Power ranking NFC East offseasons: How do the Eagles stack up?

The last time a team won the NFC East in back-to-back years was when the Philadelphia Eagles did it in 2003 and 2004. The Eagles have an opportunity to break the 20-year curse in 2025. Unfortunately, the resurgence of the Washington Commanders kind of poses a little bit of a threat.

The games are won in the fall, but how teams set themselves up for success happens in the offseason. We’re currently about a month and a half into the offseason, and some teams in the division have been having a much better time than others. 

Just because a team is having a good offseason doesn’t mean they’re going to be good for the long haul. The Commanders and the Eagles are on two very different wavelengths as far as their plans; the Commanders are looking now, and the Eagles are looking at the future.

Power rankings: Eagles are still the best team, but they haven’t had the best offseason in the NFC East

1. Washington Commanders:

The Commanders understand the situation that they’re in. Jayden Daniels just had the best season for a rookie quarterback in NFL history, and they were, by definition, one game away from making the Super Bowl last year. They didn’t belong on the field with the Eagles in that game, but their Super Bowl window is technically open.

That means there are two ways to look at what they’ve done this offseason: good for the team long term, and good for a team trying to win now. They're a dumpster fire as a team trying to be good in the long term, but they're doing just fine as a team trying to win now. 

Now, the caveat here is that the 2024 offseason was the first complete offseason in the Josh Harris ownership era. Hitting on Jayden Daniels and everything that’s been happening after could be like going to a casino for the first time, walking up to the roulette table, and winning big on a double zero. 

There’s also a chance that Daniels pulls a C.J. Stroud. In 2023, the Texans’ quarterback lit up the world and became the Offensive Rookie of the Year. Then, in 2024, his wings melted, and he fell into the ocean. It seems like Daniels might not necessarily be that kind of guy, but who knows?

Anyway, the Commanders have been very active in free agency; They’ve signed 24 guys and traded for two others. The average age of those players is a whopping 29.5 years old, which is nuts.

The three most notable additions they made are tackle Laremy Tunsil, the position-less Deebo Samuel, and defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw. 

For Tunsil, the Commanders traded away a 2025 third and seventh-round pick and a 2026 second and fourth-round pick. That’s a lot for a 30-year-old offensive tackle who is going into his 10th season in the NFL. To be fair, he’s a good player, and he’ll probably help — but sheesh. 

Then there’s the Deebo thing. The Commanders traded a fifth-round pick for him. That’s not a terrible price, but he’s not anywhere close to the player that he’s been in the past. In 2024, he had the fewest yards after catch (YAC) that he’s had in his career, which is important because that’s kind of his whole thing. 

On top of that, he also had the smallest average separation and the smallest target share of his career. It’s a good thing that Daniels has a new target, but Deebo’s not the elite guy that the Commanders are probably hoping for. 

He’s also not a good teammate. Remember when he tried to beat up his kicker and long snapper? The dude is unhinged.

The biggest signing that the Commanders made in free agency was Javon Kinlaw, who signed a three-year deal for $45 million. Given what we’ve seen from Kinlaw, that’s a big-time overpay.

In his five years in the NFL, he’s only been healthy for three of them, and he’s never had more than 4.5 sacks in a season, and that was just last season with the Jets. We know something about seeing players get sacks with the Jets (Bryce Huff), and we know that those numbers aren’t sticky. 

All in all, they’ve had a pretty good offseason for success next year. They kept their head coach, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator, which means Jayden Daniels will have consistency around him. That’s probably a good thing for him and a bad thing for us.

The only key player that they lost was Jonathon Allen. He’s good but old, and he opened up some cap room, so it was probably a good idea. 

Even with the Eagles losing their key players, the Commanders still aren’t as good of a team as the Eagles, but they did get better this offseason. It feels like the days of Washington being the laughingstock of the NFL are long gone, and that stinks.

2. Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles are doing pretty much the opposite of what the Commanders have been doing: they’re setting themselves up for long-term success. 

So far, there have been eight key players who either retired, got traded, or signed with other teams in free agency, but that’s mostly so that the Eagles can open up future cap space to pay Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, and Cam Jurgens. 

Even though it’s eight guys who have left, the Eagles just won the Super Bowl with the most talented roster in the NFL, and they’re returning 15 starters. So, it stinks that they lost all those guys, but the way that they’ve built the roster and structured contracts, they still have a top-five roster in the NFL… it just hasn’t necessarily been a fun couple of weeks seeing guys that mean a lot to the franchise leave. 

The biggest change the Eagles made this offseason was when offensive coordinator Kellen Moore left to take the Saints’ head coaching job, and the Eagles promoted Kevin Patullo. That’s obviously super important, but there’s no reason to believe the offense will function all that differently purely because it’s an internal promotion, and Patullo has been Nick Sirianni’s guy for the past eight-ish years. 

You have to imagine that they are on the same page, more or less, about what the identity of the offense will be. 

The Eagles didn’t do a whole lot in free agency; their potentially most impactful signing was edge rusher Azeez Ojulari, who has been good when he’s healthy. In the past four seasons, he’s only played 46 out of 68 games, but he’s had 22 sacks and 36 quarterback hits. He’s good when he plays. 

