With Garcia at the helm, Eagles control playoff destiny

	After losing his first start replacing Donovan McNabb, Jeff Garcia has reeled off three straight victories for the Eagles. Jim O'Connor/US PRESSWIRE
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Truth be known, Jeff Garcia didn't see this coming either.

"I really didn't,'' said the re-born Eagles quarterback Sunday evening, his honesty echoing what everyone else was thinking in the cramped interview room adjacent to the visitors locker room in Giants Stadium. "I was starting to lose faith in football, and in having fun again. A year ago, I was really not thinking this could happen again for me. But it's starting to come for us.''

Laugh if you must, but Garcia and the rest of the Philadelphia Eagles have as much going for themselves right now as anybody in that morass of mediocrity known as the there-for-the-taking NFC. Is anyone else out there thinking what I'm thinking, that last year at this time there was another team from the other end of Pennsylvania getting hot at just the right time?

I'm not sure I believe the Eagles could be this year's Steelers, but then again, last year at this time I didn't believe the Steelers could be last year's Steelers. So there's that.

And this much I do know: Somebody has to win the NFC this season and represent the sagging conference's hopes in Super Bowl XLI in Miami. It sounds kind of silly to say it could be the surging Eagles, who three weeks ago were 5-6 and floundering without their franchise quarterback, Donovan McNabb, but it's not as crazy as you think in the wake of Philly's 36-22 see-saw road win over the dazed and confused New York Giants (7-7).

Consider this: With two weeks remaining in the regular season, the Eagles (8-6) could still win the NFC East, earn themselves one of the conference's two wild card berths, or miss the postseason entirely. They'll play for the division lead Christmas Day at Dallas (9-5), and even if they lose that one, they'd clinch a playoff berth with a Week 17 win at home against struggling Atlanta. If not sooner, depending on which NFC contenders continue to implode in Week 16.

If there's a poster child for this most unexpected Eagles renaissance, it's Garcia, the 36-year-old backup quarterback whose two lost seasons (2004 in Cleveland, 2005 in Detroit) all but dropped him off the NFL radar screen. The Eagles lost his first start after he replaced the injured McNabb, at the Colts, but he's 3-0 since then, with wins over the Panthers, Redskins and Giants, the past two within the division on the road.

Garcia has thrown for nine touchdowns and just one interception in his four starts, with no score being bigger than his laser-like 19-yard strike to Eagles receiver Reggie Brown on Sunday, which put Philly ahead to stay with just 2:57 remaining. It was the kind of throw Garcia used to be known for in San Francisco, when he was going to Pro Bowls and leading the 49ers into the playoffs. And it was a play that made the Eagles very thankful they went out and got themselves a veteran insurance policy behind McNabb last offseason.

"We really suffered last year when Donovan went down,'' said Eagles owner Jeff Lurie, remembering the team's Mike McMahon era after McNabb was lost for the season in early November with a sports hernia. "That's when we made a decision as an organization to go out and get a savvy veteran behind Donovan, and we actually have two in Jeff and A.J. Feeley.