The Eagles stood in the visiting locker room on Sunday with just about every reason to be happy.
They had just beaten the Cowboys to win in Dallas for the first time since 2017, doing so in dominant fashion with a 34-6 rout that brought them to five straight victories and into first in the NFC East.
Their defense forced five turnovers, held Dallas to an unflinching 146 yards of total offense, and for the third time in the past five weeks, didn't allow a single touchdown, all while Jalen Hurts shrugged off two first-half turnovers himself to throw for 202 yards and combine for four scores both through the air and on the ground.
It was a total thrashing, albeit against a heavily injured and crumbling rival, but still in maybe their best performance of 2024 yet.
The Eagles had just about every reason to be happy, and they were to some extent as they left the field at AT&T Stadium, but they know there's still plenty of work to be done, in a short week no less, and with the upstart Washington Commanders on deck for Thursday night back at home in what will be a fight for the top of the division.
"There are a lot of positive things going on right now," said running back Saquon Barkley, who ran for 66 yards in Sunday's win. "And the beauty is that we still haven't scratched the surface. That's kind of the scary thing."
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"The work is not done until we're holding that trophy," said veteran pass rusher Brandon Graham, who was credited for half a sack in Sunday's defensive lockdown of Dallas. "I don't want nobody to get satisfied because it's cool that we won in a big way. I don't take it from you. We gotta enjoy it, but when we're holding that trophy, that's when it's like 'Alright, the work is done and now we can go celebrate.'"
They know they're not there yet – hardly – and that the remaining road ahead won't get any easier either.
But at the very least, the outlook for the team appears far better than it did a month ago, when it took a bumpy 2-2 record into the early-October bye with a myriad of issues plaguing both sides of the ball – lethargic starts, disjointed playcalling, a turnover-prone Hurts, a near non-existent pass rush, and a secondary that was getting picked apart, you name it.
Some of those issues still persist, but the results are the results. The Eagles have scored and taken the ball away at a much higher clip since returning from the break, working up to a plus-72 point differential that's fourth in the NFL; Hurts has taken significantly better care of the football, having not turned it over since the bye up until Sunday, and the offense leaned back on the run, with Barkley's performance heavily rewarding them for it; while Vic Fangio's defense redefined itself through resurgent linebacker play from Nakobe Dean and Zack Baun, along with what's since become tighter pass coverage sparked by rookie DBs Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean.
With each passing game, with each passing win, they're looking more and more like a contender out of the NFC, even if that belief, externally, originally wasn't there – 'externally' being the keyword for Barkley.
"Panic outside of the locker room...it was from outside the locker room, it wasn't in here," Barkley said of the Eagles' initial struggles to 2024. "We had no panic. We kind of treated it like the preseason games, to be honest. That was kind of the mindset. It was 'Alright, we're done with preseason. Now, let's go get things shaking.'"
And look, the latter part of Barkley's point might fold back into criticism toward the Eagles never playing the starters in the preseason under head coach Nick Sirianni's tenure anymore. But at this rate, that's an argument to be had next summer – inevitably.
The Eagles of here and now though are in the thick of this 2024 season, and they look like they've finally hit their stride.
They have a lot of reasons to be happy right now, but Washington is coming up quick with control of the division on the line.
There's still work to do.
"We're on a pretty good streak right now," Barkley said. "2-0 in the division and we gotta look forward to trying to go 3-0 against a – I know they lost this week – but a hot Washington team."
They'll push to make it so Thursday night at the Linc.
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