The silver lining on this rain cloud of a season so far for the Eagles is that no team in their division seems to have a chance to run away with this thing.
The NFC East stinks.
Just look at this:
Redskins: (2-2)
Cowboys: (2-3)
Eagles: (2-3)
Giants (1-4)
With a win over the Giants on Thursday night, the Eagles would take over first place in the NFC East. With Dallas facing Jacksonville and with Washington facing Carolina, there's a really good shot the Eagles could be in sole possession of first place come Monday morning.
Knowing this division stinks has to give the Eagles some sort of mental boost, doesn't it? Here's what Doug Pederson said Wednesday morning:
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A mental boost? Yes, you definitely look at that, but at the same time, too, I think we have to evaluate ourselves and where we are, and we've got to get better as a football team overall.
But, yeah, I think it's still right there to be had. It's a great opportunity tomorrow night to start with the division opponent and try to capture that because you know if you win your division, good things happen later in the season. So, it's obviously part of our focus and one of our goals each season.
Last season, the Eagles went 5-1 in their division and their only loss came to the Cowboys in Week 17.
So if the Eagles were to go 5-1 again in the division this year, that would put them at seven wins and they might need just two or three more wins after that to lock up the NFC East crown.
There hasn't been a back-to-back winner in this division since the Eagles did it in 2003-04.
Here's a look at how bad the NFC East is right now:
• It's the only division in the NFL that doesn't have a team with a winning record (five of the other seven have two teams with winning records).
• It's the only division in the NFL in which all four teams have negative point differentials.
• Teams in the division are 6-11 playing outside of the NFC East.
• The entire division has scored just 373 combined points, by far the fewest total for any division in the NFL. The next closest is 418 from the AFC East. The average of the seven other divisions in the league is 480 points.
Redskins: 2-2, point differential of minus-4
Washington's wins are over the Cardinals (one of the worst teams in the NFL) and the Packers (one of the most confusing teams in the NFL). They also lost to a lowly Colts team and got demolished by the Saints in front of a national audience Monday.
The Eagles won't see them until Week 9. By then we'll have some sort of better idea if they're really a threat to win the division.
Cowboys: 2-3, point differential of minus-13
Think about this: The Eagles' offense has been pretty bad this year, but it still managed to score 20 more points than the Cowboys through the same amount of games. Their 83 points are tied with Washington, which has played one fewer game, and the Cardinals, who stink.
The Cowboys just let the Texans beat them in overtime after Jason Garrett turtled and punted on a 4th-and-1 inside Texans' territory. They deserved to lose that game. Now the ‘Boys have Jacksonville at home, on the road in Washington, bye week and at home against the Titans before they travel to Philly for a Sunday Night Football game on Nov. 11.
Giants: 1-4, point differential of minus-24
The Giants brought in Pat Shurmur to be their head coach. Pat Shurmur! I can't believe things haven't turned around. The Giants do have offensive weapons and they started to get that offense going against the Panthers, but the G-men don't instill much confidence.
After Thursday's game, these two teams won't play against until Nov. 25 in Philly.
