PHILADELPHIA -- With the moment of breathtaking exhilaration suddenly transformed into a time of quiet desperation, New York Giants wide receiver Ron Dixon gamboling toward the end zone and about to turn the Philadelphia Eagles' first division championship since 1988 into some torturous week-long waiting game, Jeff Lurie watched the unthinkable unfold before him from his lofty perch in a private box at Veterans Stadium.

His mind now a cranial screening room for all those cliffhanger game videos that NFL Films has archived over the years, the Philadelphia owner pondered what it might be like to be the poor guy on a short end of one of the "Fantastic Finishes" tapes, and Lurie did a lightning-quick inventory of many of the league's most often-replayed, last-second scores.

	Ron Dixon (86) nearly scored on a lateral on the game's final play.

Lurie thought of the "Immaculate Reception." He mentally replayed the infamous "Holy Roller." He thought about "Big Ben" and the "Music City Miracle."

Truth be told, for the most part, Lurie thought: "Oh, no."

It was, in fact, an altogether appropriate reaction. A few hundred feet below, the swift Dixon was closing to within a few yards of the end zone, less than 20 feet from a touchdown that would have led off every edition of SportsCenter for the next two days and been recalled decades from now as one of the most incredible conclusions in league history.

An afternoon that began for the Eagles with the incredible, as starting defensive tackle Hollis Thomas broke his foot running onto the field for lineup introductions, was oh-so-close to ending with a much more significant disaster.

And then Eagles strong safety Damon Moore arrived and, with one dive that knocked Dixon off his feet at the Philadelphia 6-yard line, accomplished four things: He salvaged the Eagles' season, nudged the defending NFC champions from postseason contention, kept Dixon from becoming a lot more than just a nondescript No. 3 receiver and prevented Lurie from suffering a coronary.

"Let's face it, they had us, since none of us expected what happened," said Moore, whose clutch tackle secured a 24-21 Philadelphia victory here on Sunday's final play of a frenetically contested game. "They pulled one from deep in the grab bag, and it almost worked, because that was way too close for comfort. My first thought was, 'Man, what are they doing?' And then I saw that guy sprinting down the sideline and thought, 'Oh, God, they know exactly what they're doing.' It was a pretty sick feeling. All I could do was keep running to the ball and hope I got there."

Because he did, the Eagles claimed their first NFC East crown since the Buddy Ryan regime, and now face an unusual back-to-back scenario with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers over the next couple of weeks. Philadelphia finishes the regular season at Tampa Bay next Sunday, and then will host the Bucs in a first-round playoff matchup either Jan. 12 or 13.

Were it not for the pluckiness of Moore, however, the Philadelphia postseason aspirations might have been on life support and a cadre of medical technicians would have been forced to break out a defibrillator to revive Lurie and quarterback Donovan McNabb. The loss meant that, for a third time in their history, the Giants followed up a Super Bowl appearance by failing to qualify for the playoffs in the ensuing campaign.

"Hey, thank God for my guy 'D-Mo,' because, when I saw their guy running down the sideline, I just buried my head in my hands," McNabb said. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

That's the truth, too, as McNabb threw himself to the ground when Dixon broke free and didn't look up again until a teammate lifted him from the ground.

For those unlucky enough to have missed witnessing a seven-second snippet of time that seemed to last forever, and which would have left this chilly city even more frigid on Monday morning, a brief review: Rallying from a 21-14 deficit, McNabb led his team to a pair of scores in the final 1:49 of the fourth quarter, a 7-yard touchdown pass to tight end Chad Lewis with a 35-yard David Akers field goal with only seven seconds remaining catapulting Philadelphia into a 24-21 advantage.

On first-and-10 from their own 30-yard line following the kickoff after the Akers field goal, New York aligned in a standard "trips" formation, with three wide receivers flanked wide to the right, one wideout split left and Tiki Barber as a lone back. The desperation play called by quarterback Kerry Collins in the huddle is named "76 Lambuth Special" in the New York nomenclature, the handle taken from Dixon's alma mater, Lambuth College, a tiny school in Tennessee.

According to the way the play had been practiced, Collins was to throw to wideout Ike Hilliard, who would lateral to Barber, who would then toss the ball to Dixon.

"It's a little like rugby with a lot of laterals to a guy across the field, people changing direction, but it's a longshot no matter what," Barber said. "Really, what are the chances of something like that working, a million to one? But it almost became one in a million."

