Aside from a windfall of generational quarterbacks, nothing changes the fortunes of a previously woebegone division more than an injection of coaching talent—or perhaps the discovery of previously unrecognized coaching talent within one’s own building (or within one’s own self!).
This is what seems to have happened to the NFC East, which, over the course of two short seasons, has completed one of those warp-speed makeovers more familiar to the intolerable HGTV audience. The Eagles, after stewing in their own internal politics during the tail end of the Doug Pederson era, hired Nick Sirianni and brought in one of the most brilliant young coaching staffs in football. They remain the lone undefeated team in the NFL after beating the Cardinals on Sunday,
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The Giants, after struggling through their own insistence to pair an outside coach with an in-house GM, hired Brian Daboll and, while they wait for the personnel to improve, have been winning games by any means possible early in the 2022 season. They came back against one of the most athletic defenses in the NFL on Sunday in London, using a cast of characters less recognizable than the Hamilton understudies’ understudies to take down the Packers.
And the Cowboys, after having their ultimate demise projected following Dak Prescott’s thumb injury, have played some of the best football in the NFL. Mike McCarthy has gone from seat warmer to potential Coach of the Year candidate. Dallas is now 4–0 without Prescott this season (plus one more win last year), including a win over the defending Super Bowl champion Rams on Sunday.
This is, perhaps, the most incredible part of the NFC East right now. Coaches are winning games with Jalen Hurts (who may actually turn out to be a star, but was sold to various insiders as a Taysom Hill–type experiment when he was drafted), Cooper Rush and Daniel Jones on a bum wheel. It may not be beautiful, which is why we don’t wax poetic about the division like we did the NFC South last year or the AFC West this preseason, but in a year of bad football (Tom Brady’s words) we have to recognize some ingenuity when we see it. The NFL is a star-driven league, but so much of the real, sagacious stuff happens when you’re sitting in an offensive meeting room trying to make sense of the Daniel Jones–Daniel Bellinger connection and how those two pieces of flint can spark a wildfire.
Obviously, many of these wins are hideous to look at. The Eagles sealed their win Sunday on a missed field goal. The Cowboys won Sunday after getting a strip-sack fumble and a punt block, which, while great plays, are incredibly rare occurrences. The Giants won their first game of the season on a missed field goal. We get it.
But just a few short years ago, this division was so futile that a 7–9 club reached the playoffs. Seriously, the NFC East was John Candy’s police department from Blues Brothers. Now, the Giants’, Eagles’ and Cowboys’ staffs may all produce head coaches in 2023.
From a nostalgia standpoint, this is welcome news. Last year, we were so fed up with the insistence that Giants-Cowboys was a prime-time affair that we begged television networks to rethink the warped sentimentality they’d been foisting on us. In a year or two, these games may actually be relevant again, just like they were when Eli Manning and Tony Romo were under center. That goes for any NFC East rivalry, of course, save for one involving the Commanders (hey, every division needs gum under the shoe).
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From a league economics standpoint, it’s also intriguing. The AFC has skewed the balance of power so significantly and, in doing so, has set itself up to siphon off the best free agents both out of necessity and prestige. A real, vintage NFC East could help alter that trajectory. The Eagles already spend money. The Cowboys are the Cowboys and, after this 4–1 start, Daboll should have no problem walking into the owner’s office and asking for some money to throw around this offseason to legitimize the rebuilding effort. That could very well include money for a new quarterback. If the system helped build the legend of Josh Allen and is finally salvaging Jones, chances are other good quarterbacks are going to want a piece of it.
Regardless, it is better than the alternative: watching proud franchises rot. It’s also another example of what we’ve seen burgeoning in Miami (before it was forced to turn to its third-string QB on Sunday). Teams can win in more ways than one can possibly fathom. Many times, it’s on a coach’s willingness to explore those options.
