The Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles are in a two-team race for the NFC East crown
Killed for their meekness last season, the NFL‘s representatives of the NFC East have bounced back immediately in 2014, boasting three teams with above .500 records. Though it may appear to be a three-team circle of death five weeks in, the NFC East will come down to two teams in December — the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles.
In Philadelphia, things haven’t gone quite as planned for Chip Kelly’s high-octane offense. Last year’s top-ranked rushing attack is mustering a meager 87 yards per game, pacesetter LeSean McCoy relegated to a role player through five weeks. Nick Foles continues to rack up passing yards, but the near-perfection of 2013 looks more like smoke and mirrors with each passing week. The points are still flowing (30+ in four out of five games), but the team’s pulse has dulled, special teams magic taking the place of the offensive juggernaut.
That should change as the weeks drag on. Philadelphia’s week five match-up with St. Louis was the first appearance post-suspension for starting right tackle Lane Johnson, giving the Eagles their bookend opposite Jason Peters. While the interior is still missing key components in center Jason Kelce and guard Evan Mathis, any semblance of stability is a welcome sight for McCoy and Foles alike.
Grinding out wins with their two most important offensive players struggling bodes well for Philadelphia. This time next week, they could be 5-1 and 2-0 in the division without really hitting their stride, which should give teams pause about what they’ll look like once all the cylinders are clicking.
Dallas, on the other hand, is paced by a running back great as he is flawed. DeMarco Murray has been a workhorse for the Cowboys, 18 rushing attempts clear of his closest peer league-wide, still managing the sixth-best yards per carry with 5.4. Though it may be as simple as the opportunity cost of giving one player the ball so much, Murray has been equally charitable to opposing teams, coughing up four fumbles in five games.
The good and bad of Murray isn’t so different from the well-documented career of Tony Romo, a talented quarterback that has evolved from unheralded surprise to oft-maligned whipping boy. His raw numbers over time are convincing, but it’s hard to shake the images of his collapses, spectacular in their pageantry. For every dramatic comeback, as in week three against St. Louis, there’s a meltdown like his stinker against San Francisco to start the year off.
Members of the Cowboys being polarizing shouldn’t come as a surprise — this is the franchise that employed Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin concurrently. However, charting a future for a team relying on bipolar pivots isn’t easy, nor is it necessarily safe. Betting on the Cowboys and Eagles as the class of the division rests on a primary belief — their core points of strength are better than the competition.
Washington is theoretically participating in the division, but they’re already drowning in a pool of injuries and incompetence. Despite what misguided pundits would have you believe, Kirk Cousins is not very good at playing quarterback, and they aren’t well-rounded enough to make up for that hole in other areas. Rekindling RG3’s magic from 2012 might be an option if he could stay on the field; obviously that’s no small task. 0-2 in the division, they are as close to cooked as can be this early in the season.
The New York Giants aren’t quite a write-off, and they’ll be a factor in how the final standings shake out to be certain. Odell Beckham’s triumphant debut gives New York an added dimension on offense, lending hope to the idea of the offense being more than its current, spectacularly average self. Andre Williams, the touchdown king from Boston College, has been solid if unspectacular, and he’ll have an audition for extended playing time if Rashad Jennings’ knee sprain keeps him on the pine.
What the Giants lack is the focal point teams of the past succeeded behind. The defensive front that propelled those victories is a memory, a mid-table side now resting in its place.
Believing in Philadelphia takes a larger leap of faith given the non-existence of their strength early on, but philosophically both teams have a leg-up from the get go. Each franchise is centered around offense, setting them up to benefit vastly from the NFL’s recent efforts to increase scoring. The old maxim is that defense wins championships, and the 2013 Seahawks may indeed be a testament to that. It does, however, become harder and harder to build that way with each new rule change.
Meanwhile, an innovator like Kelly and a weapons collector like Jerry Jones have seen the game tilt in their direction. Dealing with weapons like Murray and Dez Bryant or keeping up with a light-speed, no-huddle offense is tougher than ever. I may not gamble on either to win a playoff game — whistles are usually swallowed come playoff time, negating this advantage — but the Eagles and Cowboys have a decided advantage in team structure and focus against other NFC East foes.
Counting the Giants out usually garners a retort of “count the rings”, but Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin can only use those successes as a shield to a point. Struggles in recent seasons suggest that the remaining components of the Super Bowl aren’t supplemented by the right pieces to win in an evolving league. Absent a dominant defense — of which there are fewer with each year and rule addition — the Giants don’t impose the same fear, led by an aging Manning and an unproven band of conspirators.
Despite some well-documented struggles, recently and historically, the Eagles and Cowboys will prove to be the class of the division as the season rages on. All that’s left to be decided is which one emerges from the pack — the bi-polar stars due for things to break their way, or the reigning winners still finding their feet.
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