The NFC Least

by John Busacca

The Eagles lost yet again yesterday and find themselves looking up at the Washington Redskins in the suddenly very weak NFC east.   The Cowboys and Giants look like they would have a tough time competing in the Big 12 conference and the Eagles appeared to be completely out of sync. The return of Carson Wentz may have messed with the timing of some players on the offensive side of the ball. However, the defense of the eagles appears to be a shell of the 2017 team.

The Redskins have started surprisingly well and Alex Smith is doing what he always does for the first 8 games of the season and wins a lot of games (Don’t worry Redskin fans, he will break your heart by week 12). They play the Saints tonight on MNF and could have a 2 game cushion over the Eagles by the morning. Which brings us to the two most disappointing teams in the NFC: The Giants and Cowboys.

The NY Football Giants have dropped to 1-4 on the year due in large part to a slow footed aging QB and almost no creativity on offense. Sure they ran a trick play with OBJ, but by and large they do a poor job through most of the games of creating space and separation for their elite players. OBJ has been largely irrelevant this year and a Saquon Barkley just doesn’t get enough touches in the system. There was an expectation that the Giants would spread things out and let all these playmakers loose, but instead they seem clammed up for most of the games they play.  The Eagles play the Giants on Thursday and with another loss, the season for the G-men is probably over.   Manning literally cannot move 2 feet to his left or right to avoid a sack and instead stands there like a statue to be knocked over. At some point the coach has to get creative and shorten the passing routes and find ways to get the ball in the hands of his playmakers. OBJ is already spewing his disdain in a soon to be released interview and is questioning the offensive scheme as well.   This could get ugly really quick for the Giants.

The Cowboys have totally disappointed in the East, especially when considering I made them a dark horse favorite to go to the Super Bowl. The vaunted offensive line is very pedestrian and Zeke Elliot has had no explosive plays this year.   To make matters worse, Dak Prescott looks like the backup QB that most people believed he was when he came out of college. He has 5 TDs and 4 Interceptions and he literally has no weapons to throw to down the field. Jason Garrett has done nothing to find a way to get him going or at least get some separation and Jerry Jones is already getting antsy. His QB rating is 81.0 which quite frankly means almost nothing to 99% of QBs out there. All I know is Jared Goff’s QBR is roughly 40 points higher and his team is 5-0. The bottom line is the Cowboys are not a good team right now and can’t score consistently enough or sustain a drive. Somewhere in Dallas Dez Bryant is smiling and saying I told you so.

The NFC east is suddenly looking very, very weak.

-BSB