This week, we wanted to look at the silly, sloppy NFC East — football’s most consistently unpredictable division. When I lived in Florida, they used to say, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes.” The NFC East is the Florida weather of NFL divisions. There is no geographically grouped NFL quartet that better lends itself to week-to-week overreaction.
Week 2 began with a classically ridiculous NFC East matchup, as Washington beat the Giants when it missed a winning field goal with no time left, but the Giants jumped offsides, and it made good on its second chance. That improved the defending division champions’ record to 1-1 and dropped the Giants’ to their customary 0-2.
Then Sunday saw the Eagles lose to the 49ers and the Cowboys beat the Chargers on a last-second field goal of their own, and the standings look just the way they’re supposed to: three teams tied at 1-1 and the other just one game back. Right on track to crown a 9-8 or 8-9 division champion that everyone will complain shouldn’t get a home playoff game.
Because of my longstanding affinity for the NFC East and all of its wildly unpredictable weirdness, I wanted to start the Week 2 overreactions column with this one, which surely will inspire some sort of reaction:
