Team Outlooks: NFC East

Who would have expected this? Me, Matt Sasso, starting a series of columns with the division that contains the New York Giants. I know what you're thinking, and yes I AM always this unpredictable.

These lists will go in order of last years division standings, and I will not be predicting standings here. This is just an objective view on what has happened with these teams over the offseason and a general educated guess of how they will fair in 2010.

Lets get this started. The NFC East has been very up and down the last few seasons. At one part of the season they will look like the best division in football, the NFC Beast, then later on they will all look terrible with the exception of one random team a year. Who will it be this year? More after the jump.


Dallas Cowboys


Their season is already over! Dez Bryant wouldn't even carry Roy Williams' shoulder pads! They have no hope for team chemistry or unity.

Actually I think they will be fine. I like Dez Bryant with this receiving core and with Tony Homo throwing to him. Many critics don't believe in Dez but he would have to be a HUGE bust to fail on this team. He has talent and with Miles Austin and Jason Witten getting the attention he should make a decent amount of catches. This is of course assuming he can recover from this injury in time.

Once again the 'Boys will be flashy and garner a ton of ESPN attention for their regular season success, but you'll be hard pressed to find skeptics like me believing in them that easily. They'll probably make the playoffs again with a high seed and probably fail again.

Philadelphia Eagles


As up and down as the NFC East was last year the Eagles took home the cake. They were so unpredictable even the most humble, well centered and docile fans in the world (Philadelphia fans) were forced into insanity and lashed out with demands for a change at QB and head coach. Well they got what they wanted and finally have rid themselves of McNabb. His replacement is Kevin Kolb, and while Kevin may not be Donavon he still is a good quarteback. He may add some more stability to their QB position, and he will certainly add more reliable health as McNabb has always been injury prone.

Other than Kolb they have an incredibly young core of players. They are, in a way, in "rebuilding mode." The good part about the Eagles rebuilding mode is that their new players all are extremely promising. We all know how well DeSean Jackson can play and now his teammate Jeremy Maclin is no slouch either. LeSean McCoy has high promise for this team and the Eagles should find creative ways to use him as they did with Brian Westbrook for years.

Unfortunately their defense is no where near what they used to be. They have a good secondary and a few noticeable names along the front 7 but they lack identity. It will be interesting to see this season who shows up for them and leads the defense.

New York Giants


The Giants pretty much have question marks at every position except for the 2 positions they traditionally have question marks at. Going into last season everyone knew the Giants would play good defense and run the ball well. Eli would be "meh" and their wide receivers were completely unknown. They flipped that upside down and played terrible defense without Steve Spagnola coaching them, the offensive line couldn't open up holes for Jacobs or Bradshaw (not that they played well anyways), and they couldn't put pressure on the QB like in years past. What they did do was throw the ball well. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but now they have had a pretty consistent Eli Manning for 3 years and a seemingly stout young WR core. This year there's no reason to believe Eli won't have a pretty good season and so will Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks and VICTOR CRUZ BABY.

They have one of the easiest schedules for a QB but one of the hardest for running backs. That doesn't sound promising for Brandon Jacobs who promised he will "have [his] breakout season this year."

I have no idea what the Giants will do this season. They have the talent to make the playoffs and the addition of Antrele Rolle will really help solidify their secondary, but then again they could come in dead last.

Washington Redskins


Put Albert "Fatass" Haynesworth aside and the Redskins have improved this season. I think they will play well for the first half of the season before McNabb gets hurt. Before he inevitably goes down with some season ending ankle injury he will really help improve this team. Jason Campbell was not a bad QB, but McNabbs experience and winning ability is much more important for the Redskins. Their wide receivers are pretty old but at the same time they are still pretty talented. Clinton Portis is always hurt, their defense can stop the run but not the pass, and they are just one big bundle of uncertainty.