Howie Roseman's biggest moves were before free agency started, when he extended Saquon Barkley and re-signed Zack Baun. It’s always good to make sure the best running back in the NFL stays with the team, and you can keep the first-team All-Pro linebacker.

The Eagles' offseason has been good for the team, but it hasn’t been fun. They haven’t really made the team better in the short term, but that’s fine because the team is still really, really good. It also means that they didn’t overpay players from a pretty lackluster free agency class.  

3. Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys have sneakily done a lot and nothing at all this offseason. They lost defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence and future Hall-of-Fame right guard Zack Martin. That’s pretty massive for the team because those two guys have been franchise staples since they were both drafted in 2014.

They also got rid of head coach Mike McCarthy and hired Brian Schottenheimer. That was kind of weird but entirely predictable. Their new offensive coordinator is Klayton Adams, who’s spent his career coaching offensive lines and tight ends. 

Their new defensive coordinator is Matt Eberflus, the former Bears head coach. That doesn’t necessarily strike any fear into your heart, but it is noteworthy because he’s an above-average DC.

The biggest thing that they’ve done this season is restructure Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lambs’ contracts. Doing that opened up over $56 million in cap space. 

The assumption there is that their new space is going to be for a Micah Parsons’ mondo-sized contract… which they are fumbling. 

If you said, ‘The Cowboys like paying players unnecessary amounts of money because Jerry Jones is vain and wants to act like the value of his franchise means it’s well-run,’ you wouldn’t sound crazy.

The best thing for the Cowboys to do, in general, is pay their players early. They haven’t done that, they aren’t doing that, and they won’t do that. 

Myles Garrett signed a $40 million per year deal with the Browns before free agency, and that raised the price of players who want contracts that make them the highest-paid non-quarterbacks in the league, and also elite pass rushers. Micah Parsons probably falls into both of those categories. 

Because the Cowboys farted around (and are still farting around on the Micah Parsons thing, his price is only going to up. So sure, they opened up $56 million in cap space, but the longer they wait to extend Parsons, the more his contract eats up of that new cap space. 

My bet: The Cowboys get his contract done 30 minutes before the Eagles kick off the 2025 season, just so Jerry can act like he’s doing something in the public eye. 

Their three notable free-agent signings were Osa Odighizuwa, Dante Fowler, and Miles Sanders. Osa Odighizuwa and Fowler are two pretty good defensive linemen. Fowler is just on a small one-year deal for $6 million, and Odighizuwa signed a four-year extension for $80 million.

That’s probably a little bit of an overpay, but he’s homegrown and only 26 years old, so it’s not super disgusting or anything like that.

The only reason Miles Sanders is noteworthy is obviously because he spent the first four seasons of his career with the Eagles before spending the past two with the Panthers. 

Overall, the Cowboys have had a bad offseason. The loss of two irreplaceable franchise players (one being the best guard in the NFL for the last half-decade) and not adding anyone of substance is tough. Then there's the Brian Schottenheimer hire, and… well, this team is still just terrible.

The only good thing going for them is that Jerry Jones hasn’t done his “All in” thing that he did last season, so that’s probably nice. Luckily for us (and the universe), they still had a pretty embarrassing thing happen. 

After DeMarcus Lawrence signed with the Seahawks, he was talking about his time in Dallas, and he said, “Made my home there, my family lives there. I'm forever gonna be there, but I know for sure I'm not going to win a Super Bowl there. So, yeah … we here."

He got into a Twitter spat with Micah Parsons about it, which made it all the more delicious. As much as the Cowboys can do to try to make their team better, they still find a way to be a total joke. It’s a ‘one step forward, five steps back’ type of thing. 

4. New York Giants

The Giants' owner, John Mara, is entirely to blame for his team’s terrible offseason. He doesn’t want to be the kind of owner who fires his general manager and head coach whenever something goes wrong because he likes to think he runs a classy organization. 

What that means is that Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are now on the hottest of hot seats, which is impressive because everyone thought that their seats couldn’t possibly be hotter after last season.

So now, they are dogs backed into a corner. They’re going to continue to make really terrible decisions that will continue to hurt the franchise in the long run.

It could be something like trading up to draft a quarterback and playing him before he’s ready, instead of building a team around one first. That’s a pretty common thing when franchises are in this situation because the people in charge have smashed the panic button, and playing a new quarterback makes it seem like they’re trying. 

They also did this really stupid thing where they signed safety Jevon Holland to a three-year, $45.3 million deal ($15.1 million APY). Holland is good, but he’s not as good as Xavier McKinney, who they let walk in free agency last season before he signed a four-year $67 million ($16.75 million APY).

That’s a difference of just $1.65 million. When you’re paying an elite player that much money, that small of a difference shouldn’t matter, especially when the salary cap is between $255 million and $279 million. 

It’s just a really, really dumb process by a franchise that can’t find its feet. 

They did sign Jameis Winston and Russell Wilson, so at least there’s a startable quarterback on the team. If Winston starts, it’s kind of bittersweet because that means the Eagles are going to have an easier time beating the Giants because he LOVES throwing hilarious interceptions, but it stinks because he’s a likable guy.

The Giants are a joke of a franchise that is having a terrible offseason, and it all starts from the top.