At their best, the Eagles have shown have very good they can play. They've only played a couple of games with their A-level intensity and focus. Now with Miami ahead on Sunday, well, it's another game by which to measure the Eagles.

I wish I could tell you with unabashed confidence that the Eagles are going to play a great game in Miami. For all of those thousands of Eagles fans making the trip, and for the Eagles fans around the world, I certainly hope that is the case.

But I'm also a realist. And I see a team that hopes quarterback Michael Vick comes back after missing three weeks and plays in a rhythm right away. The offense needs wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, who was limited in practice on Wednesday. The defense needs some confidence and some swagger, something so difficult to gather in this bizarre season.

At the beginning of the year I wrote how exciting it would be to go into every game knowing *the Eagles would win, rather than *being confident they would win. Twelve games in, well, it's been a tremendous disappointment.

See, I'm convinced the Eagles' troubles this year are much more mental than they are physical. The offense loses its focus too much and turns the football over. Rarely are the players manhandled at the line of scrimmage. No team has more athletes than the Eagles' offense.

But this team drops passes, fumbles, throws interceptions and commits penalties. Those are mental mistakes. You can blame coaching, and that's a fair criticism, too. Everyone shares in the blame.

The defense has lost the battle at the line of scrimmage at times, and you can argue that this group lacks size and a menacing presence or two, but to me the larger culprit is the lack of urgency and the "sell-out" attitude a defense needs. Coaching and the integration of a new scheme with so many new players on the field, has no doubt contributed to the hard times on defense, too.

So I'm looking for the intangibles on Sunday. Oh, sure, the X's and O's are always something to keep an eye on, but I don't expect the Eagles to all of a sudden change what they do. Is Nnamdi Asomugha going to follow wide receiver Brandon Marshall all over the field? Maybe, but that would be a drastic change in philosophy for coordinator Juan Castillo? Will the offense look to run, run, run against Miami's very tough run defense right away in the heat of South Florida? I think not.

The Eagles are going to do what they do, for better or worse. Let's hope for better. Boy, oh, boy, do we need better. We need a win, for sanity's sake at the very least. The Eagles were so vastly disappointing in Seattle that I would hope the players would show enormous pride and embarrassment and go out and play a heck of a game against a Dolphins team that still clearly cares at 4-8.

NEWS, NOTES AND A LITTLE BIT OF THIS AND THAT

• The global award the Eagles organization won at the Beyond Sport conference in South Africa on Wednesday is a crowning achievement for Jeffrey and Christina Lurie and the entire franchise. It doesn't replace a Lombardi Trophy. It isn't intended to do so. What is represents, though, transcends anything that happens on the football field. The Eagles make a profound impact in the community, in the world off the football field. That was a major initiative of the Lurie's when they purchased the team in 1995. It is a remarkable accomplishment for the franchise and hopefully the start of something great in terms of winning awards on and off the field. I'm proud to be an Eagle every day, and especially on this day of universal recognition.
• Miami has a couple of outstanding, and physically imposing, cornerbacks in Vontae Davis and Sean Smith. I will be interested to see if they try to press DeSean Jackson and Maclin, who insists he will play after missing three games with a hamstring injury. Will the Eagles put their wide receivers in motion to make sure they aren't pinned down at the line of scrimmage?
• Great battle to watch: Trent Cole at right defensive end against left offensive tackle Jake Long. Cole will have his hands full.
• I don't know how the Eagles plan to cover running back Reggie Bush when he comes out of the backfield as a receiver, but they need to account for his quickness and explosive ability. If I'm Miami, I'm going to try to isolate Bush and get him in space.
• The weather could be a factor: It is expected to be around 80 degrees at kickoff, with a chance of rain. Hydration is going to be critical, starting now.