These Eagles can still win everything, and they’re going to win the NFC East

The quarterback’s still shaky. The defense remains suspect. The coaching ... well, let’s just say Sean Desai isn’t the only problem.

Having lost three games in a row, and having watched the Cowboys lose Sunday in Miami, and just before the 49ers lost at home to the Ravens on Monday night, the Eagles on Christmas played desperate, heroic, stupid football. They’ll talk about how a win is a win is a win, and it’s true.

The Eagles looked almost as bad in this win as they did in the three losses that preceded it, but they’re so gifted that they beat a bad Giants team anyway, 33-25.

“This is a huge stepping-stone for us,” said left tackle Jordan Mailata.

“Feels good, right?” said coach Nick Sirianni, who oversaw two blowout losses and a last-minute choke in the last three weeks.

“I think we’re hungry,” said quarterback Jalen Hurts. “I think we’re motivated.”

I think they’re motivated, too. I also think they’re 11-4, on the way to 13-4. Further, if they get healthy and a little lucky, I think they’re on their way to Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII. The Birds are the No. 2 seed today, but even the No. 1 seed remains in play.

The Lions are 11-4 too, but they’re the No. 3 seed because the Eagles hold the tiebreaker over them. The Lions play the 10-5 Cowboys on Saturday, which might present a complicated conflict for Eagles fans.

The Niners are 11-4 and hold the tiebreaker over the Eagles, but MVP candidate Brock Purdy threw four interceptions Monday and re-injured his throwing shoulder. The 49ers play at Washington next week, and while Washington is a disaster, any team that has lost to the Browns and Vikings on the road as the Niners have done can lose at Washington, especially if their quarterback is Sam Darnold. The 49ers then host the Rams in their finale, and the Rams have won five of six and currently hold the No. 6 seed.

Meanwhile, the Eagles host the Cardinals on Sunday then finish at the Giants. Even if they continue to commit miscues that have become this season’s chief characteristic, there’s no reason the Eagles can’t earn the top seed and the NFC’s only bye. And they’d deserve it. Why not? After all, they were too good to lose on Christmas night.

Not that they didn’t try to lose.

They had a 17-point halftime lead but fumbled away the second-half kickoff when teammates ran into each other. Later, Hurts threw a pick-six and committed a horse-collar tackle as the interceptor reached the end zone. Hurts had cost the Eagles a chance at a second-quarter TD when, with 10 seconds left and with no timeouts, he ran the ball and stayed inbounds instead of throwing it away. The Eagles gave up a 69-yard bomb in the fourth quarter when they should have been forcing clock-eroding, dink-and-dunk football.

Still, they won. Still, they retained first place in the NFC East. Still, they look like a lock to host at least one playoff game.

Such are the Giants: so bad, at halftime they benched Tommy “Cutlets” DeVito for Tyrod “Cube Steak” Taylor. The Eagles face the Arizona Cardinals here next, then the Giants again in the finale. Doesn’t 13-4 sound like a Super Bowl contender?

Such are the Eagles: so gifted that they tried to give the Giants a win, but too talented to complete the transaction.

They won without their two starting linebackers and their best cornerback. They won because their offense was resurrected: 465 total yards, 8-of-15 third downs, and all those points. To suggest that they can’t continue to improve seems fatalistic.

“It’s hard not to say that,” Hurts agreed.

If anything, Monday night’s Christmas contest determined only this: The Eagles have a real chance to return to the Super Bowl for a second straight year, and win it. This was Game 15. They’ve won 11 times. Winning matters.

» READ MORE: Ho, Ho, Ho: What the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers should want for a Merry Christmas

They’re not perfect. Hurts is still misreading defenses, throwing hospital balls — he almost got A.J. Brown’s ribs broken — making poor decisions, and seems weirdly blind to blitzes that don’t come from his blind side.

The defensive line remains relatively toothless since Thanksgiving. Fletcher Cox, Jalen Carter, Josh Sweat, and Jordan Davis still have lockers, but none has been seen much on the field.

Matt Patricia replaced Desai last week but, facing talentless backups like DeVito and Taylor this week and Drew Lock in Seattle a week before, his defense did not come close to domination. It won’t take domination.

And the Sirianni/Brian Johnson offensive brain trust still isn’t fooling anybody with their bubble screens and QB runs.

Look at the final score. The Eagles won, 33-25. Hurts threw for 301 yards and a touchdown. The defense allowed just 17 points.

Monday night was a success. Imperfect, but success.

Carter took an offside penalty on a punt because he didn’t get off the field. Hurts stayed inbounds with 10 seconds left in the first half and no timeouts left, which was dumb, and would have cost them a field-goal try — if the Giants hadn’t been even dumber and committed a delay-of-game penalty. “I made a mistake,” Hurts explained. Olamide Zaccheaus then ran into Boston Scott and forced Scott to lose a fumble on the kickoff return to start the third quarter.

» READ MORE: ‘Clown show’: NFL types chime in on Eagles’ bizarre dysfunction and decline under Nick Sirianni

After the Eagles seemed to have salted the game away with a fourth-quarter field goal for a 30-18 lead, two plays later Reed Blankenship gave up a 69-yard touchdown to Darius Slayton. Slayton simply ran past Blankenship, who is a safety, and whose job it is to never let any receiver run past him — especially when his team’s holding a 12-point lead. With 63 seconds to play, an eight-point lead, against an opponent with no timeouts left, Haason Reddick was charged with roughing the passer deep in Giants territory, giving life to a club that was dead in the water.

These are losing plays.

The Eagles have too many great players. They made just enough winning plays to not lose.

The most significant was the third-and-20 conversion, Hurts to Brown, that set up their touchdown early in the fourth quarter. There were so many others, from start to finish.

Shaquille Leonard blew up Saquon Barkley for a 1-yard loss to force third-and-long, then three-and-out, on the Giants’ first possession. Almost immediately, Britain Covey delivered a career-best, 54-yard punt return that eventually set up Hurts’ 15th rushing touchdown of the season, a Tush Push formality and the NFL single-season record.

On their second possession, Hurts came up with a highlight play: He batted down a bad shotgun snap, picked it up, scrambled away from defenders, and, as his arm was hit, delivered a duck 9 yards for a first down to Grant Calcaterra, his first catch of the year.

Hurts found DeVonta Smith for a 36-yard touchdown catch-and-run — a play made possible on the back end because Zaccheaus blocked Adoree’ Jackson for a full four seconds and, finally, onto his back in the end zone.

Late in the first half, on consecutive plays, Reddick pressured DeVito and Leonard sacked him to force a Giants punt. Reddick later dropped Barkley for a 4-yard, fourth-down loss to end the Giants’ last possession of the first half, which turned out to be the end of “Tommy Cutlets.”

Taylor replaced him to start the second half.

And almost won the game.

Almost.