Running a loose ship this time

It's a word you wouldn't think to associate with a team that has lost three straight NFC title games. It's a word you wouldn't think to associate with a team whose coach described himself as "blase" at one point yesterday, a coach who presents himself to his public as professorial and somewhat aloof.

But when Andy Reid said again yesterday, as he said earlier in the week that "there are things you learn" from those three losses in the NFC Championship Game, you have to believe one of them is the importance of atty-tude in this game.

Remember? Todd Pinkston said after last season's loss to Carolina that maybe there was a lack of focus, that the performance was flat. From training camp this season, Brian Dawkins has spoken about living for the moment and enjoying the moment, saying repeatedly - as he did again yesterday - that he allowed himself to be swallowed by the pressure of the last two championship games against Tampa Bay and Carolina.

"I realized I was way too tight," Dawkins said during the final news conferences for both teams at the Center City Marriott. "Way too tight. To be able to perform at a high level, you can't be wound up. That's how I was.

"I'm pretty sure some of the other guys were, too. "

Minutes before, in preceding his defensive captain to the podium, Reid spoke effusively about the characters in this season's locker room affecting the character of his team. Speaking of Terrell Owens, whose training-camp resistance to wearing shorts over workout tights became a seasonlong joke between coach and player, he said: "T.O. keeps things loose. He and Donovan, I've said this from the beginning, are a great pair together.

"And with Hugh mixed in there, it's hard to be uptight around them. "

It's interesting that he mentioned Hugh Douglas in this mix, for he often has been a forgotten man this season. It's interesting, too, that, given the hard feelings when Douglas left this team to play for Jacksonville, he would now be mentioned as a factor in this team's makeup.

Here's what is also interesting. If the Eagles win tomorrow, they will do it because of their newfound capability to stop the run - a capability brought about by the reinstallation of another prodigal son, Jeremiah Trotter.

Trotter's free-agent departure from this team after the first NFC Championship Game loss was even more contentious than Douglas'. It was Jim Johnson's defensive scheme that made him look so good, it was argued, that made him a Pro Bowl player.

While Trotter's struggles playing for Washington seemed to give this credence - as well as his re-emergence as a Pro Bowl player this season with the Eagles - it also appears true that Trotter's abilities make Johnson's scheme more complete. Since he left, the Eagles have struggled to stop the run, and continued to struggle this season until he was reinserted into the starting lineup after that run-hemorrhaging loss to Pittsburgh.

Like Owens, McNabb, and Douglas, Trotter gushes with personality, and swagger. Such phrase as "Bring the children to Daddy" - a reference to the strategy of herding running backs toward the middle of the field - often were heard bellowing through the locker room after the Eagles solved their run-stopping woes in the latter part of the season.

"You're seeing guys just having fun," McNabb said when it was his turn at the podium. "Smiling, joking when it's their turn to go out on defense or offense. Guys are just out there making plays and laughing and joking while they are doing it.

"That's a good sign. "

A good sign on many levels, not the least of which is the effect all this has on McNabb. Once criticized for the peaks and valleys of his game, McNabb has been a model of consistency this season. One barometer: He was the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for more than 30 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions.

In past title games, particularly last season, McNabb said yesterday, he was "trying to do too much. "

"Now, guys realize you just have to be yourself," he said. "The person next to you is depending on you to be the player that they have seen in the 16-week season . . . You don't have to do anything extra. "

Of course, someone always does in these games. Ricky Manning Jr. picked off as many passes in last year's game as he did all season. Joe Jurevicius caught a 71-yard pass the year before to set up the Buccaneers' first TD.

Each came as a result of many players doing what they had done all season long. Each came despite an imposing past. Carolina lost to the Eagles during the regular season. Tampa Bay was all but laughed at until that championship game 2 years ago, with a losing record against the Birds, and in cold weather.

The excuses will be there for the Eagles tomorrow. The winds and weather should hamper a pass-oriented team. Jon Runyan has a bum knee. T.O. will not be on the field.

"I don't see us going into the tank," Dawkins said. "I don't see us tight coming into this game. We have enough guys in the locker room, especially with Hugh coming back, to not let that happen again."