'Boys or Birds? Who Takes the NFC East

The NFC East, in my opinion, boils down to two teams: The Eagles and the Cowboys. If you can correctly identify which of those two teams will have the better season, you're going to cash the ticket. If you put anything on the Commanders or Giants, you are wasting your money.

The Cowboys had a nice season last year, going 12-5. They made their defense better than it was in the past few years and not only had the best point differential in the league, but they had the lowest amount of points scored against them in the division. Dak Prescott came back and played as well as someone could expect. They didn't make much of a splash in the offseason with any acquisition, and they did lose Amari Cooper, which will hurt their wide receiver core. CeeDee Lamb should be good enough to be a WR1, but after that, there are a lot of questions on offense. Trevon Diggs is good, but will he rack up the interceptions again and keep the defense helping the offense? That isn't something we can count on.

Now, the other team with a shot in the division is the Eagles. They are the only other team with a legitimate shot in the division, but they still have question marks on the team too, so Dallas is definitely the safer choice to repeat. However, if Jalen Hurts can take a step forward, and their defense can improve in a few areas, they might be able to overtake the Cowboys. One big addition that the Eagles made was adding AJ Brown. Opponents will have a hard time covering both him and DeVonta Smith. The reliability of the running backs is up for question - more important to fantasy owners - but all should combine for enough production that the ground game will at least need to be respected. The defense is aging, but might have enough gas left in the tank for one more push.

Can the Commanders win the division? No. It will take everything in their power to even be near .500 again. Carson Wentz is bashed a lot, but some of it is justified. While he is probably an upgrade over last season's quarterback play, this doesn't move the needle enough. They would need everything to go right, and some luck just to win the division. At +500, it isn't even worth the play.

The Giants are at +800 to win the division. You could give me them at +80000 and I still would tell you that you're wasting money. You see a lot of tweets about books taking multiple thousands on longshots that would pay out millions if they win... there is a reason books are willing to take the bet, people. Do not play this, it isn't good value, and it certainly isn't going to happen.

For my money, I do think Dallas repeats. It isn't much, but at least we can get plus money on a division winner here and I'll take it as I think the Cowboys take the division fairly comfortably. If I'm wrong, I'm okay with it because the Eagles are just +160 and I do think their team is worse than Dallas.

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