Birds carried load of expectation vs. Redskins

PHILADELPHIA » The Eagles left Charlotte in first place and in a glow of new celebrity. How they would spend the next 11 days would reveal if any of it was real.

They were 5-1 and a robust 5-1, without a loss in the conference and with a road win already in the division. And with that, they would become a trend. They would ring bells at Sixers games and make TV appearances and enjoy every moment of what could have been a cruel NFL schedule-maker’s joke.

If they’d played any better in recent years than they had during a four-game winning streak, it wasn’t often. And it was noticed in the one place it most mattered: They fairly trampolined up the Las Vegas board. They were being whispered as a Super Bowl team. The best in the NFL. Their time. At last.

Then, that trick: A Thursday game followed by not one, but two weekends off. So who knew, really, what the Eagles would look like when next they surfaced, Monday night in the Linc. Would they keep their momentum? Or would the gravity of NFL parity drag them back toward the common teams?

The answer: Eagles 34, Washington Redskins 24, in a belated yet undeniable burst of dominance. They’d survived the 11-day victory tour. So did Doug Pederson’s nerves.

“Yeah, I do focus on it, and I have to,” Pederson said last week. “For me, it’s about winning this week and nothing further. A lot of football left. If you remember, I think we were 4-2 at this time last year. We have to be mindful of that.

“Those are the things that motivate us and keep us going. There can’t be a letdown. It’s my job not to have that letdown with the team. I continue to address it with them and keep them focused that way.”

It’s tough enough for a football team to maintain pristine focus through 17 weeks, that after a four-week preseason, that after a training camp, that after all those other spring camps with the initials. But a rare 11-day celebration tour was a new complication and a potential problem.

Early Monday, it showed. Very early. The earliest. The Redskins scored on their first possession, if only a field goal. And before the Eagles’ offense could run four plays, it already had four penalties, including one when a dozen of them were caught in a huddle limited to 11. Their first possession ended on an interception on second down. Their other two firstquarter efforts were three-down strikeouts.

If they were that team that so many were insisting — the one that was doing all that winning, the one that had won in a national TV game the other Thursday, 2823, in Charlotte — they were not showing it in their second primetime game.

Could all the slaps on their backs during that sabbatical have stung? And wasn’t Pederson halfwarning about that all along?

“It’s about doing the little things now, meaning rest and hydration and extra study, or extra conditioning, things that sometimes you lose sight of in all the wins and the success that a team has had,” he’d said. “Again, it falls back on my shoulders to make sure that the guys are doing those things at this time of the year.”

Clearly, Pederson did that, for before halftime, the Eagles were not only in control of the football game, but had shown they had not forgotten how to re-create a baseball scene as part of their end-zone, touchdown-celebration choreography. That’s what happened after Wentz hurled a 64-yard touchdown pass in stride to a sprinting Mack Hollins, pushing the Birds into a 10-10 second-quarter tie and giving the Redskins a jolting reminder that they were inept the last time they faced the Eagles too.

By the second half, the ring rust and the crisis had cleared. The Eagles would take such a lead in the NFC East that, were it baseball, the printed standings wouldn’t be complete without a magic-number entry.

At some point in any season, even the good teams will sputter. The NFL, with that mission statement of balance, always wins that one. But on a night when the Eagles could have been exposed as something less than great, they won a challenging, second-timearound division game. With that, they not only kept a certain Super Bowl glow, but increased it by a few watts. Only the injury losses of Jordan Hicks and Jason Peters, two of their most valuable players, one offense, one on defense, could provide a hint of a cloud.

“I talk a lot with the team about ownership,” Pederson said. “This is that time of year. We’re getting in that stretch of games, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, where teams begin to separate themselves.

“We can’t have any letdowns or setbacks. We’ve got to just be fullsteam ahead.”

They’d won status as contenders, but 11 days would be a long time to lug around that designation. Once they did, though, the Eagles would be certain to carry it around for a whole lot longer.

To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery