Fifteen hours 'til kickoff

It's a sleepless Christmas Eve in Brooklyn, so I thought I'd check out what the "experts" were saying about tomorrow's showdown for the NFC East between the Eagles and Cowboys in Dallas. ESPN's rag-tag assortment of pundits are favoring the Cowboys 7-2. The two Eagles supporters are, predictably Ron Jaworski and Mike Golic, both ex-Eagles. Merrill Hoge extended his personal streak of picking against the Eagles to 50,000 weeks.

Bill Simmons took the Eagles at +7. The Sports Network, whatever that is, is predicting a 26-17 Cowboys victory.

I think the Eagles are on a roll, and the Cowboys aren't going to stop that. Eagles 27, Cowboys 16. The deciding factor in this game is going to be how well the Eagles control the Cowboys' ground game. As much as T.O. likes to think the game revolves around him, it really doesn't. The passing game will only become a factor if the Eagles' front seven can't control the run early, and they have to start dropping an 8th man down into the box.

Beyond the fact that a win tomorrow would clinch a playoff spot for the Eagles, and put them one win away from the NFC East title, it would also cause T.O. to implode, yet again. Even if you aren't an Eagles fan, you have to be rooting for that.

An Eagles win would make for a very unhappy Christmas dinner at T.O.'s house.