And so the 5-4-1 Eagles, fresh off a season-rattling, surreal tie with the Cincinnati Bengals, have spent this week meeting.

There was coach Andy Reid's meeting Monday afternoon, during which he sternly reminded the players to have a sense of urgency by focusing entirely on the immediate assignment Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens rather than the external maelstrom, which has grown in size and intensity.

Reid met with his players again yesterday, reminding them to focus on one practice, one game, one day and one play at a time.

Safety Brian Dawkins decided it was time for a players-only team meeting yesterday.

"It's a feeling for me," Dawkins said. "I've always said this: 'I'm a prayerful man, and I always pray about things.' When I feel something in my spirit . . . I'll speak up, and today was that feeling."

Meanwhile, the external forces continue to prey.

Meetings are a lot like dental appointments. Nobody ever really wants to attend them, but sometimes good can come from them.

The Eagles, of course, need more than a deep cleaning and filled cavity. They've become a ROOT-canal case with an abscessed running game.

Quarterback Donovan McNabb has issues, and his ignorance of the overtime rules doesn't even make the list. Tardiness is the quarterback's biggest problem. He hasn't shown up for the first quarter of a game since the Eagles' win in San Francisco last month.

In the first quarter of the four games since the bye week, McNabb is 6 of 27 for 70 yards, with no touchdowns and one interception. Those numbers compute to a 24.14 passer rating. The Eagles have scored seven first-quarter points in those games.

"I think in this game, it's about being in a rhythm," McNabb said. "If you can get into that rhythm early, you begin to get things rolling."

Maybe the Eagles talked about that in their trio of meetings. They certainly are aware of it.

"The main thing [McNabb] needs to do right now is continue to fire, throw the Football, be confident and do it," Reid said.

Whatever the Eagles talked about, they weren't talking about it afterward, although there's really not a lot to say anymore.

"We'll keep that in-house," Dawkins said when asked about his message to the team. "I just felt like I needed to say something to the guys and see if we can all get on the same page and get things rolling."

This is where one of Reid's favorite quotes fits perfectly: "We'll see."

Unless it's in a negative way, we won't know for weeks whether all these meetings amounted to a hill of beans or were just words, words and more meaningless words.

There is one player in the locker room with a unique perspective on what's happening here. Special-teams contributor Tank Daniels was with the New York Giants at this time last year when they suffered a 41-17 home loss to the 4-6 Minnesota Vikings .

"That was one of the worst games I've ever seen," Daniels said, remembering quarterback Eli Manning's four interceptions, including three that were returned for touchdowns.

The Giants slipped to 7-4 after the loss. They hadn't played well in the previous three weeks either, beating a winless Miami team by three points, losing at home to Dallas by 11, and surviving for a six-point win at Detroit.

So, what did the Giants do after their ugly Minnesota defeat?

They met.

"I think people outside of a team, the moment they see adversity, the first thing they want to do is change everything," Daniels said. "That was not what that team was going to do."

Coach Tom Coughlin "didn't change anything," Daniels said. "He kept being the same Tom Coughlin he had been his whole career. That's what we have to do here. It's not time to panic and change who we are.

"Outside people may have been calling for his job, but people inside there decided we had to take things upon ourselves to get it done."

At the Giants' team meeting after the loss to Minnesota, Daniels said Coughlin referred to a pyramid he had been showing the players all season.

"At the top of the pyramid was the Super Bowl," Daniels said. "The rest of the pyramid was all the games we had to play. He just told us that week that we couldn't get to the top of that pyramid without going through the bottom.

"Our mentality was we'd make those little checks as we were knocking teams off. He kept telling us we were going to get there.

"At the end of the season, when it was all said and done, people forgot about Minnesota. You ask anybody on the Giants about that Minnesota game and they forgot about it.

"Forget what's behind us. That doesn't help you. Take what you can from it, but you definitely have to press on."

And so the Eagles have forgotten about the loss to the Giants, the draw with the Bengals, and all the other games behind them.

"It gets to the point where it's a make-or-break point in your season," Daniels said. "You're going to go one way or you're going to go another."

Most people believe the Eagles are headed in a direction the players don't want to talk about.

Contact staff writer Bob Brookover at 215-854-2577 or bbrookover@phillynews.com.