The Eagles remain top team in NFC, not the surging 49ers or the Cowboys

Who are these Eagles? We’ll know better after the Packers visit Sunday night, and better still when the Titans come to town seven days later, but we probably won’t know defintively until they spend Christmas Eve at Dallas.

What we do know today, however, is that there is no better team in the NFC.

Not San Francisco. Certainly not the Vikings or Giants, whom, in a span of four days, the flawed but frisky Cowboys unmasked as the frauds they are.

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The only reason this is remotely arguable is because the Eagles lost to the Commanders two games ago after a violent, intentional facemask that has knocked tight end Dallas Goedert out of the lineup. It also caused a fumble that immediately was converted into three points. It was a clearly missed call that drew no flag but cost the offender a $10,609 fine.

With their undefeated season gone and their Pro Bowl-caliber tight end absent for at least month, the Eagles still won at Indianapolis. One underappreciated aspect of that game: The Colts anticipated every move of former Colts assistants Nick Sirianni, the Eagles’ head coach; Shane Steichen, the Eagles’ offensive coordinator; and Jonathan Gannon, the Eagles’ defensive coordinator. All coached for Indy as recently as 2020.

Goedert’s shoulder injury certainly brings the 9-1 Eagles back to the pack, but it doesn’t mean the 49ers have overtaken them. The Niners are just 6-4, with no signature win. They beat a flailing Rams team twice and a mediocre Chargers team, and they won on Monday night in Mexico City over the Cardinals, who started Colt McCoy in place of injured star Kyler Murray. They’re much better having added Christian McCaffrey via trade last month, but the Chiefs still handled them easily, and they struggled to beat the Chargers. They’re good, in an annoying sort of way, but they’re not elite.

The Eagles, meanwhile, remain elite.

Evidence: Their offensive line played its worst game of the season at Indianapolis, and they still won. So many penalties. So many blown assignments. So much of the win depended on Jalen Hurts’ escaping, improvising, and being as good as he’s even been, and they still won — against a team motivated by a coaching change, coming off a win, and playing at home.

This is not a team built on Hurts-to-Goedert alone.

It’s a team built on the best offensive line in football. It’s a team built on an excellent secondary. It’s built on a very good defensive line; two top-flight receivers in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith; and an excellent featured back in Miles Sanders, who touched the ball fewer than 15 times on average in the last six games, which includes a bye week. He should be fresh.

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It can be argued that all of these positional groupings are more superior to their peers than Hurts is. That’s no slight to Hurts. He’s playing as well as he can play. Because he is doing so, the Eagles continue to win.

But that doesn’t mean the other units aren’t playing at an even higher level. Nine-win teams 11 weeks in generally are complete and accomplished.

This team has the No. 2 overall defense in the NFL — the 49ers are No. 1 — and leads the league with 21 takeaways. If Gannon and Fletcher Cox weren’t so unpopular, there would be daily stories comparing this defense to Buddy Ryan’s and Jim Johnson’s.

There’s a real chance that the Cowboys, not the Niners, have a stronger claim as the NFC’s best. Dallas has an excellent defense. The offense is cooking after the injury-delayed reunion of Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard, and CeeDee Lamb, as well as the possible resurrection of Michael Gallup.

That’s why the Christmas Eve matchup matters so much, assuming Prescott stops throwing dumb interceptions; he has five in the last four games. Hurts has three all season.

The Eagles’ ace in the hole: bumbling Cowboys coach Mike “The Equalizer” McCarthy. And no, not “Equalizer” in the Queen Latifah sense.

With no 49ers on their schedule, and with the Giants fumbling toward their inevitable mediocrity — they’re 7-4 but losers of three of their last four — the Birds’ best barometer remains five weeks away. By then, both Goedert and massive run-stopping rookie defensive tackle Jordan Davis (ankle) could be back.

But you’ve got to get there, right? They’ll face Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley and Justin Fields before then, not to mention their Sunday night gimme.

After all, if the Eagles can’t beat Ayn Rand disciple Aaron Rodgers, who arrives with a broken thumb and broken spirit — 39 in two weeks, he has been a big reason the Pack is 4-7 — then they deserve all the heat they’ll get.