New York is a credible threat to win the NFC East. The Philadelphia Eagles are the early season favorites to take the division, but that’s more the result of oddsmakers simply giving last year’s champ the benefit of the doubt. Meaning no disrespect to the Eagles, their 10-6 season and home playoff loss to the New Orleans Saints don’t exactly mark them an unbeatable favorite.
A collection of five results–including the main late afternoon national TV game (Packers-Cowboys), Sunday night (Bengals-Steelers) and Monday night (Ravens-Lions) have created a situation where winner-take-all showdowns are now set up in the AFC North, NFC North and NFC East for Week 17.
The NFC East race appears destined to come down to a Week 17 battle between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys, a circumstance that gives the Cowboys a chance for a rare trifecta–they could lose a head-to-head battle for the division to the New York Giants in 2011, the Washington Redskins in 2012 and the Eagles in 2013. All that’s needed is to make sure NBC flexes this year’s game into prime-time so all three could take place for the nation on Sunday Night Football.
Back on October 10, the New York Giants were left for dead. They played another poor game in a Thursday night loss at Chicago and had fallen to 0-6. But over the last month, the Giants are steadily rising, having won three in a row and talk of whether they can win the NFC East is actually a legitimate topic of discussion.
The division races in the NFC East & NFC West had seemed set in stone for a few weeks. The New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers would win, and the only question was whether either of them would get a #2 playoff seed and first-round bye, or perhaps chase down the Atlanta Falcons for homefield advantage. After road losses in Week 13, both divisions are not only back in play, but you can make a good case that the favorites are going to let them slip away.
It’s the NFC East that gets the spotlight in NFL Week 9, as the Giants play the marquee late Sunday afternoon game, the Cowboys play Sunday night, the Eagles play Monday night and the Redskins’ game early Sunday will be seen by the largest portion of the TV audience. So it’s here that we’ll start our breakdown of the Sunday games, going top-to-bottom in the standings.