On the defensive side of the ball, the Eagles dropped into their "victory" alignment, essentially a prevent look, with just three pass rushers and eight players in the secondary. Middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter, before breaking the huddle, reminded his teammates to simply bat down any "Hail Mary" attempt. Most of the Eagles defenders, seeing the "trips" formation to the right, just assumed Collins would throw the ball up for grabs and hope for a favorable deflection.

Free safety Brian Dawkins thought Collins might try to hit a sideline route in the 30-yard range, to get the ball to near the 50-yard line with a second or two remaining, then take a shot at the end zone on the final snap. But the Giants brain trust was far better prepared for the desperate play than any Philadelphia defender assumed.

On the snap, Hilliard was jammed at the line of scrimmage and slipped, so Collins looked to the middle of the field. There he found Barber open at the 34-yard line and, as the tailback gathered in the ball and watched several Eagles would-be tacklers converge on him, he flipped the ball to Dixon, who crossed behind him from right to left. Arguably the fastest player on the New York roster, Dixon easily got to the left sideline and turned upfield behind a phalanx of blockers.

Watching the play from the stands, where it was obvious the Eagles defenders were outnumbered by New York blockers, the fans held their collective breath. And so did many of the Eagles, who were completely outfoxed by the brilliant bit of gimmickry. The tension, all compacted into just seven seconds, was palpable.

	“	I was huffing up the field, thinking, 'Damn, somebody please tackle that guy.' It was like it all happened in slow motion, but I didn't see any of our people closing in on him. I know it's not right to say it, but I was thinking, 'If somebody in the stands doesn't pull out a gun and shoot that frickin' (guy), he's going to score.' Man, that was scary. ”
		— Jeremiah Trotter, Eagles linebacker

Said a relieved Trotter, slumped in his locker stall, with huge bags of ice strapped across both his shoulders and knees: "I was huffing up the field, thinking, 'Damn, somebody please tackle that guy.' It was like it all happened in slow motion, but I didn't see any of our people closing in on him. I know it's not right to say it, but I was thinking, 'If somebody in the stands doesn't pull out a gun and shoot that frickin' (guy), he's going to score.' Man, that was scary."

Watching the replays, it is obvious that cornerback Bobby Taylor, who missed Dixon once as he crossed the field, played a huge part in allowing Moore to make the saving tackle. Taylor stayed in front of Joe Jurevicius as the Giants' mammoth wide receiver attempted to block him, and he slowed the play long enough for Moore and fellow corner Troy Vincent to close the gap.

Had Jurevicius been able to knock Taylor off his feet, to have leveled him with a cut block, it is very likely that Dixon would have scored. That would have left Philadelphia defenders not only inglorious but in shock as well. The Eagles would have needed a victory at Tampa Bay in the season finale to have clinched the division crown.

The last seven seconds of frantic action overshadowed what was a typically hard-hitting game between two division opponents who don't particularly like one another. It rendered the play of McNabb and Eagles wide receiver James Thrash, who torched New York rookie cornerback Will Allen to the tune of seven catches for 143 yards, nearly incidental. It relegated the performance of Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, who had 3 1/2 sacks and now needs only a half-sack to tie the league single-season record of 22, to footnote status.

Save for sometime later this week the debates about Collins' inconsistency or the Eagles' lack of a sustained running presence. Don't worry yet about the potential candidacy of Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson for the pending head coaching vacancy in San Diego. Put on the shelf, at least for a few days, the reality that the savior Moore surrendered a 60-yard touchdown aerial in the third quarter because he bit on a flea-flicker and abandoned his deep-post responsibility, or that he permitted Giants tailback Ron Dayne to roll over him on a 16-yard touchdown rumble.

For one exquisite occasion, there was a game that was defined by one play and one ploy, a tiny swatch of time that transcended all of the 59 minutes and 53 seconds which preceded it.

"All I could think, as much as you really can think in those situations, is that I had to dive at his feet and at least catch a part of him hard enough to knock his pins from under him," Moore said. "It was do or die. I had no idea of how close we were to the end zone, but I knew he was getting pretty damned close. Even after I hit him, I rolled over and couldn't see, and I just lay there and waited to hear if the crowd cheered. There was this split second of silence, and I thought maybe he scored. Then I heard the crowd and I knew it was over.

"And that's when I thought to myself, 'Thank God, man, thank God.' "

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.