The NFC East is…having a bit of a PR problem these days. The division contains four of the most popular and valuable franchises in the entire league – and yet, they each had to perform their own version of damage control this offseason.
The Dallas Cowboys won the NFC East last year, but it sure doesn't feel like it. On the heels of arguably the most embarrassing defeat in franchise history, this definitely wasn’t the offseason to rest on laurels. Wait…you’re saying the Cowboys did nothing? Nothing at all? You’re saying they actually downgraded in a few places?
But what about the Philadelphia Eagles, Super Bowl runners-up in 2022? Surely they can’t be in hot water with their fanbase too. Au contraire – their season was even worse than the Cowboys. After starting the year 10 - 1 and in full command of the NFC, they went on an epic 1 - 6 slide to end the season, including a no-show playoff performance against the Buccaneers. It was the send-off this lousy season deserved, and head coach Nick Sirianni is lucky to still have his job.
As tough as 2023 was for the Cowboys and Eagles, it’s got nothing on the seasons the New York Giants and Washington Commanders had. New York is probably getting it a little worse from their fanbase even though they finished with a couple more wins than their fellow basement-dweller, because between giving Daniel Jones an ill-advised extension and allowing Saquon Barkley to walk to a division rival, any goodwill is basically gone from the Big Apple.
Not that Washington is chummy with its fan base after losing eight straight to close the year – but at the very least, detested owner Daniel Snyder was kicked to the curb in favor of Josh Harris, Magic Johnson and a small army of investors and there’s a new coach in town. That’s something! Wait, that’s two somethings!
It’s only been two years since the NFC East set the new NFL standard with 43 wins by a single division in a single season – what the hell happened? It seems like last year all four teams made a collective decision to sit it out. Maybe 2024 is a different story…
Dallas Cowboys
Notable Arrivals:
DC Mike Zimmer
MLB Eric Kendricks
NB Jourdan Lewis
RB Ezekiel Elliott
Notable Departures:
DC Dan Quinn
DE Dorance Armstrong
C Tyler Biadasz
RB Tony Pollard
CB Stephon Gilmore
LT Tyron Smith
Notable Rookies:
Best-Case: 13 - 4, 1st in NFC East
Look, for as obnoxious and embarrassing as the Cowboys have been over the years, and despite having – by far – the lowest coverage-to-achievement ratio in the league, this is a really talented football team. You might not consider Dak Prescott to be a top-five QB, but you can basically pencil him in for top-five-QB stats. CeeDee Lamb un-guardable at receiver, Micah Parsons is un-blockable on the edge, and DaRon Bland returned an NFL-record five interceptions for touchdowns. Oh, and despite losing their 2023 starters at left tackle and center, they still return two 2023 All-Pros (Zack Martin and Tyler Smith). Strip away all the noise (and Jerry Jones’ strangeness), and you can’t help but admire this team’s foundation.
You can hate their head coach Mike McCarthy all you want too – for all of his flaws, he’s outstanding in the regular season. Go ahead, ask me how many times McCarthy has finished with fewer than ten wins. Six. Six in seventeen years.
The Cowboys didn’t just fill Dan Quinn’s vacated defensive coordinator spot either – they upgraded. They brought 68-year-old Mike Zimmer out of semi-retirement. It’s time to party like it’s 2003! They brought in Eric Kendricks to be the signal-caller on defense too, and he’s Zimmer’s guy. Sure he might be a little long in the tooth, but so is Zimmer. This team is more than good enough to repeat as division champs. What could possibly go wrong?
Worst-Case: 6 - 11, 3rd in the NFC East
So, what could go wrong? Unfortunately for the Cowboys, that’s not a rhetorical question. This offseason, it’s been more like what else could go wrong?
The losses of Tyron Smith and Tyler Biadasz along the offensive line are concerning, and despite having elite talent in place at multiple positions, Dallas feels thinner than ever. Quinn was consistently able to get huge performances out of the defense. If Zimmer doesn’t have his fastball anymore – and his Vikings teams never finished better than 27th in yards allowed in his last two years as head coach – the Cowboys are in serious trouble.
Looming over everything are Parsons, Lamb, and Prescott, who are all awaiting contract-extensions. Lamb, specifically, has been away for the entirety of Cowboys camp. With all the uncertainty surrounding the Cowboys’ three best players, this isn’t the year for a slow start, and with a road matchup against Cleveland followed by two home games against New Orleans and then Baltimore, a 1 - 2 or even 0 - 3 start is not out of the question.
