NFC East Preview.
NFC East
The Eagles Nearly Ran Away With The NFC East. At One Point, Nick Siriani's Group Looked Poised To Run The Table Until The Least Expected Division Foe The Washington Commanders Wrote The Most Rudimentary Game Plan For Handling The Soar Eagles, keeping the Ball On The Ground. Of Course, Beating The Best Team in Football Would Never Again Prove So Simple. The Eagles Again Boost One Of The Most Complete Rosters In Football History, Maybe The Best One Since Last Year.
The Cowboys Broke Through Against An Eagles Team Less Than Full Strength. The Cowboys Kept The Division Title Race Interesting Up To the Late Third Of the Season. Can The Eagles Run Away With The Division Again? The Cowboys Have The Best Shot To Compete For The Division Title, But Can Dak Keep The Ship Altogether. The Giants May Not Have Much Of An Answer, But They Have To Prove They Can Build On Last Year's Hearty, Unexpected Performance. Where Do The Commanders Fit All Of This? They Fell One Unconscious Miss-Note, One "gaffe" From Ron Rivera, Not Aware "we could get knocked out of the playoffs" The Commanders Keep Spinning The Quarterback Merry Go Round.
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles Looked To Face an Incomparably Difficult Task When They Again Look To Scale The Mountain But To The Super Bowl. Or A Mountain Climber Scaling The Same Twice The Second Time Brings With It A Sense Of Ease Because Experience Tells You What Paths To Traverse And Where The Pitfalls Rest. With Climbing Your Way Back To The Super Bowl, The Mountain Changes. Like Scott Free(Mr. Miracle, DCAU) Discovering That He Can't Escape The X-Pit(Again) As The Only Escapee Ever Because Everything's Changed Inside The Walls Of Grammy Goodness Torture Chamber. The Eagles Have Their Work Cut For Them, First Forget Their Past Success And Focus On The Trips And Trail Set Before Them. The Eagles Trotted Over Their Expectations From Last Year. Can We Expect Them Another Season Of Surpassed Success? "We're Preparing To Be Better Than We Were Last Year." AJ Brown.
There is no Better Image To Compare Yourself To Than The You Of Yesterday, But When That Version Of You Shocked The World, The Image Can Become a Tyrant. I Do Wonder About The Eagles Backup Situation Hurts Has Yet To Show Josh Allen's Invisibility When it Comes To Taking Hits As Dual Threat. Hurts Gets "Hurt" More Times Than Often And Missed Games Because Of The Style Of Play He Embodies: The Reality Hurts, But Good Teams Need Contingencies. Right Now, The Eagles' Rookie, Tanner McKee, Is Fairly Athletic But Needs To Work On His Arm. Marcus Mariota, Former Number 2 Pick Who Looked Good In Spots For Atlanta Last Year But Now Looks Like He's Holding Onto A Career. Those Two Options Constitute The Best The Eagles Have As Backups, And If You're An Eagles Fan, Dread The Day Any Of Those Two [Inevitably] Step In To Take Snaps. You Have To Place Your Confidence In The Eagles In This Division. No NFC HAs won Back East titles In 20 Years, but history has yet to place a Team So Fleshed Out From Top to Bottom. The Starting Corners Have Age Working Against The Unit, and the Team Receives An Automatic Bid if they have Consecutive Years Of Good Health In The NFL. Season Prediction, 13-4.
