2014 NFC East preview

Andy: This division might have been the worst in football last year and I don’t know that there is a lot of reason to believe it’s going to be any better this year. Philadelphia came around last year and won it, but it seemed more to me like a hot potato game where nobody really wanted it, but in the end someone had to win it. Dallas did little to improve a terrible defense and got worse by losing DeMarcus Ware to the Broncos and Shaun Lee to injury. The Giants … Eli Manning was already running for his life and with the Chris Snee retirement news, he’s got to be a bit nervous heading into the season. And who knows what the hell you’re going to get with Washington.

Tony: Seriously, why are we starting with this division? Shouldn’t we try to sneak this one in on some Saturday night when no one is reading? You know how sometimes a division will finish with a lot of teams with mediocre records because they beat up on each other all year? This is the opposite…this division should be the poster child for not expanding the playoffs, and possibly coming up with a better solution, because it is very possible likely that no team in this division will deserve the spot. Last year’s division champ has a still unproven QB who lost his top WR and a no name defense. The Cowboys lost one of their best defensive players to the salary cap, and the other to a torn ACL for 2014, and are still hamstrung by their owner not firing their General Manager. The Giants are trying to solve their woes by adding a new offensive coordinator rather than infusing talent, and the Redskins did add the Eagles top WR, but still have to hope that their new coaching staff can figure out how to make RG3 not look like RGKnee. I take the Eagles, and beg that we move on to the next division.

Andy: I figured we should show some East coast bias – and get the division out of the way. Sadly I pretty much agree with you. I lean Philly overall. They lost DeSean Jackson, but they get back Jeremy Maclin and they were able to cobble together a decent receiving corps last year despite not having much talent. And I like the Darren Sproles acquisition – he can spell LeSean McCoy from time-to-time and I am curious to see if coach Chip Kelly puts them on the field at the same time.

Dallas is cooked. The offense can score points but the defense could be worse than last year’s historically bad version – look no further than the desperate trade they made to add Keith McCants, err, Rolando McClain. McClain was an underachiever in the time he spent in the league before taking several years off. I can’t see him morphing into a hero now.

I think the Giants and Redskins will be fighting for second fiddle. It’d probably take a couple injuries for the Eagles to be challenged – but overall, I agree. This is a division where someone will make the playoffs because someone has to, not because they should.

We could be dismissing Dallas a bit early – they have played for the division title on the last night of the season the last couple years. But even if that’s the case it really does feel like this season it doesn’t matter, because nobody is going anywhere from this division anyway.

Tony: Good. We agree on something and can move on to a division that actually matters, because any of them will matter more than this one in the grand scheme.

Predicted order of finish

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Other division previews:

AFC East
AFC North
AFC South
AFC West
NFC North
NFC South
NFC West