Eagles fans, don't get too excited

IT COMES DOWN to the way you want to approach the final six games of the Eagles' season.

If you want to get maximum enjoyment, don't think too much about any possible implications of the Eagles' 17-10 win over the New York Giants on Sunday night.

Don't think about how it put one puff of breath through the Birds' life-support system.

Simply enjoy it as a nice victory over a hated rival that gets you to Sunday's game against the New England Patriots.

Honestly, doing anything else simply would set yourself up for disappointment.

If you begin to consider that, at 4-6, the Eagles are only two games behind the Dallas Cowboys and the Giants in the NFC East, you're flirting with danger.

If you allow yourself to think ahead about a win over the Patriots - and suddenly the Birds have winnable games at Seattle and Miami and could get over .500 - you are teetering on the edge.

If you allow yourself to dream that the Eagles can build on the victory over the Giants, finish the season on seven-game winning streak and win the NFC East, you have dived into the deep end of a half-full glass.

You can't look ahead. The Eagles have far too much to do in far too few games for there to be a realistic hope that this season can be salvaged.

I played taps for them after their pathetic loss to the Arizona Cardinals 2 weeks ago. A win over the Giants won't convince me that this team has finally pulled it together and is ready to show its true quality.

Nope, we already went down that road when victories over the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys were followed by losses at home to Chicago and Arizona.

For this Eagles squad to have even a remote chance to pull off a miracle, it would have to show the one thing it has not shown the entire season - consistency.

Tease me once, shame on the Eagles. Tease me twice, shame on me for believing in the Eagles.

There's a sledgehammer waiting to whack you in the gut if you dare look beyond the next game when thinking about this team.

The Birds know everything is about only what is directly in front of them.

"We can't do that right now," Eagles coach Andy Reid said of looking back at what could have been or looking ahead to what still is possible. "You have to take it one game at a time.

"There's not enough time or energy to worry about all that stuff. You worry about what you can control, and that's getting ready to play the New England Patriots. If you get into all that other stuff, you will drive yourself crazy."

Reid is right.

If Eagles fans think too hard about all the fourth-quarter leads they blew this season, they'll develop a twitch.

If Eagles fans contemplate what it means to have quarterback Michael Vick going from playing like an MVP candidate to looking as lost as ever since signing his big contract extension, they'll break out in hives.

By the way, was that really Vince Young engineering that 18-play, 8-minute, 51-second drive in the fourth quarter that resulted in the winning touchdown pass to Riley Cooper?

When was the last time Vick led the Eagles on a fourth-quarter drive to victory? Just asking.

If Eagles fans start rationalizing that this team should be no worse than 8-2 in a division in which 6-4 sets the standard, well, you know.

"I never go there," Reid said of hindsight. "I've already knocked out [the Giants] game. We've looked at it and reviewed it.

"Now I'm on to the Patriots. By the time I get in here, I'm well into the next team. There's no time to do that, nor does that help you win. You concentrate on the things that can help you win."

And if you're an Eagles fan who wants to maximize enjoyment of the rest of the season, you'll adopt the "one-game-at-a-time" mantra.

The Eagles have six games left. Remarkably, by some quirk of fate - actually, because the NFC East isn't all that good - they still have a slim chance at making the playoffs.

But that's not something to think about right now. It's better just to enjoy the upcoming week and then see whether it carries you to the next one.

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