In a big game, Eagles come up huge

ARLINGTON, Texas - The Eagles didn't win anything during their Thanksgiving showdown with the divisional rival Dallas Cowboys aside from one football game, but it certainly felt like a lot more.

From start to finish, the Eagles dominated the Cowboys and took control of first place in the NFC East with a 33-10 win. If there were doubts about the team's ability to go on the road and beat a good opponent - doubts that were inflamed two weeks ago in Green Bay - they were calmed a bit by the casual way Dallas was dispatched.

"You never get a perfect game," running back LeSean McCoy said, "but you want something close."

This one was pretty close to that. On offense, behind a line that seems finally settled, McCoy rushed for more than 100 yards for the second consecutive game and quarterback Mark Sanchez almost flawlessly guided the team to 464 net yards. On defense, the line sacked quarterback Tony Romo four times, intercepted him twice, and held NFL rushing leader DeMarco Murray 50 yards below his season average.

It was the Eagles' most impressive performance of the year and comes at a time when the playoff race is taking shape. As far as the NFC East, with the Eagles having swept their first meetings with each of the other three teams in the division, the race is now theirs to lose. They hold a one-game lead over the Cowboys with four games to play, and unless there are some unexpected outcomes, they also will hold the division tiebreaker against Dallas. Nothing is decided yet and, yes, it was just one football game, but it was a big one.

Was it a statement game for the Eagles?

"We're not into statements," coach Chip Kelly said. "We're into winning football games. We've given ourselves an opportunity to play meaningful football games. The message after the Green Bay game was we have to flush it and move on. That's the same message after this game. We've got to flush it and move on. I don't think you'll see any of our guys throwing their arms out of the socket patting themselves on the back."

Kelly doesn't pat himself on the back, either, but his dedication to sports science and the Eagles conditioning program, to playing at a pace much quicker than most teams in the NFL, all of that paid a huge dividend on Thursday.

From the opening kickoff, the Eagles were the fresher team on the field. Both teams were operating just four days after their last games, but the Eagles looked in better shape to handle it.

"Not just the second half," one player said. "They were gassed from the first quarter."

After a game like this one, the tendency is to get carried away with postseason expectations. So let's get that out of the way. For the first time this season, the Eagles put together a complete game against a good team, and for the first time, there's a legitimate reason to think that level of play could take them on a long ride in the playoffs.

"It's just one good day. That's how we look at it," cornerback Nolan Carroll said. "We can't get complacent here because we've got a tough little stretch coming up with Seattle and then Dallas again. They're going to remember this game, and it's going to sit bad with them. We have to keep this same attitude."

If there was one part of the game that served as a true highlight, it was the play of the offensive line in both springing McCoy and protecting Sanchez. The Eagles have had seven starting lineups along the line because of injuries, but they have put the same one together for the last two weeks, and the line was very good in both games.

"The whole thing felt like last year," said McCoy, who led the NFL in rushing yards in 2013 behind a line that played well and stayed together.

For the Eagles to become a dangerous team in the postseason, they have to get a strong running game so that Sanchez merely has to manage the offense rather than put it on his back. Against the Cowboys, he spread his passes around, mostly on shorter, low-risk patterns, but two of those turned into big gainers when Jeremy Maclin and Jordan Matthews broke into the open field on catch-and-run opportunities.

The Eagles now get to rest up for a Dec. 7 game against the defending champion Seattle Seahawks. That's the benefit of playing on Thanksgiving. If you win, the short week becomes an advantage. The Eagles don't get that chance every year, but they rose to the challenge on Thursday.

"It's nice that we could allow everybody in Philadelphia to have a nice Thanksgiving today," linebacker Connor Barwin said. "I know it meant a lot to them, and I can go home and enjoy Thanksgiving, too, because we won the game."

Just a game. Just one game. Nothing more. That's what they all said, and maybe that's what they felt. It was the one they needed, though.

@bobfordsports