Five wins probably won't be enough to get the Eagles to the playoffs. It certainly won't be enough to convince a large percentage of fans that this team is on the right track. But it is a stern enough pass-fail exam for owner Jeffrey Lurie to factor into his postseason evaluation of his head coach, the personnel department, the quarterback, and the rest of the roster.

There is a twist to this pass-fail exam that we'll get to in a few moments. First, let's examine why five games, five wins would be meaningful.

Given the events of the last couple of weeks, it is hard to imagine the Eagles beating the Cardinals tonight. It is almost impossible to imagine them beating the New York Giants and Washington on the road. This team has shown no indication that it's capable of such astonishing feats.

That's precisely why winning the last five games of this awful season would mean more than winning the last three games of the awful 2007 season. To do it, the Eagles would have to beat all three of their NFC East rivals, two of them on the road. They would get to 10 wins, which is not awful.

Most important, it would show that Reid is still capable of dealing with problems, motivating his players, and finding ways to beat his most familiar adversaries. It is stunning, given his track record, that all of these issues are in play in his 10th season as coach of the Eagles.

That brings us to the twist on the pass-fail exam.

Pass and Reid almost certainly gets his chance to build around Kevin Kolb as his starting quarterback in 2009. Like it or not, Lurie will not overlook Reid's role in establishing the Eagles as an elite team and building the franchise's value. He just won't.

Hence the twist:

Fail and Reid, not Lurie, should be the one to acknowledge that the empire he built has crumbled into ruin around him. Fail and Reid should seek his bosses out and offer them a range of possible options for the immediate future. The first one should be his willingness to negotiate some kind of buyout from the final years of his contract.

(Offering his resignation sounds more honorable, but this is the real world and there's no reason to expect Reid to walk away from the millions of dollars he would get if he were to be fired.)

Why should the coach do this? He gave the reason himself during his combative news conference Monday.

"I will make every decision that I think is best for this Football team," Reid said. "That's the seat I sit in, and that's the way that I will approach it, always."

Assuming "always" extends beyond the season finale against Dallas, it is fair to ask whether it would be best for the Eagles to make some major changes.

Stepping aside is just one of the possible options Reid should offer Lurie and team president Joe Banner. Another would be to step back from his role in personnel decisions to focus on coaching. The current roster - and recent glaring errors - all but demand a fresh evaluation by someone else with the final say on players.

Reid could also suggest remaining as head of Football operations, but hiring a new personnel man and replacing himself as head coach.

Those options would be plausible as long as they weren't cosmetic. A big deal was made when Mike Holmgren accepted a "demotion" in Seattle a couple of years ago, but the new personnel hire was Holmgren's guy. The situation here would call for real change.

That will be true even if the Eagles somehow pass this five-games, five-wins test.

It is a testament to the hole they've dug that a five-game, season-ending winning streak would ring hollow and likely wouldn't even get them into the postseason. And there is no escaping the fact that this hole was dug with the same shovel that buried the Eagles the last few years.

No running game.

Uninspiring offensive skill players, non-Westbrook division.

Gaping holes on the roster.

Failure to address pressing needs in the draft.

Any of these could be considered forgivable mistakes if they happened once. They have become chronic problems here, and so Reid finds himself caught in a snare of his own making. His roster doesn't have solutions to the problems he faces as a coach - and it's a result of his deliberate actions, not merely the occasional poor draft choice.

Win the last five games, show some sign his program still works, and Reid gets a passing grade, barely, for the season.

Fail and there must be real consequences this time.

Contact columnist Phil Sheridan at 215-854-2844 or psheridan@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com