable assertion:

They are the NFL’s best team. And yes, they probably will still be so when they hit Dallas. There’s no reason for any team to think they won’t have to beat the Birds if they want to hoist the Lombardi.

How big was the game? Well, even Phillies star Bryce Harper attended, if only to remind the Eagles of how big your marbles have to be to be considered a winner in Philly.

He must have left impressed, marbles-wise. Four Birds returned to action after injury, and Harper has played the last two seasons with one good arm.

If the main story was the win, the subplot was redemption.

Kenneth Gainwell, the hypersensitive second-string running back who fumbled in the red zone last week and clapped back on Instagram at a critic during halftime, front-flipped into the end zone for the Eagles’ first touchdown.

Early in the fourth quarter, Slay, the star of the expensive, struggling secondary, and Zach Cunningham, the embodiment of the ordinariness of the linebackers, hit Prescott high and low and spun him like a helicopter to make it fourth-and-goal. On the next play Reed Blankenship, the undrafted, second-year safety who is everybody’s punching bag, made the play of the game, tackling Luke Schoonmaker an inch before the ball broke the plane of the goal line.

They got lot from a few guys, but they got at least a little from everybody. As great teams do.

“It’s hard not to consider us as at least one of the better teams in the league,” Bradberry allowed. “But we gotta come back in two weeks. We gotta finish strong. We gotta think of ourselves almost as underdogs every week.”

They can think that if they like.

They’ll be the only ones.