PHILADELPHIA - Get rid of it all.

All the stuff about Tampa not being able to score a touchdown at Veterans Stadium.

Every word about how freezing temperatures sink everything the Buccaneers try to do.

The urbananized prose spewed from the guy over on Market Street, the stuff about shutting Warren Sapp up once and for all.

Throw all that out.

No, better yet, leave it in the Vet. Let it sit there. Let it be the last memory for Philadelphia football fans, those of the green and black, formerly surly and angry, but now largely tired and indifferent.

Then, blow it up. Line the place with explosives and push the button. Bring it all crashing down.

But know that disappointment will always linger.

That's the fact the Philadelphia Eagles face - an almost permanent regret - after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did all the things they weren't supposed to do and won the NFC Championship 27-10.

"All losses hurt the same," Eagles defensive tackle Corey Simon said in the locker room.

But that's hard to believe. The Eagles were supposed to win the conference game because they came so close to doing it last year, but didn't.

The Eagles were supposed to beat the Bucs because they had done so in each of the last two playoffs.

The Eagles were supposed to win because they were a team of destiny, what with overcoming the loss of their star player and quarterback, Donovan McNabb, for more than half of the year.

They were supposed to win just because everyone in Philadelphia said so.

But all those people learned, the very hard way, that the word "supposed" isn't very useful in sports.

All it does is lead you to here, the land of needless ruin. It hurts more to lose after everyone has assumed you'll win.

It was a silly assumption. Because, after all, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a good football team. And they were a good football team before they ended all the supposed talk.

"There it is," Simon responded when asked if Tampa was simply good, this time sounding believable - and convinced. "They're a good football team. In fact, there isn't any better team in the NFC."

Ronde Barber sealed that fact by stepping in front of a ball that Donovan McNabb shouldn't have thrown late in the fourth quarter.

But he had to throw it. The moment called for it. McNabb was leading a furious comeback, his team down 10 points late in the fourth quarter. McNabb had taken the team to the Tampa 24 through acrobatic dodging of defenders and bullet passes. He did it the McNabb way.

So to continue it, he stepped back, saw a blitz and threw the ball at Antonio Freeman.

When Barber returned the interception 92 yards for a touchdown, he ended all hope for the Eagles. Even McNabb didn't bother chasing him.

Barber spent all day making plays.

Early in the third quarter, with his team up by a touchdown, Barber came around the left end unblocked and hit McNabb's raised arm before he could get a throw off and caused a fumble, which Tampa recovered.

Barber also made three tackles and deflected four passes.

McNabb had one of his toughest days as an Eagle. His six-game layoff after a broken ankle hurt him more than it had appeared last week against the Falcons. Though he completed 26-of-49 passes for 243 yards, McNabb could not get it done when and where it mattered: in the first quarter, near the end zone.

The Eagles drove inside the Tampa 32-yard line three times in the first half and got only three points, the last drive stalling at the 24-yard line with a McNabb fumble.

Freeman, who played in two Super Bowls with Green Bay, disposed of the idea that the Eagles were out of synch.

"No excuses, man," he said. "This is the NFC championship. You bring your best football for 60 minutes, and we didn't do that today."

But the Eagles offense certainly did not work the way head coach Andy Reid, who took blame for the loss three times in his post-game press conference, planned for it to.

McNabb didn't find top receiver Todd Pinkston until early in the fourth quarter. Running back Duce Staley, who had been the key to the Eagles' success against the Bucs in recent games, ran only 13 times for 58 yards.

The Eagles were baffled by a Tampa defense that blitzed often from the outside and did not sit in a cover-2 zone, as it had in games past.

Bucs coach Jon Gruden, a former Eagles assistant and Reid co-worker, crafted a masterful game plan. By attacking the middle of the field, the Bucs took advantage of weak linebacker play and zone blitzes. Once the Eagles tried to adjust, the Bucs went to a short, quick passing game run mostly out of traditional short-yardage formations.

As a result, a confident Brad Johnson stood in the pocket and controlled the game, completing 20-of-33 passes for 259 yards and a touchdown. The Eagles, ranked second in the NFL in sacks during the regular season, did not sack Johnson once.

Former Penn State receiver Joe Jurevicius caught one of those passes after beating linebacker Barry Gardner over the middle, and used deceptive speed to go 71 yards up the sideline and shift the momentum late in the first quarter. Due to the premature birth of his son earlier this week, Jurevicius did not join the team until Saturday.

"I feel on top of the world," he said. "I think my son might be up and walking."

Eagles players did their best to stress that Tampa's performance was nothing close to a miracle.

"Their D-backs weren't doing anything special," Pinkston said. "They're just a good defense. We didn't make plays."

But it wasn't supposed to end this way, and the Eagles know that.

They were supposed to be the team to move on, to receive the praise, to represent the NFC in San Diego.

But we've learned about that word, supposed.

"I said it last week, if we did not win this game the season was a failure," linebacker N. D. Kalu said. "We did this last year. We did not improve. We failed."