Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- The NFC East teams have undergone significant defensive overhauls, with some franchises now fielding as many as five rookie starters on that side of the ball.
- The Cowboys, Commanders and Giants have new defensive coordinators and their schemes will be crucial in determining whether these young players gel quickly.
- These transformations could dramatically reshape the competitive balance across the NFC East by the time the 2026 season kicks off.
We made it through draft season, and unfortunately, that means it’s time to take a deep breath before we dive headfirst into the darkness of the offseason.
Luckily, since it’s a landmark on the NFL calendar, that means we also get to do another power ranking. And as is tradition, we’re going to power rank each team’s offense and defense, add those two ranks together, and the one with the lowest score is best.
NFC East Defense Power Rankings
After the Eagles beat the Lions in Week 11 last season, Vic Fangio was asked about his rookie Drew Mukuba. He quoted Bud Grant and said, “For every rookie you play, add a loss to your loss column.”
That theory is going to be at the center of defenses in the NFC East in 2026. You’re looking at potentially five rookie starters on the Cowboys’ defense, three on the Giants’ defense, two on Washington’s defense, and maybe one on the Eagles’. That’s a baseline for what we’re looking at here.
4. Washington Commanders
The Commanders' defense was headless and abysmal last year. They added a head when they hired Daronte Jones as their defensive coordinator. Is he going to be a good head? We’ll see. He’s spent the past couple of seasons as the defensive backs coach in Minnesota, so if he can rock with that Brian Flores defense, they’ll at least be fun to watch… But that’s a big “If”.
As far as getting talent? The Commanders haven’t really done a good job. In free agency, their big move was getting Odafe Oweh, the edge rusher from the Ravens/Chargers. He’s a good player, but he’s always been a guy who’s thrived on a heavy rotation, and the Commanders don’t have a whole lot of talent to rotate with him.
They drafted Joshua Josephs, the edge from Tennessee, in the third round of the draft. He’s a good pass rusher, but he won’t give you anything against the run. That’s not really a knock against him; that’s just the kind of project that you get when you draft guys with fifth-round draft grades in the third round.
There’s a very real chance that Sonny Styles, the rookie linebacker they drafted seventh overall, walks onto the field in Week 1 and is immediately the best player on the Commanders’ defense. That’s not what you want… But when you look at that roster, it just might be true.
Washington hasn’t done enough to get their defense off the mat for the 2026 season, plain and simple.
3. Dallas Cowboys
The most important person in Dallas this offseason is their new defensive coordinator, Christian Parker, who spent the last two seasons as the defensive backs coach under Vic Fangio in Philadelphia. If he’s got the chops to run that Fangio scheme, they won’t bottom out like they did last season.
The brains behind the operation are a big deal, but the players are the ones who have to actually do things… And it really doesn’t seem like they’ve added enough.
In free agency, they added safety Cobie Durant and defensive end Rashan Gary. They’re good, and definitely an upgrade over Donovan Wilson and Dante Fowler, but they’re not going to take that team from the depths of hell that they were living in.
They drafted Caleb Downs, the god-tier safety from Ohio State, with the 11th overall pick. If every single person’s draft analysis is right, then he’ll end up being an All-Pro level thumper… but that’s not something that’ll happen right away, especially in a defense that has an acclimation period as severe as a Fangio scheme.
Then they also got a couple of pass rushers, which they desperately needed. In the most predictable turn of events ever, as soon as they traded Micah Parsons to the Packers, their pass rush vanished.
They went with Malachi Lawrence (23rd overall) and Jaishawn Barham (88th overall) as their new cats. Lawrence is not in the same zip-code of a prospect as Downs, and Barham isn’t close to either of them. Their jobs aren’t remotely as complicated as the safety’s job is, but given their talents and (most importantly) their weaknesses, they’re going to take a second to be productive.
At some point, these young guys might give the Cowboys defense some big boy teeth, but to think that they’ll grow in time to make a difference in the meat of the season is foolish. And then when they do get it together, do you really think that they’ll be able to turn that defense around from where they were last year? No, you don’t.
2. New York Giants
The New York Giants have a whopping seven first-round picks on their defense. Does that mean that they’re going to be good? Not really, but it does mean that they have talent all over the field… That is something that you’ve been able to say about their defense for the past couple of seasons, and they’ve never really reached their potential.
The big difference this year is that they have a real defensive coordinator in Dennard Wilson.
You’ve had a good burrito before, and you’ve had a bad burrito before. The main difference between the two is that bad burritos aren’t an orchestra. One bite will have some rice, one will have cheese, and one will have meat. The good burritos are an orchestra, where every bite has a little bit of everything.
It’s up to Wilson to put everything together. It’s up to him to get Brian Burns and Abdul Carter to elevate Darius Alexander and Keyvon Thibodeaux. And to make sure Arvel Reese reaches his potential as either a linebacker or an edge. (They’re going to try to get him to do both, aren’t they?)
1. Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles' defense was their bread and butter last season, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be taking a step back.
We know that the defensive line rocks, and by trading for Johnathan Greenard, they made it even better. We know that Zack Baun is great, and what we’ve seen out of Jihaad Campbell has been really promising. We know that Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean are two of the best in the world at what they do in the secondary, and they added Riq Woolen in free agency to shore up the trio.
