The Eagles will win 15 games but, alas, they won’t make it back to the Super Bowl. Thanks, Dallas.

To begin with, the Eagles start 9-0.

Yes, the team that played the maximum number of weeks last season will run the table through their bye week. The club with 30-somethings starting at center, defensive end, defensive tackle, right tackle, and both cornerback spots will be the NFL’s top team long past Halloween. Age won’t stop it, two new coordinators won’t stop it, and lord knows Ron Rivera and Mike McCarthy won’t stop it, even though Rivera gets two chances.

Maybe that sounds crazy. Nine-and-oh is pretty rare; NFL and/or AFL teams have won their first nine games just 29 times since the Packers did it first in 1929. Then again, it’s happened three times in the last decade, so maybe not that rare. Matter of fact, it should have happened four times, but the officials missed an obvious facemask penalty on the Commanders that injured tight end Dallas Goedert and caused a crucial fumble.

Yes, it was these Eagles who came closest most recently. They went 8-0 last season, or had you forgotten? They’re a better ballclub this season. Why not 9-0?

Where’s the loss?

The opener at New England on Sunday? On Tom Brady Day? They’re going to canonize the GOAT at a home opener that might be the last for the quarterback who succeeded him and the coach who can’t win without him? Mac Jones and Bill Belichick will be tighter than Brady’s 46-year-old face after a Botox injection.

A short-week Thursday Night Football for Game 2? The Birds might score 50 against that Vikings defense.

The Eagles then get a 10-day break before they travel to overmatched Tampa, and they get to play the Rivera’s chronically mismanaged Commanders twice in their first eight games — games 4 and 8.

The Rams in Game 5? It will be played in L.A., but, like every other Eagles game in La-La Land, it’ll be a sea of green. By the time they visit the Jets for Game 6, Aaron Rodgers will be looking forward to his next, final darkness retreat.

The Dolphins could be 1-5, and, by Game 7, might have replaced concussion-indifferent coach Mike McDaniel with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. Fins In Disarray!

Riding all that momentum, the Eagles face Dallas in Game 9, the last game before their bye. The Cowboys will be a week removed from their bye, and they should be undefeated, too, and it will be the Sunday evening game, and McCarthy & Co. will choke.

This time.

So, 9-0.

Disagree? OK. Let’s say the only bet you’re allowed to make until the bye week is $100 of your own money, against the Eagles, in any of the first nine games. You making that bet?

Didn’t think so.

And we’re just getting started.

The only regular-season game that the Birds should fear is at Kansas City, on Monday Night Football, coming off the bye. Andy Reid is 28-4 after a bye, including playoffs. The last time he got an extra week before facing the Eagles, he beat them in Super Bowl LVII, and he did it with a one-legged quarterback. Of course, the only way playing Patrick Mahomes that’s fair is if he’s on one leg, or maybe if he has a hand tied behind his back.

The Chiefs should be 9-0, too. This one will be hyped, and it will be tough, but don’t forsake hope: After all, Nick Sirianni is 3-0 after his bye weeks.

Another short week, and the Bills visit ... but their visit comes at a time when they should be most vulnerable. In the weeks preceding this game the Bills will have played (and lost) in Cincinnati; faced Sean Payton’s revitalized Denver team on Monday Night Football; and will have just hosted the Jets’ tough defense. They’ll also be looking ahead to their bye week, after which they play in Kansas City, then host the Cowboys. This is a win.

Similarly, the 49ers’ visit for Game 12 comes at a weird time for San Francisco. They play in Seattle on Thursday Night Football in the game that precedes their trip to Philly, get 10 days off, play the Birds, then fly back to the Bay to play the Seahawks again, as if caught in a weird, intradivisional time loop. That’s two crucial NFC West games in three weeks at a crucial time of year. If ever a team could look ahead past a one-loss, defending conference champion — if ever facing the best team in the conference could be a trap game — this is the circumstance.

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The Eagles will then lose in Dallas, for the sixth consecutive year, this time on Sunday Night Football. They just will.

Still, that leaves them at 13-2, still tied atop the NFC, and in good shape. A week later, the Cowboys will lose on a frigid December evening in Buffalo while the Eagles dismantle the Seahawks 3,000 miles away, and the Birds will be alone on top again. They will remain there to end the season, as they sandwich a win over the Cardinals with home-and-home wins over the Giants.

They’ll need those wins to secure their bye, which will help, but won’t be enough. Here’s where the 30-something factors factor in.

In a perfect world — perfect for both fan bases, perfect for networks, and, most importantly, perfect for columnists — Dallas, as the top wild-card seed at No. 5, will beat the No. 4 seed; say, for argument’s sake, the Bears, but really, whatever team comes out of the barren NFC North.

There’s a good chance that another wild card — say, the Seahawks or Lions — wins their wild-card game, too. That lower wild-card seed would then play the Eagles, leaving the Cowboys to play the 49ers, or Saints, or whoever. The Eagles win. The Cowboys win. The Cowboys face the Eagles in Philadelphia with the Super Bowl on the line.

And that is when — outdoors, in their 19th game of the season, in their 39th game in the past two seasons — that’s when the Eagles’ old guys will finally play old.

Dallas wins.

Alas.