LANDOVER, Md. -- Brian Mitchell, the former Redskins return specialist who was cut after last season, had the last laugh. His upstart Eagles edged the best team Dan Snyder's money could buy 23-20 on Sunday, and Mitchell couldn't wait to rub it in.

	Jeff George intentionally grounds the ball as Eagles DT Corey Simon tries to bring him down.

"There are people in the organization giving him information that I wonder about," Mitchell said. "You can't win on paper. You have to perform on the football field. I wouldn't trade this team for any team in the world. Look at our offense. We don't have a starter over the age of 26."

Mitchell laughs because his release hurt him. He gave 10 seasons to the Redskins. He believed he provided the heart of a team that made the playoffs last year but didn't need to assemble an all-star team to progress to the Super Bowl, particularly if it meant cutting him. Snyder put more than $100 million into a team that acquired future Hall of Famers Bruce Smith and Deion Sanders and invested heavily in safety Mark Carrier, quarterback Jeff George and others.

All of a sudden, the Redskins, the NFC's oldest team, is 7-5, two games behind the Eagles, who are the NFC's youngest team. Mitchell believes it's a matter of heart and hustle and focus. The Redskins, in his eyes, are Paper Tigers, byproducts of Snyder's greenbacks. The Eagles' green performs better consistently.

"Sportswriters were writing that they were superior to us," Mitchell said. "We felt we could play with them. We played with them the last game, and they won by three points (in a 17-14 last-second loss at Veterans Stadium). But we knew we could play with them. There were two crucial plays at the end of the game where we made mistakes and lost."

Snyder would pay $100 million to be in the Eagles' spot -- one-and-a-half games ahead of the Redskins and in position for a possible playoff bye week and first-round home game. To make matters worse for the Redskins, the Eagles close the season with games against supposedly easy marks -- Cleveland and Cincinnati -- and have those games sandwiched around a bye week. The worst case for the Eagles is an 11-5 season.

At 7-5, the Redskins would have to sweep their final four games and hope they can win tough tie-breakers just to win the division. That would appear to be unlikely.

"We made enough errors to shoot ourselves in the foot," Redskins receiver Irving Fryar said. "If you call mistakes fundamental, then fundamentally we didn't play as well as we should. We made too many mistakes."

Snyder demands Super Bowl performances from his team. Here's where they fell short Sunday: Super Bowl teams don't get stopped on nine goal-to-go plays and settle for two field goals by 44-year-old Eddie Murray. Super Bowl teams don't go through four kickers in a season. The Redskins may be looking for another after Murray missed a 44-yarder with 1:16 left in the game.

Quarterback Jeff George had a first-and-goal at the Eagles' 3 while trailing 20-17 midway through the fourth quarter. With Stephen Davis out because of a hairline fracture of his right forearm, coach Norv Turner ended up with six plays to score from the 3. He couldn't. Five running plays netted one yard, and, to add to the embarrassment, a defensive holding penalty against Bobby Taylor gave them a first down at the Eagles' 1.

In fact, officials did their best to keep the Redskins in the game. Six times the Eagles' defense was penalized on third downs that produced Redskins first downs that kept Washington drives alive.

"If the penalties aren't called, it's not as close a game as it is," Eagles safety Brian Dawkins said. "But when penalties were called, you've got to keep on playing."

	“	We've got four games left in the regular season, and we are going to win them all. ... Nobody says we're out of it. We're a scary team. ”
		— Jeff George, Redskins quarterback

"Some of the interference calls, I thought, were just coincidental contact," defensive coordinator Jim Johnson said. "I don't think we played smart, but we played aggressive. We were called for offsides when Jeff George had us moving on hard snap conts. Still, we kept coming."

Two Eagles interceptions were erased by penalties. Had those plays stuck, the Redskins would have been blown out.

"Someone down the road may look at this game and say that the team was not motivated and lacked desire," Washington coach Norv Turner said. "If you're in that locker room or you watch the guys flying around hitting each other on the field, you wouldn't think in those terms. I certainly wouldn't."

Of course, the one opinion that counts is Snyder's, and that won't favor Turner. His job will be in jeopardy if he doesn't produce a Super Bowl. The Redskins are now three games behind the Vikings for the NFC's best record. There is a budding quarterback controversy, too. George completed a respectable 25 of 43 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns, but Brad Johnson healed enough from his knee injury to start this week.

Turner wouldn't speculate on next week's quarterback for the Giants game. Turner wouldn't say whether Davis would play, either.

"Where do you go?" George said of the Redskins' future. "You go ahead. Are we happy? No. What are we going to do? Are we going to sit back and roll over? I don't think so. We have so many good guys on this team. We've got four games left in the regular season, and we are going to win them all. Eleven and five doesn't sound too bad to me so we were going to take it one game at a time.

"Nobody says we're out of it. We're a scary team."

Scary to themselves.

John Clayton is the senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.