NFC East Preview

By Adam Zimmerman 

The NFC East is the most competitive division of the NFL year after year. It doesn’t always have the team with the best record, but it definitely never has the worst. Week 17 has decided the NFC East Champion the last four years. No team has repeated as division champion since the Philadelphia Eagles won it four years in a row from 2001-2004. The Dallas Cowboys are the only team to not finish alone at the bottom of the division in recent memory.

Most likely the competitiveness of the division originates from the pressure that being associated with a storied franchise like the Dallas Cowboys has put on the other teams. Much like the SEC’s dominance, the Cowboys’ championship history forces the rest of the teams to either step up their game or get left behind. Lately the Giants have been the hot girl at the party and Eli Manning (who did everything Johnny Manziel is doing now while he was at Ole Miss, just wasn’t stupid enough to put everything on the ‘gram) has shown that he is the most reliable quarterback in the division. The Cowboys have spent the last decade doing exactly the worst thing a franchise can do – consistently produce a .500 record and pick in the middle of the draft every year. Washington is looking to a Baylor QB to save them and give them a respectable product for the first time since Joe Theismann was the man behind center. And the Eagles still have never won anything. Ever. Not one Super Bowl.

In the NFL, many things are known going into the season: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees will amaze us, Adrian Peterson will run someone over, Bernard Pollard will injure a Patriot, the Texans will flame out and Tim Tebow will be talked about. However, when it comes to how each team will perform, it’s a total crapshoot. No one knows how 52 players plus their coaches will come together to perform on Sundays. And then there are always injuries and stupid penalties and all that stuff that can have a lot more to do with a win-loss record than the talent level of a team.

That being said, this is a preview column and I am supposed to give you a preview and make some predictions about what is about to happen this fall. Here is what each team in the NFC East needs to do. In other words, each team will be successful if…

New York Giants:

….if their defense can get to the QB like the seasons when they won their Super Bowls and their running game is the focus of their offense.

While those might be the two most cliché goals in football, they have not rung more true for any team in recent years than the New York Giants. NYG Head Coach Tom Coughlin is an old-school disciplinarian. It was once assumed that he would be on his way out because the players thought he was too mean. So he led his team to a Super Bowl. Lots of coaches who are hard-asses like to look tough in front of the media (Mike Singletary and Dennis Green) and this makes them the center of attention but players hate that. Coughlin doesn’t do that. He just sets his expectations, works his players hard and makes sure his team is ready for a fight on Sunday. And it works. His offensive line has been one of the more steady and reliable units in the league and we have seen Eli emerge as an Eli-te QB because of this. They always find a way to get decent production out of a running back (David Wilson will most likely be the go-to guy this season. Dude is fast. I’d be thrilled to get him in the 8-9^th round of a fantasy draft). On the defensive side, they lost Osi Umenyora (I’m not going to spell check his name, but you know who I mean) to the Falcons but they still have Justin Tuck and Jason Pierre-Paul. In case you’ve never looked at their physical attributes (and facemasks) they might just be the scariest New Yorkers since Shredder.

Looking at their schedule, and breaking it down in to four, 4-game segments (the way head coaches actually look at their season) here is what I think would be reasonable expectations for how their season will play out (based on my gut)

	Weeks 1-4	Weeks 5-8	Weeks 9-12	Weeks 13-16	Total
New York Giants	2-2	3-1	2-2	1-3	8-8

Philadelphia Eagles: 

….if their offense can fully grasp the radical ideas that new Head Coach Chip Kelly is bringing to the NFL.

Don’t get ahead of yourself. We will not see Oregon’s offense in the NFL. If there is anything NFL defenses have shown us in the recent years of the Wildcat and running QB it’s that gimmicks don’t work. The Zone Read is a gimmick in the NFL. It works in college because very few defensive ends in college are as fast as the quarterback running with the ball. In the NFL, the Zone Read takes too long to develop and just won’t work. (More on this later when we look at the season ahead for the 49ers.)

Chip Kelly isn’t bringing his offense to the NFL. He is bringing his tempo. An average NFL game will see both teams run about 60-70 offensive plays each. Oregon the last few years has averaged closer to 70 plays per game. The difference is the time between snaps. Bill Belichick himself flew to Eugene, OR last year to learn from Chip Kelly. Think about that sentence. Ok good. That’s the type of impact Chip Kelly CAN have in the NFL.

If the Eagles players (Michael Vick) are able to learn the plays and execute them at the speed of the Ducks, Chip Kelly will be coach of the year. However it is much easier to teach this system to raw, wide-eyed 18 year-olds than 30 year olds who make just as much as the coach and have been doing it their own way for years. Many people questioned why the Eagles would pick pocket-passer Matt Barkley for his supposed “zone read offense”. It’s been said that Barkley has a near photographic memory. Nick Foles has been known to be able to remember 20-30 plays after spending 30 seconds looking at the script. The better they are the mental part of this new system, the better they’ll perform on the field. That’s what Chip needs to be successful. If Mike Vick can’t handle that level of mental maturity (which he has never shown the ability to) than the Eagles will have a very difficult year as one of the two younger QBs will be forced to play before he might be ready. If Vick can take control of the playbook, execute the plays and snap the ball every 20 seconds, there may not be a defense that can catch its breath in time to stop Philly.

