NFL Preview: NFC East
Leading up to the NFL season kickoff, Nick Tedeschi and Cliff Bingham will break down each division and offer recommended bets with the last offering being a look at the playoff picture and overall Super Bowl wagers. It is a must for every fan.
PART 5: NFC EAST
Nick Tedeschi
The talk when Nnamdi Asomugha was considering joining the Jets and pairing up with Darelle Revis was that Rex Ryan was about to have on hand the greatest cornerback tandem of all time.
What hasn’t received enough talk is the fact that Philadelphia now has the greatest cornerback tandem, along with a pro bowler to play in the nickel, with Nnamdi, Asante Samuel and Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie. Where are opposition quarterbacks going to throw?
Toss in a brutal pass rush with Jason Babin and Trent Cole and the Eagles look set to have the most effective pass defence in the NFL. There are some moderate weaknesses against the run but Philadelphia have both class and depth across the defence.
The Eagles also have a pretty handy offense. Michael Vick had an astonishing return season and was absolutely brilliant in a team that offered him a
lot of tools but one in which he maximised every one of them. Running back LeSean McCoy had a breakout year and wide receiver DeSean Jackson was one of the leading deep threats while the likes of Jeremy Maclin and Brent Celek remain effective options in the passing game.
But the real revelation was Vick. His comeback season could not have been forecast and how he follows it up remains to be seen but with his athleticism and seeming new-found maturity, it would take a game man to bet against him backing it up in 2011.
In 2010 the Eagles went 10-6 and they were severely hurt by injury, ranking 29th in games lost on offense and 21st in games lost on defence. With their defence sure to improve from slightly below average to elite and the offense unlikely to fall too far from its top-four slot, the Eagles will again finish with double-figure wins. My only concern is their +9 turnover figure with that number likely to regress to the mean. Being in a tough division, I won’t go over the top so I’m going to predict an 11 win year.
The street corner tip for a wild card spot and a challenge to the Eagles is a resurgent Dallas Cowboys.
In their first full season under Jason Garrett, it remains to be seen how the Cows will fair. It should certainly be an improvement on their horrid 6-10 year in 2010 where they played most of the year without star quarterback Tony Romo.
The return of Romo certainly helps. He will get more out of Jason Whitten and Miles Austin and the addition of a passing threat will give Felix Jones more room on the ground. But Romo can be careless with the ball and the Cowboys defence, abhorrent last year, hasn’t got better in free agency.
The Cowboys should be more competitive this year but I would be very surprised if they went 8-8 with a 7-9 finish more likely.
Rather, I think it will be the Giants who will challenge the Eagles with a 10 win season.
The Giants aren’t a particularly exciting team. They have few match-winners. They have a ho-hum coach. They play an old school style. They have a decent quarterback but one with flaws in his game.
But they are a team with very few weaknesses. They rate well in both offense and defence. They can strike deep or pound the ball. They have a devastating pass rush. And they have upgraded their offensive line.
The Giants are a sneaky chance of stealing the division.
The less said about the Washington Redskins the better. They are an absolute clusterfuck and owner Daniel Snyder is just a younger, less frugal Al Davis. Their upside is six wins. Any team that is tossing up between Rex Grossman and John Beck at quarterback does little too excite.
Predicted Finish: Philadelphia 11-5, New York Giants 10-6, Dallas 7-9, Washington 5-11
Recommended Bets
· 0.5 units on New York Giants to win division at $3.94 (Pinnacle)
· 2 units on Washington Under 6.5 wins at $1.58 (Pinnacle)
· 2 units on Dallas Under 9 wins at $1.77 (Sportingbet)
· 1 unit on New York Giants Over 9.5 at $2.39 (Pinnacle)
Cliff Bingham
Last year they went a collective 9-7 against the AFC South, 7-9 against the NFC North and 4-4 against the rest of the NFC, good enough to tie for fourth in my divisional power rankings. This year they get the putrid NFC West (predicting 11-5) and the AFC East (predicting 7-9), so as a collective I think the NFC East will jump from 32 wins up to 34 this season.
As ‘The Sports Guy’ Bill Simmons has often written, almost every season a team from outside the playoffs jumps by at least four or five wins and captures a first round playoff bye the subsequent year. Atlanta jumped by four wins to do it last year; New Orleans and San Diego each jumped by five wins in 2009; Carolina by five wins in 2008; Green Bay by five wins in 2007, and so it goes. It just keeps happening, year after year.
As the AFC is a little top-heavy for my liking to predict it will happen in that conference, that leaves me shopping around the NFC for such a team. The NFC West sucks, so it can’t be a team from there. The NFC South had three teams win ten or more games last year, so it can’t come from there. For it to occur in the NFC North you’d have to take the view that either Detroit or Minnesota can beat Green Bay in that division – no thank you.
And so we land in the NFC East and more particularly, on the Dallas Cowboys. They went 1-7 before firing head coach Wade Phillips mid-season and won five of their last eight games (with the three losses coming by a combined margin of just seven points) under the coaching of Jason Garrett, despite Garrett being saddled with journeyman QB Jon Kitna as Tony Romo recovered from a broken collarbone. Garrett and Romo have yet to combine, and with the transient nature of the NFC East (last six champs: Philadelphia last year, Dallas in 2009, New York in 2008, Dallas in 2007, Philadelphia in 2006), it’s well within the bounds of possibility that the Cowboys bounce back in 2011 and jump by five wins to gain a first round playoff bye.
Philadelphia remain the testing material in the division, especially after a fruitful result during the free agency period. My primary concern with the Eagles is whether Michael Vick can repeat his scintillating 2010 season, or whether he comes back a step? His best performances for Atlanta (before the dog fighting scandal and subsequent jail time) were up there with his 2010 form, but he also submitted some real stinkers. Perhaps he has matured and can play at a more consistent level these days, perhaps the Eagles offer him more support in terms of a better receiving corps… or perhaps he’ll slip back into a more inconsistent pattern of performances this year. The Eagles could go 13-3 or 7-9 and neither would surprise me greatly, so I’m splitting the difference and giving them a 10-6 record.
I’m still not sold on the Eli Manning era in New York – he just doesn’t inspire that level of confidence in me. Head coach Tom Coughlin being another year older (he turns 65 on August 31) doesn’t help matters – at the end of the day, NFL head coaching is a younger man’s game. Last year the Giants went 10-6 but won all three games decided by less than a touchdown, while in 2009 they were only able to reach an 8-8 record. With my expectation that Dallas will bounce back and that the Eagles will remain strong, I have to drop the Giants back to an 8-8 record this season.
Washington continue to look a mess. Most depth charts have John Beck appearing as the number one quarterback ahead of Rex Grossman and Kellen Clemens. No matter which way you cut it, that’s an awful QB roster for a team that has won only ten of its last 32 matches. Throw in the fact that head coach Mike Shanahan turns 59 on August 24 and it seems like the most important positions in the Redskins football division have huge red flags attached to them. I can’t see them contending for a playoff berth.
Predicted finish: Dallas 11-5, Philadelphia 10-6, New York Giants 8-8, Washington 5-11
Recommended Bets
· 0.5 units on Dallas to win the NFC East at $4.00
· 1.5 units on Dallas to win more than 8.5 games at $1.73
