Doug Pederson keeps Eagles methodical and predictable | David Murphy

This was a dangerous game, and Doug Pederson made sure his players knew it. In the week leading up to their tilt against the winless 49ers on Sunday afternoon, the Eagles head coach went to great lengths to emphasize to his team the need to maintain focus, at one point plastering the NovaCare Complex with statistics showing just how often over the years a first-place team like the Eagles has stumbled in a matchup like the one they were facing.

"We kind of had that mentality all week," safety Rodney McLeod said. "A 'faceless opponent,' as he called it."

What the Eagles did in beating the 49ers, 33-10, is what they've done without exclusion since Pederson took over as head coach before last season. They faced an inferior team in a game the odds said they should win,  and they beat that team handily. That might not sound like the kind of thing to engrave on a trophy, but take a couple of glances around the National Football League and you'll see that the elite teams more often define themselves by the losses they avoid rather than the victories they achieve.

Two hours north of Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, the Falcons were flirting with a second disastrous loss in three weeks (the first one coming at the hands of a Dolphins team last seen losing, 40-0, to the Ravens on Thursday night). The Steelers, who faced the Lions on Sunday night, already have losses to the Bears and Jaguars on their record. The Rams have a home loss to the Redskins, the Cowboys that 42-17 stinker against the Broncos, the Panthers a 17-3 debacle against the Bears.

Throughout the league, only the Chiefs and the Patriots and the Eagles have managed to differentiate themselves from the any-given-Sunday crowd, beating the teams they are supposed to beat, competing against the ones who rank above average. That's not a scientific assessment, of course. The inclusion of the Patriots might be a stretch, given the struggles they've overcome in some of their wins. The Cowboys might argue that the Eagles have faced just one opponent that compares in quality to their losses to the Broncos, Rams and Packers. Whatever the case, the Eagles will have plenty of opportunities to solidify their case over their next five games, which include matchups against the Broncos (next week), Cowboys (Nov. 19), Seahawks (Dec. 3), and Rams (Dec. 10). If you were comparing them to the quality of opponents the Eagles faced thus far, those four teams might rank No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5, with only the Chiefs ahead. (You could certainly make a case for the Panthers being ahead of the Broncos.)

But none of that takes anything away from what they've managed to accomplish over the first eight weeks of this season. If anything, it underscores it. Stretches of the schedule like the one the Eagles are about to face are the reason it is so important for a team to take care of business against inferior opponents. Last year, they did it against the Browns and the Bears. This year, they've done it against the Chargers, the Giants, the Cardinals and, now, the 49ers.

"It's things that we talk about during the week," Pederson said, "that we can't have any letdowns."

There were a number of reasons Sunday's win could have been more of a slog than it was, the Eagles a two-touchdown favorite with their prove-it game against the Broncos looming the following week and the bye week beyond that. They were playing their first full game without their Hall of Fame left tackle, and doing so in a steady rain. Maybe not the kind of factors that would excuse a flight to Vegas and a healthy bet on the Niners. It was just one of those situations where a team that isn't as good as its record often has a more difficult time than the odds would indicate.

Indeed, there were moments in the first half when you could feel the danger lurking, the 49ers blitzing Wentz repeatedly, sacking him three times, knocking him hard to the turf on numerous other occasions. In the end, though, the Niners offered a stirring reminder of just how far the Eagles have come since Pederson arrived.

These were two teams that, ostensibly, began a rebuilding project at the same time, the Niners drafting six spots closer to the top of the 2016 draft than the Eagles, whose decision to push all of their chips in to draft Wentz looked particularly brilliant during the four-quarter fiasco that was the C.J. Beathard Experience on Sunday afternoon. When he wasn't noodle-arming an out route to a receiver in the vicinity of Jalen Mills (result: pick-six), Beathard was throwing so far above, behind or in front of his targets that, on multiple occasions, all they could do was turn and drop their arms to their sides and watch the football sail into a sideline crowd of assistant coaches or medical personnel.

Regardless of how good Niners defensive tackle DeForest Buckner turns out to be, trading up to draft a quarterback who turns out to be as good as Wentz is the better move. Sunday was Exhibit A.

Still, Wentz isn't the only reason the Eagles have methodically handled their business in recent weeks. It's getting harder and harder to argue that this is something other than a well-coached football team led by a play-caller with a real knack for diagnosing a defense. Whatever Pederson's message, each week it seems to be received.

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