Seton Hall
How to fix the worst division in football
Date: November 7, 2020By: Joe Walls
Yong Kim/Philadelphia Inquirer
How is it that a division can consistently have such a good pool of talent both on the playing and coaching level, yet still underachieve each and every year. This seems to always be the case for the teams in the NFC East. These teams include the Dallas Cowboys, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Washington Football Team, and the New York Giants. So, what actually makes these teams so bad?
The easy excuse is injury. I mean every single NFC East team. With the Eagles just getting back one of their best wide receivers and tight ends last week against Dallas, and not having any of their starting offensive linemen besides center Jason Kelce. Dallas is in the same boat, most of their defense is out at the moment, their offensive line is just as thrown together as the Eagles, and their biggest loss comes at quarterback, the starter Dak Prescott is out for the rest of the season with a leg injury, and now Andy Dalton, the backup is out with a concussion. Their current starter is a seventh-round rookie out of James Madison, who actually did not play terribly against the Eagles.
As for the other two teams in the NFC they are just a dumpster fire, the Washington Football Team has not been good for a while, they have no consistent quarterback with guys like Kyle Allen and Dwayne Haskins, they have to hope that Alex Smith really returns to form and proves that he really is some sort of superhero after that leg injury, and then there is the New York Giants, I think the biggest blame for the Giants is management, they refuse to give Daniel Jones the weapons he needs, they cannot give him protection for his life because every offensive lineman they acquire ends up regressing immediately after arriving. Their best receiver is Evan Engram, the tight end, and maybe the skeleton of Golden Tate they signed last year.
Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle
I think another blame that can be cast on the most overhyped division in football is the coaching. Currently the best coach decision making-4wise would have to be Ron Rivera, the other three still really have no idea how to make decisions. We see the same mistakes that Mike McCarthy made in Green Bay now showing in Dallas, creating a really bad atmosphere in the locker room, Joe Judge does not look ready to be a head coach just yet, though I give him leniency for it being his first year.
Then there is Doug Pederson, oh the multitude of things I could say about the Eagles head coach. Once touted for his bold play calls and risking it on fourth down, now he just seems like a bonehead with a headset. It becomes less of a risk and surprise to go for it on fourth down when you do it with 12 minutes left in the first quarter or going for two becomes predictable when all you run on 2-point conversions is a QB draw. I really think Pederson and the Eagles got lucky the year they won the Super Bowl and as an Eagles fan that pains me to say, because I want to believe they were the best team that year.
The next thing I want to talk about is the injury bug for every team in the NFC East over the past three years we have seen every star player on their roster go down with an injury at least once, people like Carson Wentz who tore his ACL one of the last weeks of an MVP season and had to watch his team win the Super Bowl, Smith who broke his leg and was told he may never play again, now Prescott and his ankle, which he broke a few weeks ago against the Giants. How do you expect a division to compete even within the division when the roster is made up of guys on the practice squad and rookies who have never touched a football in their lives, that’s not to say all the talent has been drained in the NFC and many of the teams are now getting back to full strength, but your comparing guys like Greg Ward, Ben DeNucci, Darius Slayton, and Kyle Allen to the likes of DK Metcalf, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees it just isn’t fair to the players to somehow live up to that expectation.
Chris Szagola/AP
The NFC East just gets so overhyped every year because they have the talent to be an elite division in the NFL but as soon as the season begins all that talent seems to disappear into a void, the Cowboys are currently wasting Ezekiel Elliot, same goes for Landon Collins in Washington or Kelce in Philadelphia. It pains me as a football fan to see these bright stars burn out so quickly because of a historically bad division that can never seem to get over the hump for one reason or another.
Some sort of reset needs to happen soon or it is just going to get worse on all of these rosters, the owners need to wipe away every front office and start with fresh faces because all of these teams are some of the least competitive in the Free Agent and trade markets there are, I don’t even really remember hearing anything come from the NFC East this trade deadline for what will be the second year in a row, which is a serious problem when every team seems to need help at every position, but the owners and GMs seem to have written this off as a tanking year and are just going to wait and see how things play out in the long run. Now someone has to win this division, right?
Even if they are terrible, and so far it seems like the winner will be the Philadelphia Eagles, who are notorious for their underdog story in the playoffs and being able to beat tough opponents any time they make it, but let’s face it this year even if one hundred percent healthy any NFC east team is going to get upended by whomever they play, which currently looks to be the Chicago Bears.
As a football fan you should want every team in every division to be competitive, so what can the NFC East do to fix this? They need to start building teams tailored for their stars, get Daniel Jones wide receivers, give Wentz more weapons everywhere on the field, in Dallas build the defense around Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch, I can’t give you a definitive answer for Washington as to what needs to be fixed, maybe getting rid of Dan Snyder would be a good start, give Wentz an offensive line that will actually block the defense, same goes for Jones and Prescott they can’t be expected to be elite quarterbacks in the NFL when even a safety or cornerback could make it past their line and get pressure.
Cory Sipkin/AP
They need their coaches to make good decisions on both sides of the ball, hire offensive coordinators if the head coach is in charge of play calling and make sure the defense can actually get the offense off in four plays and does not get burned. Make the rush and pass defense equal do not crutch on one or the other because then it gets harder to get off the field quickly. You can take risks on things like fourth and short or try for two-point conversions, but make sure you pick your battles if teams are expecting it the decision seems dumb, not risky.
Obviously, I am not an NFL owner, player or coach, but by the looks of it some of these people in the NFC East do not really know what is happening either and it is becoming incredibly depressing to watch week in and week out.
Joe Walls can be reached at joseph.walls@student.shu.edu.