The only weakness they really have is at safety. Drew Mukuba showed that he had some juice last season, and Marcus Epps is good enough not to stand out. Neither of those two is going to blow your pants off, but they’re not bad; that’s pretty good when it comes to a weakness.
And then you cap all of that off with Vic Fangio being the defensive coordinator. This is a unit that could be a top-two defense come next January. They are easily the best defense in the NFC East.
NFC East Offense Power Rankings
The Eagles and Giants are going through some pretty huge offensive changes. The Commanders are going through some run-of-the-mill changes. And the Cowboys are just going to do the same thing that worked for them last year. The biggest difference, though, is that the Eagles are the only team that spent some valuable draft capital on offensive players.
4. Washington Commanders
As good as the 2024 Commanders’ offense was, their 2025 offense was just as terrible. A major reason for that was because Jayden Daniels got hurt, and then he got hurt again, and then his arm got ripped off his body.
You’ve got to think that they’ll be better than they were last year purely because Daniels cannot possibly have that many terrible injuries… but it seems like that’s all they’re really counting on.
First and foremost, they got rid of Kliff Kingsbury and hired David Blough to be their new offensive coordinator. His first coaching job was last year when he was their assistant quarterbacks coach, and now he bumped right on up to be their OC. If that seems like a bad idea that won’t work out, that’s because it probably is.
Second, they didn’t really do a whole lot to get Daniels help. Terry McLaurin is still their WR1, but behind him? It’s not super promising.
In the third round of the draft, they drafted Antonio Williams, the oft-injured slot receiver out of Clemson. If he can be healthy, he’ll be a difference maker but not a game breaker.
If the Commanders are going to hop out of the NFC East offensive dog house, it’ll happen if/when they trade for Brandon Aiyuk. That cat is certifiably insane, but he’s good and reuniting him with his college quarterback would probably suit them both well…
But that hasn’t happened yet, so they are at the bottom of the NFC East.
3. New York Giants
The biggest addition the Giants made to their offense for the 2026 season was drafting Malik Nabers two years ago. He tore his ACL in Week 4 last season. Not only was that the sole game that he played with Jaxson Dart, but it was also Dart’s first career start.
We all saw Dart grow and get a lot better throughout the season. When he finally gets to play with an actual WR1 (not a makeshift WR1), that offense is going to really flow through the air. As for the running game? Not so much.
Cam Skattebo’s leg turned into a meat sack that was just holding his dislocated foot last year. That’s not something that you just come back from. At some point in the future, he’ll be back to running through people face-first, but I doubt he’ll have that same juice in 2026.
This doesn’t really play into this power ranking, but it feels right to point out: The Giants did a really good job when they drafted Francis “Sisi” Mauigoa with their second first-round pick. They already have a solid-enough offensive line, but getting a guy like Sisi with tackle/guard versatility as a depth guy who might be able to start by the end of the season was a really smart move.
2. Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles are going to trade A.J. Brown in June. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t want it to happen because it’s what he wants to happen. The glaring problem (aside from losing the best wide receiver in franchise history) is that you have to replace A.J. Brown’s production… and you can’t do that with a single guy.
There have been teams that know that, and they don’t even try to get a replacement. The Eagles didn’t do that. They signed a whole gang of wide receivers in free agency, and then got wide receiver Makai Lemon and tight end Eli Stowers with their first two picks in the 2026 draft.
The Eagles haven’t had a rookie tight end take over as TE1 ever in the past 20 years, so it’d be weird to think that’ll change with Stowers (especially since he can’t block). Lemon, on the other hand, should come in and be key in Sean Mannion’s new offense.
If Christian Parker is the most important person in Dallas, Mannion is the most important person in Philadelphia. Two days after the Birds’ season ended in January, they fired Kevin Patullo because everything he does is a crime against football. It took them a minute to hire Mannion as the new offensive coordinator, but that’s who they settled on.
The hope is that he can not only scheme up, but also implement a Shanahan/McVay style offense. Passing-wise, that means using meaningful motion, using play action to create layers of receivers, and having route combinations that allow the quarterback to use as much of the field as possible… Pretty much all the stuff that we haven’t seen with any consistency in the Eagles offense during the Sirianni era.
If Mannion can do his job, Lemon is going to be a key player that should be schemed open and maybe… just maybe… they can numb the pain of missing A.J. Brown just a little bit.
1. Dallas Cowboys
Something is funky with the Cowboys and George Pickens. They slapped a franchise tag on him back in February, but he hasn’t signed it yet. On one hand, that’s definitely weird, but on the other hand, that’s just about the Cowboys-iest thing ever.
For the sake of this power ranking, let’s pretend that Pickens is still going to be a Cowboy and that he doesn’t hold out like Le’Veon Bell did back in 2018:
Absolutely nothing has changed with the Cowboys' offense this year. It’s going to be the same play caller, offensive line, skill players, and quarterback. You can argue that’s a bad idea because you can’t just run it back, or you can argue that you absolutely can run it back if it worked really well.
Regardless of which side you’re on, the offense in Dallas is going to be perfectly fine as long as they can stay healthy.
One thing to keep in mind with this whole thing is that going back to 2019, Dak Prescott has never had back-to-back seasons where he’s been healthy for every game… He was healthy for every game in 2025.
Total NFC East Power Ranking:
4. Washington Commanders (4th+4th)
3. New York Giants (2nd+3rd)
2. Dallas Cowboys (3rd+1st)
1. Philadelphia Eagles (1st + 2nd)
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