This is a team that feels like it’s on the brink of something terrible. The Cowboys are being besieged from all sides. The bones of a great team are here, but cracks are showing and one solid break could bring this whole structure down. 2024 might very well be the year Dallas breaks.
New York Giants
Notable Arrivals:
DC Shane Bowen
LG John Runyan
RT Jermaine Eluemunor
RG Greg Van Roten
RB Devin Singletary
DE Brian Burns
Notable Departures:
DC Wink Martindale
FS Xavier McKinney
RB Saquon Barkley
DE A’Shawn Robinson
Notable Rookies:
Best-Case: 10 - 7, 2nd in the NFC East
Head coach Brian Daboll needs a turnaround – and fast. Can he do it? He’s dragged a middling offense with a sorry QB to a playoff victory before, and he can get the same out of this squad. This time, though, the Giants finally beefed up where it really counts: the lines.
Three new starters were brought in to support quarterback Daniel Jones, but the big story was the trade for star pass rusher Brian Burns. Nose tackle Dexter Lawrence has been dying for some help, and boy, did he. With all the attention Lawrence and Burns will inevitably get, expect former top pick Kayvon Thibodeaux to thrive. Plus, with new defensive coordinator Shane Bowen calling sensible plays instead of blitzing the house every three minutes like ousted DC Wink Martindale, the Giants could actually be formidable on that side of the ball.
The key, though, will be improvement on offense. Losing Saquon Barkely is a blow, sure, but Malik Nabers is here and he’s spectacular. The running game doesn’t matter any more – not when you have a yard-after-catch beast like Nabers on the payroll. This is exactly the kind of player Jones had needed. Just let Malik do all the work!
The Giants aren’t quite good enough to win the division, but they can get to the postseason and do some damage when they get there. They’re following a familiar formula: a ferocious and uncompromising pass rush coupled with adequate QB play. It won them two Super Bowls. Why couldn’t Daniel Jones be Eli Manning 2.0?
Worst-Case: 3 - 14, 4th in the NFC East
Do I really need to explain this? Daniel Jones stinks. Bad. As long as he’s at the helm, this team is going nowhere.
Wink Martindale is an easy scapegoat, but outside the defensive line, this unit is lacking talent. Losing Xavier McKinney is a tough blow to an already reeling secondary. The linebackers are unremarkable. This team might be able to rush the passer, but it won’t matter if they’re starting at 3rd and shorts all season because they can’t stop the run. After two straight seasons of finishing no better than 27th in rush yards allowed, that feels like a foregone conclusion.
Malik Nabers might be a great receiver prospect, but there’s nothing to speak of among the rest of the skill position players, and that’s going to make points hard to come by in Gotham. If they had kept Saquon Barkley, maybe they could have cobbled together a decent offense, but when Wan’Dale Robinson is your second-best receiver and Jones is your QB, you’ve got no shot. Sign all the middling offensive linemen in the world – this team is going straight to the bottom.
Philadelphia Eagles
Notable Arrivals:
DC Vic Fangio
OC Kellen Moore
OLB Bryce Huff
RB Saquon Barkley
SS C.J. Gardner-Johnson
ILB Devin White
Notable Departures:
DC Sean Desai
C Jason Kelce
DT Fletcher Cox
RB D’Andre Swift
FS Kevin Byard
Notable Rookies:
Best-Case: 14 - 3, 1st in the NFC East
Simply put, the Eagles are one of the most talented teams in football. This offense looks like a fantasy team: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert and one of the best offensive lines in football. They're built to mash up front and bomb out deep down the field – a threatening combination to any defense.
New offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, in particular, should be a significant upgrade over Brian Johnson’s scheme. He directed three different top-ten scoring offenses while with the Cowboys, and with all this talent at his disposal in Philly, there should be plenty of fireworks. This team has very few, if any, holes on offense.
Defense was a thorn in the Eagles’ side last year, but that too should be significantly improved. Between replacing defensive coordinator Sean Desai with the venerable Vic Fangio, spending their first two draft picks on defensive players, and making moves in free agency to shore up deficiencies with their pass rush, at linebacker, and at safety, the Eagles appear to be loaded. And that's not even counting all the reinforcements they've added through the draft in past years as well!
