NFC East power rankings after Marshon Lattimore trade: Eagles are down bad

The dust has finally settled after the NFL trade deadline. Some teams were buyers, some were sellers and some, curiously decided to stand pat. One of the biggest winners of the day were the Washington Commanders, who swooped in at the 11th hour to snatch New Orleans Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore away from the Kansas City Chiefs.

It's hard to overstate just how significant a move this is for Washington. The emergence of Jayden Daniels as a young (and cost-controlled) superstar has accelerated the team's competitive timeline, but one flaw threatened to unravel everything: By just about every metric, the Commanders were getting torched by opposing wide receivers. The biggest culprit was Benjamin St. Juste, who's been picked on as much as just about any corner in the league so far this season. Lattimore, meanwhile, has the lowest target rate among outside corners (10%) and is allowing 0.7 yards per coverage snap (third-lowest), per NFL Next Gen Stats. Adding Lattimore, and nailing St. Juste to the bench, is among the biggest single upgrades a team will make this deadline season.

But is it big enough to turn this hot start into a division title run? While the rest of their division rivals were largely silent at the trade deadline, did the Lattimore trade do enough to vault Washington to the top of the NFC East pecking order moving forward? Let's break it down.

4. New York Giants

Not much to say here: If the Giants were going to do anything at the trade deadline, it was sell, but GM Joe Schoen's asking price for players like LB Azeez Ojulari and WR Darius Slayton was reportedly sky-high. Which is tough to make sense of considering just how far away from contention this team truly is, and how important it'll be to amass draft capital in the hopes of finding a franchise quarterback to replace Daniel Jones next spring.

3. Dallas Cowboys

Dallas should've considered itself a seller too after hitting rock bottom in a 27-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons in Week 9. Instead, Jerry Jones is out here shelling out a fourth-round pick for a wide receiver who struggled to make a mark on the Carolina Panthers' bereft depth chart. This team can't stop the run on defense or stop shooting itself in the foot on offense, and now Dak Prescott's health is a question mark.

2. Philadelphia Eagles

On the surface, the Eagles appear to have turned a corner, winning four in a row and getting star receiver A.J. Brown back healthy. Under the hood, though, questions remain: Those four wins have come against the Browns, Giants, Bengals and Jaguars, and this team has still yet to prove it can hold up on defense and be less predictable on offense against better competition.

GM Howie Roseman had a chance to address his team's depth issues at edge rusher, running back and elsewhere, but instead chose to stand pat. There's still plenty of talent here to make a real run; Saquon Barkley is a big play waiting to happen, and Philly's deep and dangerous secondary looks better and better with each passing week. It felt like this was a team in need of a shot in the arm for the home stretch, though, and that never arrived on Tuesday.

1. Washington Commanders

Maybe this is an overreaction, or asking too much too soon of Jayden Daniels. The Commanders' defense has been hard to trust at times this season, and they've relied on Daniels magic to bail them out of close games. But nothing about Daniels' sensational start to his rookie season feels like a fluke, and Washington addressed arguably its single biggest need by acquiring corner Marshon Lattimore from the New Orleans Saints.

Lattimore still has plenty of good football in front of him, and he can be the CB1 that Washington desperately needs to lock horns with the likes of A.J. Brown and CeeDee Lamb moving forward. Without Lattimore on the back end, the Commanders felt more like a Wild Card team, capable of exhilarating highs but with a few too many cracks in the foundation come December and January. If Lattimore can help Dan Quinn's defense deal with top wideouts, however, Daniels should be enough to carry his team to a division title.