It doesn’t really matter if the Eagles beat the Cardinals

The Eagles are mired in a 6-7 tie for the NFC East lead with three games remaining.

And with the 11-2 Cardinals coming to town for a Week 15 Sunday Night matchup, it appears the stakes are really high, with the Birds looking to keep pace or pull ahead in the race for a playoff spot.

But they aren’t. The game really doesn’t matter.

Philly’s final two games pit them against the Redskins at home and in New York to face the Giants on the final day of the regular season. Because of this, those are the games that matter.

If the Eagles win both of their final twointer-divisional contests, they clinch the division (the Eagles are 2-2 in the NFC East, tied with the Redskins while the Giants are 2-3).

Even if the Redskins and Giants win their other two games, it won’t matter if they can’t beat the Eagles.

A win against Arizona would certainly help the Eagles to clinch sooner (assuming the Giants and Redskins lose this week), but even if they beat Carson Palmer and company, it will be difficult for them to wrap up a playoff berth without handling their NFC East rivals.

That being said, the Birds, fresh off a pair of wins over solid teams, are not taking the week off.

“I think sometimes when you look too far and you’re looking down the road and you’re trying to say, ‘How do we do this,’ you forget about what the task at hand is and the task at hand is getting ready to play Arizona,” Chip Kelly said. “Maybe we’ve had success for two weeks. Can we handle dealing with success? And that’s another challenge that we have to, as a group, kind of wrap our arms around and embrace.”

The Eagles and Cardinals kick off at 8:25 Sunday night on NBC.