Carson Clutch's Eagles seem primed for January run

For a team whose fan base famously pelted Santa Claus with snowballs, the Philadelphia Eagles sure do seem to enjoy the holiday season.

How else can we explain yet another improbable late-season surge, as Sunday's critical 17-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys improved the Eagles to 10-4 over their past three Decembers?

Head Doug Pederson might not script it this way, but once again Philadelphia has come alive late in the season, and with Carson Wentz playing the best football of his career, the Eagles are primed to thrive even into January. To clinch the NFC East, Philadelphia must beat the lowly Giants in New Jersey in Week 17, but that seems like a foregone conclusion. More good news: Philly's injury-plagued offense may get wideout DeSean Jackson back soon.

“You don't want it to come down to the month of December,” Pederson told reporters after the game. “You’d like to play better in September, October and November. But this is a team that when their back is against the wall, they come out swinging and fighting. Sometimes it’s not pretty. It doesn’t have to be.”

When the month opened, the shovels were already coming out for the team following a third straight defeat, this one to the lowly Miami Dolphins in a surprising 37-31 shootout.

It is one thing to lose to New England by one score, as Philadelphia had in a Week 11 17-10 defeat. It's one thing to lose to Seattle, 17-9, a week later. Two playoff teams. Two good teams. It's a whole other thing to flat-line against the talent-starved Dolphins, a loss that dropped the Eagles to 5-7 as the calendar turned to December.

They had found their nadir.

That night, Wentz went to bed a question mark.

Good but not great in his fourth season at the helm, the jury was still out on Wentz. He'd watched much of December from the sidelines over the past two years, with Nick Foles leading the team to a Super Bowl run in 2017 and playoff run last season after a 6-7 start.

Three weeks after the loss to Miami though, Wentz has answered the call. During the team's current three-game winning streak over NFC East opponents — each win defining in its own way — Carson Clutch has solidified himself as one of the steadiest quarterbacks in the game.

Three Sundays ago, he led a comeback win over the Eli Manning-led New York Giants, throwing  an overtime touchdown pass to Zach Ertz to complete a 33-for-50, 325-yard game. Last week, he led a comeback win over the Washington Redskins, throwing a go-ahead touchdown pass to Greg Ward with 26 seconds left to cap a 30-for-43, 266-yard day.

And Sunday's razor-sharp performance against the Cowboys — 31-for-40 for 319 yards and a touchdown — put the Eagles in prime position to lock up the NFC East.

All told, that's 94-of-133 passing, 910 yards and six touchdowns, with zero interceptions in three must-win December games — and all with a patchwork receiving corps and a rotating cast of targets.

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"The moment is not too big for any of these guys," Wentz said. "I just love seeing that. It's encouraging. Guys on defense, on offense, everyone rallying together with a sense of belief. That's what we're going to need."

Maybe this shouldn’t be such a surprise.

The Eagles (8-7) have thrived in pressure situations all season, even if their record hasn’t shown it and even with a receiving corps in a constant state of flux.

And still Wentz has delivered, particularly in the red zone where he has been spectacular, throwing for 19 touchdowns and zero interceptions with a 105.6 rating.

“It's just been -- I use the word 'fun,' ” Wentz said. “It has been fun seeing some of these guys just grow up right before our eyes. In practice we've seen some of these guys do it for a while, and some not much at all. It’s almost something new every time.”

Not new: the Eagles thriving in December and beyond.