It was a ridiculous longshot when the day started. For the Eagles to grab a Wild Card spot, three things had to happen: Oakland, a 13-point underdog, had to upset Tampa Bay on the road; Houston, a six-point underdog, had to knock off Chicago and the Eagles had to defeat the Dallas Cowboys at the Linc. The Buccaneers, the Bears and the Cowboys all started the day ahead of the Eagles at 9-6, so all three had to fall.

"What are the odds, right?" says Klecko, the former defensive lineman who played fullback that season for the Eagles.

It seemed like such a fantasy that even a loyalist such as Merrill Reese didn't believe it. The night before the game, the Eagles' radio play-by-play man went to dinner with Dallas broadcaster Brad Sham. Reese recalls telling Sham, "It's not going to happen." Sham's reply proved to be prophetic. He said, "This Cowboys team finds ways to self-destruct."

Klecko had been in the league for five seasons, playing for New England and Indianapolis. He had been to the playoffs each of those five seasons and three times he was part of a Super Bowl champion. He joined the Eagles in 2008 and as the team stumbled through the middle part of the schedule he felt his run of success was over.

"I told my wife, 'Wow, this stinks. We're not going to the playoffs,'" Klecko says. "It was really a letdown. We had that bad loss in Baltimore (36-7) and it looked like we were done. But then we got hot and just took off."

So there was Klecko on the final Sunday of the regular season watching the drama unfold on TV. The Bucs-Raiders and the Bears-Texans games both started at 1 p.m. The Eagles and Cowboys weren't scheduled to kick off until 4:15 p.m. which allowed them to keep tabs on the other games. The first domino fell in Houston where the Texans defeated the Bears, 31-24. Then Oakland stunned the Buccaneers by the exact same score - does this seem like fate or what? - and now the Eagles and Cowboys would play for that last Wild Card spot.

"There was no way we were going to lose at that point," Klecko says. "Lose to the Cowboys? After all that? No way."

"I remember the feeling in the stadium was electric," says safety Brian Dawkins. "I mean, it's always super loud when we play the Cowboys, but it was even louder that day. The fans had watched the other games while they were in the parking lot tailgating so they were on fire. No one needed to give a pep talk that day. When we took the field, it was on."

Few people knew it, but Dawkins was suffering from an ear infection. It wasn't on the injury report and head coach Andy Reid didn't discuss it with the media, but Dawkins was in constant pain. He spent the week seeking out quiet rooms where he would sit for hours. The infection was so severe that it affected his equilibrium. But there was never any doubt that he would play.