New York Giants
The Giants Find Themselves Unfamiliar Territory Just In Time For Ship Personnel To Nearly Spark A Mutiny. The G Men Exceeded All Expectations For The Team Under First-Year Head Coach Brian Daboll, Who Brought The Team's First Winning Season Since An MSN Named Eli Piloted The Offense. Daboll led the Giants To The Playoffs, Where They Won Their First Playoff Over A Decade. With All That Glorious UnProjected Success Buoying The Giants, The Dials Have Turned The Giants Have Expectations Of Regression. Daboll's Takeover Brought With Him A Few Negatives For All The Benefits. The Regime Change Meant The Giants had No Attachments To Daniel Jones, Who Entered The Final Years Of His Rookie Deal With Little Expectations That He'd See Another Deal With The Team. A Triumphant Disappointment To That Point In His Career Daniel Jones Proved Everybody Except Maybe His Mom Wrong That He Could Play Quarterback At a High Level. Daniel's 3205 Passing Yards, 15 Touchdowns, And 6.8 YPA, Pedestrian Number. Truthfully, He Added 708 On The Ground. Jones's Performance last Season Felt World Beating, MVP Like, Coming From The Former Hapless Mess Of A Quarterback That Jones Showed His First Three Years. If You're The Giants, You'd Have Like To Get Another Year, Another Look, Say A Less Expensive And More Expansive Look At Jones Before Committing Big Money To Him. Instead, A Spectacular Quarterback Market and A Lack Of Foreknowledge That Resulted in The Giants Rejecting Jones's Fifth Year Option Brought The Giants To The Disheartening Crossroads Of Modern Sports, Giving Loads Of Money To A Kid Based On Promise. I Don't Know About You But His Fifteen Touchdowns, From A Starting Quarterback, Feels Insulting. Jones Averaged Less Than One Touchdown A Game. He Played Many Snaps With Fire At His Heels Because The Offensive Line Remained at work.
Nevertheless, If Jones Can Bump His Yard Per Attempt Up To About 7, I'd Feel More Comfortable With Him Aboard. The Giants Handed Jones The Bag, 4 Years, $160 Million, But The Trouble With The Deal did not End With Just Handing The Bag Over; the Real Umbrage Started With The Giant's Inability Or Reluctance To Pay Saquon Barkley. Jones Stirred The Giant's Drink On Offense, But Saquon Made The Offense. On The Strength Of Both Jones And Saquon, The Giants Ranked 7th In Rushing DVOA. Still, The Giants Could Only Produce a Franchise Which Resulted In A Holdout, Which Resulted In The Domino Effect Of Tweets That Sustained Interest In The NFL Off Season. Saquon Ultimately Returned To The Team, And The Giants Will Need Him Because The Division Arms Race Didn't quit this off-season. Worse, Of All, The G-Men won't Have The Element Of "Surprise" In Their Favor. No One's Expecting Them Not To Compete, But How Well They Compete Varies Depending On Which Projections You Read And How Ignorant The People Who Wrote Projections Care To Look In Favor Of "Hot takes." I Don't Think The East Goes Smoothly into One Team's Favor Like Last Year, Nor Do I Believe The Giants Win. The Giants Need Another Solid Year Of Output From Daniel Jones, Or Else The Contract Decision Looks worse Once They're In The Hole For The Sunken Cost. What Frame Of Mind Will Saquin Play With If Things Fall Apart At The Seams? Season Prediction, 9-8.
Washington Commanders
The Redski… Commanders serve As The Wild Card In This Division. They Have Enough Talent To Compete With Anyone Else In The Division. Still, today, the Starting Quarterback is Sixth, New Offensive Coordinator, New Ownership, and A Head Coach Whose Present Has A Noticeable Shrinkage. The Commanders Closed Off A Rough Off-Season Backloaded And Replete With Questions, The Product Of Fruitless Procrastination, Now Enter A Critical Season With Questions.
The Commanders I'll Fate Dalliance With Carson Wentz Ended In A Flame Out, Who Saw That Coming. The Long And Frought Sale Of The Team Finally Delivered All Of The Signatures Needed To Move Forward With Josh Harris's Takeover For Dan Snyder. The Commanders Also Reject Former 2nd Overall Pick Chase Young His Fifth Year Option. All This Move Brought Their Sub Followings With Their Histories And, Of Course, Objections And Applause. The Train Into Commanders Station Took Some Circuitous Dealing And More Crushing Defeats From Interminably Putting Things Off Until Later. Then Football Starts With a New "Prove It" Quarterback In Place.
