Zach Ertz gave his teammates a history lesson Saturday night. He spoke about the 16th-century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés at a team meeting on the eve of the Eagles-Cowboys game. As the sanitized legend goes, Cortés landed in the city of Veracruz off the Gulf of Mexico in 1519 and told his troops to “burn the ships.” There would be no turning back. They would either conquer or die trying.



Ertz spoke to the team hours before the Eagles’ 17-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys that kept their postseason hopes alive. Had they lost on Sunday, they would have been eliminated from playoff contention. This was his do-or-die moment.



“He told the guys to ‘burn the ships,’” offensive lineman Brandon Brooks said of the phrase that’s now a common expression. (Read more on Cortés here.) “And it was just saying, ‘when we go out there, man, there is no Plan B.’ This is the only plan. The...