We’re now a quarter of the way through the season and the NFC East is like a daytime TV movie. You know some names, you know the title, but it serves mostly as background noise—it’s like Dak Prescott is Dax Shepard.
Related: Here is how Eagles blew it against Titans
So when you focus in, how are the Eagles rivals really doing? We start at the top.
The Washington Redskins (2-1)
The Skins earned their spot at the top of division by staying home. The come out of the bye with sole possession of 1st place in the NFC East.
Offensively, their success is based on their running backs. Adrian Peterson may be back to form, as he's averaging over 100 total yards a game. Chris Thompson continues to be one of the best playmakers in the division and is the second most productive player.
In other words, Washington is exactly what you would expect from a team that’s anchored by an average quarterback in Alex Smith and an average coach in Jay Gruden. They play football like it’s 2008 instead of 2018, but they protect the football enough to be competitive.
On defense, Washington has been up and down. They allow the third fewest net yards per passing attempt in the league, but have given up 100 yards rushing vs the Packers and Colts.
At this point, they seem destined for an 8-8 or 9-7 season.
Grade: A fun night of drinking….alone
Dallas, for three weeks of the season, was painfully bad—their receivers especially. Those guys couldn’t catch the smell of vomit at a college bar. As a result, Dak’s best game had a stat line of 16/25 for 160 yards and a TD. It came against the Giants (and oh boy do you want to stick around for that!).
Dallas seemed ready to hit the brink of disaster—and then they played on Sunday.
The Cowboys 26-24 win over the Lions is a metaphor for their entire season. They are not very good on either side of the football, but they do have the ability to dominate the line of scrimmage. They rushed for 183 yards (5.2 avg) and DeMarcus Lawrence had three sacks. If they keep this up, Dallas should be able to scrape past the really bad teams but won’t have the firepower to beat the good ones.
They’ll probably finish with a 6-10 or 7-9 season.
Grade: Paying 30 dollars for a meal and leaving hungry
If a train leaves Penn State at 80 miles per hour in one direction and another train is coming in from Carolina at 70 miles per hour, how long until they explode in a fiery mess in New York?
The correct answer is week one, but the fire still hasn’t gone out.
The Giants are bad. Their big addition in Nate Solder has underwhelmed at LT, fans are calling for Eli’s head and Pat Shurmur is the epitome of when you get set up with someone for a date and the first thing they say about her is “she’s nice.” The Giants have the 29th scoring offense and the 28th rushing offense in the NFL. Smart move drafting Saquon amirite?
Defensively, the Giants are a pimply teenager. They have a quality secondary, but they don’t have the puss rushing horses for their new 3-4 scheme. In a year or two they could develop into something solid, but they’re nowhere near strong enough to carry their overmatched offense.
If they win 5 games it’ll be a good year.
Grade: Fresh homemade cookies from grandma, but grandma sucks at baking
If you want me more info on the NFC East make sure to listen to Vince’s podcast The Beast with John Barchard—released every Tuesday as part of @GoBirdsPod.