There is a pivotal monster football game that will be played tonight at Lincoln Financial Field between the Eagles and Redskins. To call it pivotal would be an understatement. It’s a must-win game. The Eagles are the last one-loss team remaining in the NFL, so, theoretically, they are the team that could afford a loss tonight. But that narrative is bullshit. There is absolutely no need to diminish the importance of this game; there is no need to downplay its significance. The Eagles have to have this game.

I can picture you sitting there reading this saying, “Don’t be dramatic. They’re 5-1 and they’ll still be in first place even if they lose.”

Thanks, guy. I get how math works, so allow me take you back to another game the Eagles didn’t need to win, which, ironically, was the last time they were in this good of a position to make a deep postseason run. It was late December, 2010. The 10-4 Eagles had completed an absurd, miracle comeback over the Giants. They were well on their way to the number two seed and a playoff bye. Then the 5-9 Vikings, led by a nobody quarterback named Joe Webb, stunned a far superior Eagles team. Instead of earning that first round bye, the Eagles were promptly eliminated by the Green Bay Packers two weeks later. That Minnesota game wasn’t “a must-win” at the time, but it led directly to their demise. Tonight’s game, though much earlier in the season, should be viewed through a similar lens.

It doesn’t matter that the Eagles sit atop the division and conference right now, and it sure as hell doesn’t matter that football analysts collectively tout them as an elite team. They can fall back to the heavily populated cesspool of football mediocrity just as quickly as they have risen above it.

With a win tonight, the Eagles would improve to 6-1 and hold what essentially amounts to a 3.5-game lead over Washington and a 2.5-game lead over Dallas. They would enter next week’s game as a potential double-digit favorite over the winless 49ers, a team flying east for an early kickoff, a team that just allowed a 40-spot at home to the Cowboys. They would presumably be a strong favorite over a Broncos team featuring a completely impotent offense that also has to come east for an early kickoff. If they clear this hurdle tonight, they have a shot of heading into late November as the lone one-loss team, one with a stranglehold on a first-round bye, and, possibly, home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Could the Eagles accomplish this without a win tonight? Sure. But let’s consider the alternative.

A loss tonight would make for an ugly tomorrow. A loss means the defense, a unit with the benefit of two extra days of rest, couldn’t solve an offense whose leading receiver is a running back averaging 4.9 yards per catch. Or, worse yet, MVP candidate Carson Wentz couldn’t exploit a defense missing a starting defensive end and its top cornerback. That will make a for a fun week.

The math isn’t great, either. The Eagles would hold only a one-half game lead over Washington, with no head-to-head tiebreaker, and they would still have two games against a Dallas team who looked much more like its 2016 version—not the one that had floundered through the first month and a half of the season.

The Eagles are good, but they’re not a team for the ages. They’re not winning 13 or 14 games. A stupid, avoidable loss is going to happen, maybe more than once, and they’d be much better suited to sustain such losses by creating additional breathing room with a win tonight. If they’re legitimately the cream of this conference, then they have to go out there and get this done tonight. There’s no way around it.