All four teams in the NFC East are at very, very different levels of competition and roster building. The Giants are a disgusting mess of bad management and void of any consistent talent, the Cowboys exist just so they can chase media relevancy, the Commanders are an up-and-coming team with a quarterback who might be good, and the Philadelphia Eagles are the best team in the world.
The NFL is set up so that there’s parity. It’s set up so poverty franchises like the Giants and the Cowboys can compete with the Eagles, and that all starts with the draft.
Turning picks into more picks is a great way to have a good NFL Draft
Every team in the NFC East had a pretty good draft. There wasn’t any brazen buffoonery by a certain owner in Texas who sold the metaphorical (or literal) farm to trade up and get a generational running back, there were no phone-in picks by a doomed general manager in New York, and the Commanders didn’t draft a pipsqueak of a cornerback in the first round. It was pretty different for the three teams at the bottom of the NFC East.
That being said, there were clearly winners and losers in the NFC East during the 2025 NFL draft… There just wasn’t the magnitude of difference between all four teams as there normally is.
4. Washington Commanders
If you need to know one thing about the NFL draft, it’s that the best way to win is by making the most picks you can. If you shoot enough blind bullets, one of them is sure to hit.
That, along with an edge rusher, is what the Commanders needed during the draft. They didn’t really get either. At the start of free agency, they traded their third and a seventh-round pick (along with two future picks) for 30-year-old left tackle Laremy Tunsil. On top of that, they traded a fifth-round pick to the 49ers for Deebo Samuel. That means Washington went into the draft with just five picks, and they left the draft with just five rookies.
Now, they used those picks pretty well. In the first round, they drafted Josh Connerly Jr., who seems like he’ll be a pretty good offensive tackle. Then, in the second round, they drafted Trey Amos, who isn’t pathetically small like Emmanuel Forbes (their 2023 first-round pick). So that’s nice.
It seems like their priorities this offseason were protecting Jayden Daniels and stopping A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Unfortunately for them, that means they had to use premium picks to accomplish those goals instead of trading back and getting more picks. It also means that they weren’t able to get an edge rusher. For those reasons, they had the worst draft in the NFC East.
3. New York Giants
People have been praising the Giants for having a phenomenal draft, but I just can’t see it. Sure, they got Abdul Carter, the edge rusher out of Penn State, with the third overall pick. He’ll probably end up being a beast, especially since he’ll be playing next to Dexter Lawrence for a couple of years.
That pick was a layup. No trade, no swindle — just competence. The Giants were an atrocious team last year, and they drafted one of the two best players right where they should’ve.
They weren’t done in the first round, though. After that, they traded their second, third, and 2026 third-round picks to get back up into the first round to draft Jaxson Dart, the quarterback from Ole Miss, with the 25th overall pick.
This is how this is going to play out: The Giants are going to start with Russell Wilson playing, and he’s going to do bad. Then, they’ll go to Jameis Winston, and he’s going to do bad. Then, in a last-ditch effort to save their jobs (if they haven’t been fired already, Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are going to throw Dart to the wolves. It’s also going to go just as bad, if not worse.
Then, next year, the Giants are going to have a new front office and a new head coach, and they’ll be stuck with Dart because the previous regime decided they were going to risk it all on him. It’ll continue to set them back, and they won’t have a decent franchise quarterback until at least 2029.
That being said, that trade-up looks a lot better when you compare it to the trade-up that happened immediately afterward, when the Falcons traded a 2026 first-round pick to move up to the 26th overall spot.
Other than that, the Giants' draft was fine. They also picked up defensive tackle Darius Alexander (Toledo), running back Cam Skattebo (Arizona State), guard Marcus Mbow (Purdue), and then a seventh-round tight end and cornerback.
Alexander and Skattebo are certainly going to be fun pieces for the Giants, but it sure feels like they probably should’ve drafted more than just one offensive lineman. If there is any team that should realize the value of a good offensive line, it’s the team that just saw Saquon Barkley finally play behind a good one and rush for over 2,000 yards.
2. Dallas Cowboys
Dallas did perfectly, surprisingly, and disappointingly good in the draft. They didn’t make any audacious trades like Jerry Jones said they would, and they also didn’t draft Shedeur Sanders and create wildly unnecessary quarterback drama. That’s something that’s right up that franchise’s alley, so they get some bonus points for not subjecting the world to that kind of garbage for the entire offseason.
On top of that, they used their first handful of picks pretty wisely. They drafted guard Thomas Booker in the first round. Their hopes are that he can replace future Hall-of-Famer Zack Martin, who retired in February. Our hopes are that they are wildly wrong.
In the second round, they drafted edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku, who fills an immediate need that was opened up after DeMarcus Lawrence left in free agency. In the third round, they drafted another corner, which stinks for him because one of the Cowboys’ cornerbacks always has a debilitating injury at some point in the offseason. They also drafted a couple of running backs and some guys that might be able to help in the spine of their spineless defense.
And they did all of that while not overextending themselves and reaching or spending unnecessary draft capital on someone. All in all, they picked up nine rookies, and chances are one of them will unfortunately be the bane of Eagles fans' existence at some point in the next three or four years.
1. Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles went into the draft with eight draft picks, and none of them were past the fifth round. They ended the draft with 10 rookies, and four of them were drafted in the sixth round. One of those sixth-round picks was offensive tackle Cameron Williams, who has the potential to be one of the best-value picks in the entire draft.
The Eagles needed to restock on the defensive side of the ball in a big way, and Howie Roseman started the draft off with a bang, but it wasn’t necessarily of his own doing. There were reports that he was trying to trade up into the early to mid-20s to draft linebacker Jihaad Campbell.
Luckily, what the Giants and the Falcons traded made what the Eagles were offering look like pocket lint and a half-smoked cigarette. Campbell fell even later, and the Eagles were able to trade a fifth-round pick (of which they had four) to the Chiefs to move up one spot to grab him. That’s pretty good compared to what it could have been.
After Campbell, the Eagles grabbed the undersized but mega-physical and very productive safety Andrew Mukuba, who fills a pretty immediate need. After that, it was a defensive tackle, a cornerback, another linebacker, a handful of offensive linemen (including Williams), a backup quarterback, and a sixth-round edge rusher. That’s a whole lot of additions to position groups that the Eagles needed.
If there is a knock on the Eagles’ draft, it’s that they didn’t add any tight ends, wide receivers, or running backs. They don’t really need any wide receivers or running backs, so the only real worry there is tight end. That’s a worry that’s entirely dependent on what happens with Dallas Goedert… so as of right now, it’s not that big of a worry.
All in all, Howie Roseman nailed it. When you’re shifting to a defense that is young and cheap, getting guys who will be productive right out of the gate is a must. Roseman added a whole bunch of players with huge upside, and his first-round pick has a very high floor. That’s going to be huge. The flowers are blooming this Howie SZN (it’s always Howie SZN).