PHILADELPHIA — One of the more colorful cliches from the sports world comes after a humbling or embarrassing defeat. The losing team, oftentimes, will say it wants to “flush” the result and move on.

It doesn’t take much of an imagination to draw the connection for the analogy.

It was a phrase used after the Philadelphia Eagles suffered a thorough 48-7 throttling at the hands of the New Orleans Saints in Week 11. The defeat was one of the worst in franchise history and dropped the Eagles to 4-6 on the season.

“I'm not going to stare at this loss, overanalyze it,” tight end Zach Ertz said in the aftermath. “Just gonna chalk it up to a bad day at the office, can't let that game define us by any means. Obviously, a very difficult loss, very difficult game to play in. But at the same time, got to flush it and move on.”

With a rematch looming this weekend in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs, the Eagles are going to have to do some plumbing. The game was ugly and got out of hand in a hurry — plus, the Eagles were beset by a number of key injuries — but there are some lessons Philadelphia can pick up before its return trip to New Orleans.

“Well, immediately after the game, you flush it and you're moving on to the next week's opponent,” coach Doug Pederson said Monday. “I think for us, this week, it's more of a resource. We go back and look at scheme. We go back and look at personnel, and you can't look at the final score, obviously. We all know that, but you have to look at it from just X's and O's, pure X's and O's, and it's good to have played them because now you have it on tape. You have us versus them on tape, and you can go back and review and use it more as a resource.”

The film will show Saints quarterback Drew Brees picking apart the Eagles defense to the tune of 22 of 30 passing for 363 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. Running back Mark Ingram rushed for 103 yards and two touchdowns. Alvin Kamara rushed for 71 yards and caught a 37-yard touchdown pass.

On the other side, quarterback Carson Wentz threw three interceptions, and the offense gained only 196 yards. It was undoubtedly the most dismal performance of Pederson’s tenure in Philadelphia.

But players and coaches alike believe this rematch will go differently. Some players expressed that line of thought immediately after the Eagles downed the Chicago Bears, 16-15, in this past weekend’s playoff opener. And Tuesday, defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz and offensive coordinator Mike Groh broke down where they thought the Eagles were different almost two months later.

“I think we've made a lot of improvement since that last game,” Groh said. “I think we're 6-1 since that game and feeling good about where we are offensively. Obviously, every week there's things you want to improve in and get better at based on what people try to do to you. We know we have a tremendous challenge. They're an excellent defense. They've had a really good year and done a lot of things really well. We're excited for it. We've created a good opportunity for ourselves to be here in the divisional round and looking forward to getting back.”

While the offense couldn’t get much of anything going against the Saints offense and has improved since then, the defense was the center of much of the ire after surrendering 48 points. There were no answers for Brees and his complement of weapons, which includes Pro Bowl wide receiver Michael Thomas and Tre’Quan Smith.

But since then, the Eagles defense has turned in some quality performances. The Eagles held down the Los Angeles Rams prolific offense. They shut out the Washington Redskins in the season finale. They flummoxed the Bears and held off a late comeback attempt by rising Houston Texans star Deshaun Watson.

Even in a 29-23 overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys where Dak Prescott passed for 455 yards, there were some signs of improvement. And some of that stems from that afternoon in the Big Easy on Nov. 18.

“I think that going forward, when it's all said and done, we can pull some positives from it. ... There were some good plays in there,” Schwartz said. “They were hard to find, but there were some good plays that our guys can gain a little bit of confidence in. Hey, we can get this done. It also shows you how one play here and there, the tide can turn really quickly in this league and provide that urgency.

“When it's all said and done, neither team's going to start this game with a lead. Neither team's going to start with an advantage because of something that happened, it seems like, another season ago, at least to us. But each game's going to start out new, and we're going to have to play good for 60 minutes in this game, not make up for anything eight weeks ago and not get down about anything that happened eight weeks ago.”

As the Eagles were exiting the Superdome that day, Schwartz said his mind didn’t necessarily stray to the thought of having to return to New Orleans in the playoffs. He was just worried about getting his players to the next game. But he said the fact the Eagles did “a good job of staying in the moment” and focusing in on their next opponent, which happened to be the New York Giants. They won, 25-22.

From there, the wins built on top of each other, and now, the Eagles are in the playoffs, where they’ve already won a game. They’re steep underdogs against a Saints team that ranked among the best in the NFL in 2018, but the Eagles coaches know things are much different in January than they were in November.

“What we did, what happened in that game is really gonna have no bearing on how we play in this one and how they play in this one,” Schwartz said. “It's going to be determined by players that are on the field now, how well we execute, how well we tackle, how well we adjust to what they're doing.”

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--@danieljtgallen