Eagles' Magic Number Drops To One, Thanks To Vikings' Upset Win Over Cowboys

Eagles' magic number drops to one, thanks to Vikings' upset win over Cowboys originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Eagles’ magic number dropped to one Sunday night when the Vikings upset the Cowboys.

Thanks to the Vikings’ 34-26 win over the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Sunday night, any combination of one Eagles win or one Cowboys loss the rest of the season will give the Eagles the NFC East.

The Eagles improved to 9-5 with their win over the Raiders, which lowered their magic number to two. The Cowboys fell to 6-7-1 with the loss to the Vikings.

With three games left, the Cowboys can’t get to 10 wins. And a win over Washington Saturday in Landover, Md., the Bills a week from Sunday in Orchard Park, N.Y. or Washington again the final weekend of the season at the Linc gets the Eagles to 10 wins.

So the Eagles can clinch as early as Saturday with a win over the Commanders or on Sunday if the Cowboys lose to the Chargers. 

The Cowboys have now lost two games in a row after a three-game winning streak. The Vikings, who came in 5-8, won in Dallas after losing four of their last five.

The Cowboys face the 9-4 Chargers at home and then the 4-10 Commanders and 2-12 Giants on the road.

If the Eagles do win the division, they’ll become the first team to win consecutive NFC East titles since the Eagles won four straight from 2001 through 2004 under Andy Reid. 

That would also make Nick Sirianni only the sixth coach in NFL history to take his first five teams to the playoffs. Paul Brown, Chuck Knox, John Robinson, Bill Cowher and John Harbaugh are the first five.

The Cowboys, 7-10 last year, need to win all three of their remaining games to avoid their first back-to-back losing seasons since 2001 and 2002 under Dave Campo.

One of the biggest plays of the game for the Vikings Sunday night was courtesy of a former Eagle.

The Vikings led 31-23 late in the fourth quarter when the Cowboys faced a 4th-and-7 on the Vikings’ 45. Dak Prescott completed a short pass to running back Malik Davis, who was stuffed one yard short of the 1st-down marker by Eric Wilson, who spent the 2021 season with the Eagles.