We Haven't Seen The Last Of Carson Wentz, Just This Commanders Version of Him. Second Year Quarterback And Highly Touted Prospect Sam Howell Takes Over As The Starter, and Former Chiefs OC Eric Beiniemy is Calling Plays. Ron Rivera Has Two Bets On The Defensive Line. The Team Signed Defensive Tackle Daron Payne To A New Worth Around 19 Million Per. Breaking Load For Anybody Whose Not A Quarterback Defensive Tackles Have The Luxury Box Market, And Some Have Their Eyes On Crushing The Market At $30 Million Or More. With Him Done, The Commanders Will Have To Open The Books For The Uber Talented But More Perplexing Chase Young, Coming Off Of A Down Year, Or Montez Sweat, Not As talented but Projectable Montez Sweat, Coming Off Of A Solid, Respectable Top Ten Year. Who Gets The Pay Day? A Resurgent Chase In 2023-24 In Light Of His Struggles Shouldn't Surprise Anyone, Most Guys Only Lay For Their Second Contract—Yes I'm Implying What I'm Implying. That's How The Contractual Chess Game Of Football Plays Out. Season Prediction, 5-12.
Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys, Like Seemingly Every Netflix-Tag-Along Streaming Service, Playing Catch Up To Netflix. Every Year, The Cowboys Return To The Board To Reshuffle, Make An Acquisition Or Change Anything To Shift The Platform They Stand On. In Some and Each Year, The Intrigue Spikes, And So Does The Interest. The Cowboys Began The Sour Road Of Recovery By Overhauling The Offense. The Enter The Season Projected As A Top Five But Caught A Case Of The "Yips" As The Season Progressed. Cowboys Quarterback Dak Prescott led the League In Interceptions(15). His Turnover Behavior Only Allowed The 49ers To Rub Their Thumb In The Cowboy's Noses When Dak Threw Another Two Picks Against Their NFC Rival In Their Playoff Loss. The Loss And The Weight Of The Expectations From That Loss Precipitated The Cowboys' First Fire Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore. I'm afraid I have to disagree With Stephen A. Smith; I Think The Dak Era Of Cowboys Football Constitutes A Failure. Remember, The Cowboys Drafted Dak Fourth around To back up Tony Romo, but Instead, He Emerged As A More Than Viable Starter When Healthy. Dak Didn't Fail. PFF ranked Dak As One Of The Most Accurate Quarterbacks, 3rd Overall, In The League Last Season. Still, Time Missed seems To Have Thrown Him Out Of Sync With His Teammates, And I Hope He Can Return To That Level Of Prowess.
Kellen Moore, Dak's Former Back Up, Ran The Cowboys before Mike McCarthy Arrived In Dallas, But A New Touch, McCarthy's Touch, Seemed In Order If The Team Should The Lofty Set Forth Them. Why Does McCarthy Suffer The Repercussions? Should The Cowboys Flop? This Season(Upcoming) Again, The Cowboy's Offense probably looks Impressive. The Boys Moved On From Ezekiel Elliot, Now Let's Not All Wail At Once, But In So They Elevate Tony Pollard To Number. McCarthy Professed His Interest In Leaning On The Rushing Game More Steadily, But Thats Unlikely Given Tony Pollard's Status As A Lighter Build 'Change Of Pace' Back.
What's More Likely, The Short Passing Game. According To PFF, Dak Threw Nine(9) Of His 15 Interceptions On Horizontal Lead Route(Post And Over Routes) And Another Four(4) On Vertical Leads( Deep Routes). With Newly Acquired Receivers, Brandin Cooks In The Mix Look For Dak To Reduce The Average Depth Of Target To Below 8.7, A Figure Good Enough For Eighth In The League. Dak Has To Deal with The Gauge Back, Bounce Back Year Or Otherwise, If He And McCarthy Hope To See The Cowboys To Success. The Cowboy's Offense Face several Upcoming Contracts, Including Dak, Leading Receiver Ceedee Lamb, And Leading Rusher Tony Pollard, All Of Whom Expect Big Contracts From The Boys. Ceedee Continues To Emerge Year After Year as One Of the Elite Receivers In The League. Last Season Ceedee Registered A Career High In Touchdowns, Rec%, Yards, And This Season Ceedee Could Add Another Thousand Yard Season To His Career Highlight If He And Dak Can Get On And Remains On The Same Page.
On the Other hand, the Defense has Loads Of Talent and first-round pick Mazi Smith Adds Some Weight Up Front To Protect Against The Run. The Cowboys Need To Make A playoff Run, Which Means An NFC Title Run or Jerry Jones Will Find Himself Served With A Lot More Hard Decisions. Season Prediction: Dak Bounces Back, But Not Enough To Dethrone The Eagles, 11-6.