If none of the players grasp their new coach’s up-tempo offense in the next 2 years than you might as well start fitting Chip Kelly for his burnt orange wardrobe. Just saying.

Looking at their schedule, and breaking it down in to four, 4-game segments (the way head coaches actually look at their season) here is what I think would be reasonable expectations for how their season will play out (based on my gut)

	Weeks 1-4	Weeks 5-8	Weeks 9-12	Weeks 13-16	Total
Philadelphia Eagles	2-2	1-3	3-1	2-2	8-8

Washington Redskins:

…if Robert Griffin is healthy and Coach Mike Shanahan doesn’t run him into the ground.

The most important thing for their season is the health of Griffin’s knee. Adrian Peterson ruined things for everyone else when he returned from his horrific ACL tear in only 7 months and then ran for over 2,000 yards (but no way he took steroids….). If Griffin wants to only drop back, hand the ball off and throw the ball from the pocket, it does not matter as much if his knee is hurt. But if he wants to run around than he better make sure it’s 100%.

Cam Newton put up so many points and yards his rookie season that people were predicting the Panthers would make the playoffs last year. He sucked last year. Made more news with his postgame press conference fashion decisions than for anything he did on the field. The Sophomore Slump is a very real thing to worry about for quarterbacks. It doesn’t happen because the player gets worse. It happens because a couple defensive coordinators who got embarrassed by a rookie spend the off season locked in the film room coming up with a way to stop said rookie (now in his sophomore season if you will). And there is a reason these coordinators get paid $1-2 million to look at film and draw plays on the white board. They find out the weaknesses and then tell their coordinator friends and then a young quarterback is seemingly facing his own form of kryptonite each week. I honestly think that Andrew Luck may be too smart and talented to succumb to this scenario but if Mike Shanahan and Robert Griffin refuse to evolve and rely on what worked last year this will be a very long and disappointing season in the nation’s capital.

I don’t think Shanahan is creative enough to find a way to use Griffin in his second season and I believe Griffin has too much confidence in his legs and escape-ability to stay in the pocket and throw the ball down field to receivers.

Looking at their schedule, and breaking it down in to four, 4-game segments (the way head coaches actually look at their season) here is what I think would be reasonable expectations for how their season will play out (based on my gut)

	Weeks 1-4	Weeks 5-8	Weeks 9-12	Weeks 13-16	Total
Washington Redskins	1-3	1-3	1-3	2-2	5-11

Dallas Cowboys:

….if their offensive line can block. And if Cowboys owner Jerry Jones fires Cowboys GM…Jerry Jones

I want my team’s owner to have his own personal reading-glasses-cleaner-bitch, but not my GM

It is as simple as that. The Cowboys have a top 3 ball catching corps with Dez Bryant, Miles Austin and Jason Witten. DeMarco Murray – if he stays healthy – is poised for a breakout year (660 yards with 160 carries in his 10 games in 2012). The defense just brought in one of the most successful defensive coordinators in the last 30 years of the NFL (I know he’s like 90 but that’s okay. He’s not playing, his plays still work). I expect all of those positions to be fine in 2013.

On top of all that, the Dallas Cowboys have something that 22 other teams do not have. The Dallas Cowboys, America’s Team, have a top 10 quarterback. I’d say he’s an elite quarterback but I would understand if not everyone considers him one. I know 80% of you out there are calling bullshit and assume that my Cowboy fandom is skewing my opinion. And I understand why. When the ball leaves his hand it ends up with the other team more often than you’d like. He only has one playoff win. He may be the leader of the team, but 98% of the Cowboys’ problems are not his fault.

I know that quarterbacks get all of the credit and all of the blame, but with the atrocious offensive line that Jerry Jones has provided, Romo rarely has any time to find one of his Pro Bowl receivers. Great offensive lines never give up sacks, good O-lines provide protection for 4 seconds. Tony would be thrilled to get 3 seconds on a consistent basis.

Dallas has started to address the offensive line in recent drafts but poor free agency moves have left them with one of the weaker units in the NFC. If they come together and figure their shit out, this could be a truly special season. If they perform like they have in the past, the Cowboys will have the 16^th pick yet again.

Looking at their schedule, and breaking it down in to four, 4-game segments (the way head coaches actually look at their season) here is what I think would be reasonable expectations for how their season will play out (based on my gut)

	Weeks 1-4	Weeks 5-8	Weeks 9-12	Weeks 13-16	Total
Dallas Cowboys	3-1	2-2	3-1	2-2	10-6

Once again the NFC East will come down to Week 17. The young Redskins and Eagles will show flashes during the season that they will be competitive soon, but ultimately it will come down to Jason Garret v. Tom Coughlin and Tony Romo v. Eli Manning. I’m giving the nod to the Cowboys because of their defense. And because they’re America’s Team.

Coming up next: the AFC East – Will the Patriots execute their system and shoot for another Super Bowl win? They’re off to promising start.