There are certain things in life that I'll never understand, and I'm OK with that. For example, I'll never know why the sky is blue. I've still yet to figure out how it is that no matter what line I get in at the toll plaza, it always winds up being the slowest one. And I have no idea how the Philadelphia Eagles won the NFC East this year.

If you happened to drive along I-95 in Philadelphia on the morning of November 20, you probably noticed an abandoned green-and-white Eagles bandwagon lying in a ditch on the side of the road. The day before, Donovan McNabb crumpled to the turf in Lincoln Financial Field, the victim of a season-ending knee injury in a game versus the Tennessee Titans. The Eagles would go on to lose that game, and Eagles fans would begin to lose their nerve.

Who could blame them? Although the team's record stood at .500, a date with the Indianapolis Colts and a gauntlet of three consecutive road games against NFC East teams loomed on the horizon.

The trip to Indy went about as well as one could expect under the circumstances with one exception: despite the loss, Eagles' QB Jeff Garcia was remarkably efficient (19 for 23, 140 yards, 2 TDs) against the Colts' defense. Even still, emergency rooms across the Delaware Valley were filled with Birds' fans complaining of sprained ankles after jumping off of the aforementioned bandwagon in droves.

A funny thing happened on the way to December, however. At some point after that Colts game, the Eagles began to come together as a team. First came a Monday Night victory against the Carolina Panthers, and then - inexplicably - the Eagles went on the road and ripped off three consecutive wins against the Redskins, Giants and the Cowboys, and threw in a season-ending win against the Falcons to boot.

Reality check: teams don't win three straight road games against their rivals in the midst of a playoff race. They just don't. In fact, until the Eagles did it this year, no team in the NFL had won three straight division games on the road in December since the Giants did it back in 1982. If you had told me that the Eagles would sweep the three December games against their NFC East rivals - even before McNabb went down for the season - I would have laughed at you like a teenage girl who just inhaled a whippet balloon in the parking lot before a Dave Matthews concert.

Aside from Matt Millen's continued employment with the Detroit Lions, the Eagles' late season surge is the single most surreal story going on in the National Football League. Following the McNabb injury, commentators and armchair quarterbacks alike (myself included) had written the team off as a bunch of ne'er-do-wells. And now, they're hosting a playoff game against a team they beat by two touchdowns just a couple of weeks ago.

I can't explain it, but I don't have to. All I have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

By the way... can anyone help me pull a bandwagon out of a ditch?