Eagles watched top foes for the No. 1 playoff seed win Sunday. It was a bad bye week.

The Eagles might have won on paper even while idle, but that didn’t happen.

At. All.

The Birds entered their bye week at 8-1, the best record in football. They look likely to secure the No. 1 overall seed for the second consecutive year, and the priceless bonus that comes with it: the only playoff bye in the conference.

Face it: The Eagles would not have reached last February’s Super Bowl without that bye. Not after the NFL’s second 17-game season. Not with a starting lineup full of thirty-somethings. Not with a quarterback who is always hurt, and was hurt again. All of those factors remain this year, the thirty-somethings are a year older, and the quarterback has a knee injury he keeps aggravating.

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Like last year, the bye this year is critical; maybe more so, since playing in Super Bowl LVII meant the Eagles had to work two more weeks than the rest of the NFC.

They’d have welcomed any help. They’re in their toughest stretch since Nick Sirianni was hired in 2021. It began when they beat the Cowboys before the bye. They resume their season with a visit to bye-master Andy Reid and his Chiefs on Monday Night Football, host the Bills and 49ers, then travel to Dallas and Seattle. The three latter teams all have a shot at the No. 1 seed.

They’ll hope to win them all, but, really, the Birds should be delighted if they win three of their next five games, and from here those wins come against the Bills, 49ers, and Seahawks. But they could lose four, or even five, depending on the health of the 49ers offense. Which is why Sunday’s games meant so much.

From their couches, the Eagles watched all four teams help themselves.

The Lions, at 6-2, stood closest to the Birds but also seemed least likely to win. They visited the Chargers, their third road game in four games. The Chargers had won two in a row and needed Sunday to finally go above .500 for the season, and, likely, to save coach Brandon Staley’s job. But they lost, 41-38; never touched eminently touchable quarterback Jared Goff; resurrected David Montgomery’s career — 12 runs, 116 yards — and put the Lions in a superb position.

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None of the Lions’ next five opponents has a record above .500. They finish Vikings-Cowboys-Vikings, but by then the 6-4 Vikings and the Miracle of Josh Dobbs will surely have collapsed. The Eagles might find themselves in the awkward position of rooting for the Cowboys in Week 17.

They certainly weren’t rooting for the then-5-3 Cowboys on Sunday, though Giants fans, eager to upgrade their roster, probably were. Last week, the ‘Pokes punched themselves in the face in Philly, but they went home and vented their frustrations all over the Giants. They led, 28-0, at halftime, 42-7 after three quarters, and had fourth-year undrafted running back Rico Dowdle cap things off with a fourth-quarter TD for a 49-17 final. They amassed 640 yards of offense, second-best in franchise history, because in 1966 they gained 652 yards against the Eagles. (No, Ed Rendell, you weren’t there; it was played in Dallas.)

This was the second week in a row the Cowboys gained more than 400 yards, which should cause the Eagles some consternation. Besides the Lions, the Cowboys face only one top-10 defense in the second half of their season, and that belongs to the 1-8 Panthers, football’s worst team.

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... than to beat a 49er, but the Jaguars didn’t come close. The Jags had won five in a row, and they were hosting a West Coast team in a 1 p.m. game (10 a.m. in California) and the Niners were ripe: They were 5-3 and had lost all three entering their bye week. They showed up refreshed and romped, 34-3.

Deebo Samuel, the NFL’s least-appreciated superstar, had missed the previous two games — three, really, since he’d suffered a hairline shoulder fracture on the first play of the loss in Cleveland. He returned Sunday. He touched the ball seven times, gained 59 yards, and scored a touchdown, but his intangible affect was palpable beyond his production. Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Brandon Aiyuk all got less attention. Brock Purdy proved again that he’s a lesser quarterback without his Weapon X.

If Kyler Murray’s successful return in Arizona was for real, then the 49ers just entered a stretch in which they face six viable opponents in seven weeks. (Yes, Murray makes Jonathan Gannon’s Cardinals viable.)

There are quirks.

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In two of those weeks they play the Seahawks, with the Eagles sandwiched between them. The Eagles could find themselves rooting for the 49ers in Seattle in Week 12 and the Seahawks at San Francisco in Week 14.

Of course, the Eagles won’t be rooting for the Seahawks at all in Week 15, when the Eagles visit Seattle, and they certainly weren’t rooting for them when the Commanders visited Sunday.

With two losses in their previous four games, including a 37-3 burial at the hands of the Ravens, the 5-3 Seahawks looked like a team that should be written off as a 2022 fluke; certainly, as the team least likely to worry the Eagles in their race to the top of the NFC. But, as quarterback Geno Smith quipped last year, they “ain’t write back, though.”

Still, it took a fourth-quarter field-goal drive for Geno & Co. to beat the Commanders, who at the Halloween trade deadline shipped out star defensive linemen Chase Young and Montez Sweat ... then beat the Patriots, which seemed to indicate the Commanders were experiencing a bit of addition by subtraction.

Alas, it only indicated that the Patriots stink and that 71-year-old Bill Belichick’s going to get fired, just like 61-year-old Commanders coach Ron Rivera, and, maybe, 72-year-old Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, whose remaining schedule might have six more losses on it. If the Seahawks miss the playoffs, then Carroll will have just one playoff win — against the Eagles after the 2019 season — in the past seven years.

He’s probably not thinking about the No. 1 seed. Right now, Carroll would probably be happy with No. 7.