This team is deep, this team is experienced, and most importantly, they have elite, game-changing players all over the place. They even have an elite Kicker! Forget all about last year’s ominous collapse – that's a 2023 problem. In 2024, the Eagles are going to be the NFL’s problem.
Worst-Case: 6 - 11, 3rd in the NFC East
Maybe it's just me, but I'm having a reeeeaaaalllly hard time not believing everything is all of a sudden hunky-dory in the City of Brotherly Love. The Eagles looked like they were on the verge of all-out mutiny last year. But now everything is chill? I'm skeptical.
Kellen Moore is a flashy name, but in his one season with the Chargers, he didn't do much to disprove the theory that his success in Dallas was more of a product of the talent around him than being some play-calling savant. And while Vic Fangios's career resumé looks a lot better than Moore's, his one year with the Dolphins was nothing to celebrate, failing to rank in the top 20 in points allowed.
Critically, though, the Eagles lost a ton over the offseason in institutional memory: namely, the departures of franchise icons Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox. Both were top players at their positions, with Kelce being on the short-list of greatest centers of all-time – you don't replace two studs like this overnight. The Eagles will be counting on multiple players to fill the void, and that's no sure thing, no matter how talented their potential replacements are.
Teams as talented as the Eagles don't typically finish five games below .500, but then again, it was a shock when they went 1 - 6 to close out the season after starting 10 - 1 too. Phill feels like a sinking ship, and with Nick Sirianni as the de facto captain, my hopes wouldn’t be high for a rescue. They may have made some repairs to keep it afloat (for now), but the Eagles’ entire structural integrity is decaying. Forget that – I'm bailing.
Washington Commanders
Notable Arrivals:
HC Dan Quinn
C Tyler Biadasz
DE Dorance Armstrong
LG Nick Allegretti
WLB Frankie Luvu
MLB Bobby Wagner
Notable Departures:
HC Ron Rivera
WR Curtis Samuel
SS Kamren Curl
CB Kendall Fuller
QB Sam Howell
Notable Rookies:
Best-Case: 11 - 7, 2nd in the NFC East
There's excitement in D.C. for the first time in ages. Some of it's for the new head coach Dan Quinn, who replaced a declining and disinterested Ron Rivera. Some of it's for the new quarterback Jayden Daniels, who brings a dynamic skill-set and charming personality that Sam Howell could only dream of. But, let's be honest: it's the new ownership that's got the capital in a tizzy.
Finally, Dan Snyder is gone. The wicked witch is dead! The people of Oz – erm, D.C. – are free! It's time to party like it's 1998!
I could stop right here. Snyder's weight being lifted from this franchise has to be worth at least five wins, right? Maybe more, frankly – when it comes to bad owners, it's hard to top Dan the Anti-Man. And besides, there's some sneaky talent on this roster.
Of course, much of it will come down to how quickly Daniels can acclimate to the league, but the 2023 Heisman winner was the most pro-ready QB in his class. He's got weapons to throw, useful running backs to take the pressure off, and an improved offensive line to protect him. Not since the days of Robert Griffin III has Washington looked so dangerous on offense. And with a competent defense to keep games close, Washington could be a sneaky playoff team when it’s all said and done.
Worst-Case: 4 - 13, 4th in the NFC East
Dan Snyder may have been unceremoniously removed from Washington like the festering wart that he is, but you can't rinse that stain away in one offseason. There's a stain on this franchise – a big, fat, nasty stain. We're gonna need something a little stronger than time and WD-40.
But even if the Snyder Curse weren't real, the Commanders finished 4 - 13 and with the number two pick for a reason: namely, they're not good. Jayden Daniels may be getting plenty of preseason hype, but we've seen much more promising QBs fail to adapt to the NFL. Daniels is hardly a lock for greatness, but unfortunately, that's exactly what Washington needs to be competitive..
But even if Daniels plays well, he's going to need to put up MVP-like numbers if he wants to keep pace with his opponents. The Commanders allowed more points and yards than anybody else last year, and there's little reason (outside of believing Dan Quinn is a literal miracle-worker) to think the 2024 defense will be much better. The secondary is still atrocious, the pass rush still looks weak even with the addition of Dorance Armstrong, and 34-year-old Bobby Wagner isn't going to fix this run defense all by himself. There's not much going Washington's way, I'm afraid.
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