The NY Giants did not show up for a football game today. They played porous football for 60 minutes straight and now the NFC East is fully wide open.
The NY Giants have a major problem on offense.
After four weeks of improved and inspiring play, the NY Giants took a major step back today vs the Arizona Cardinals. From the game’s first drive, seemingly everything went wrong for New York. Daniel Jones got strip-sacked by Markus Golden, who forced the fumble and returned it back 30 yards himself to the NY 9-yard line.
From there, the defense held and got a crucial 4-play goal-line stop and stopped Arizona from the 1-yard line.
Unfortunately, the offense never did its part Sunday and wasn’t able to move the ball or create any real opportunities.
Joe Judge and the NY Giants must look in the mirror as this is now the defining moment of their season. They snapped their win streak and are looking at missing a golden opportunity to win the division.
The Giants missed a huge chance to create more separation in the NFC East and solidify themselves as a legitimate playoff contender in the NFC.
Instead, they regressed and put on their worst performance since the Week 3 loss vs San Francisco.
The NFC East is now fully up for grabs. The Giants will root their hardest for the 49ers and New Orleans Saints to defeat the Washington Football Team and the Eagles.
We break down the wide-open NFC East picture here:
NY Giants NFC East Standing and Playoff Chances
The NY Giants did not look like the same team that just won four in a row. Today, they looked more like the NFL team that has led the league in losses from 2017 to 2019.
We won’t rehash what was said on the first slide but the Giants really looked dreadful today offensively. They couldn’t move the ball at all and their first play in Cardinals’ territory didn’t happen until the second half. They had four fumbles on offense and another on a kickoff return.
Jones fumbling three times is again a huge concern. His league-leading turnovers since last season only shot up today with three more fumbles with one lost on the opening drive.
The NY Giants came into Week 14 tied with the WFT for 1st place in the NFC East at 5-7. Big Blue owns the head-to-head tiebreaker and thus were in control of 1st place.
With this loss, NY dropped to 5-8 and confirmed the Giants’ 4th straight season without a winning record. This was a winnable game against a reeling opponent and they couldn’t take advantage of their early stop on defense to get ahold of this game.
To make matters worse, NY could have been firmly in the Wild Card picture with a win in this game. The 7th playoff spot in the NFC is the Vikings, who also lost Sunday and they are now 6-7. Arizona moved up in the Wild Card with a win and that avenue is basically now out the window with the Bears, Cardinals, and 49ers owning the head-to-head on Big Blue. With a win, the Giants could have used the wild card race as a potential backdoor cover to make the playoffs if they collapsed in the NFC East race.
For the time being, NY will drop to lone second place in the division pending the results of the Washington game. If the 49ers beat Washington, the Giants will move back to 1st place of the division by virtue of their H2H tiebreaker.
Giants fans will have to put on their rooting caps for New Orleans and San Fran to get the wins this afternoon. If Washington wins, the Giants will enter Week 15 in second place and staring at another season without the playoffs.
Washington Football Team NFC East Standing and Playoff Chances
The Washington Football Team can claw back from behind and take hold of first place in the division with a win today. WFT travels to Arizona to face the San Francisco 49ers as they navigate through their own crazy season that has seen them be forced to relocate to Phoenix due to COVID-19 regulations.
If Washington wins, they will hold sole first place in the division for the first time since Week 1.
This is a huge and positive development for the team as they take on Ron Rivera’s team identity and spirit in his first season as head coach. Alex Smith has made a comeback player of the year performance in 2020 in his return to the football field after a horrendous leg injury that almost cost him his life.
With a win, the WFT would move to 6-7 and be a game ahead of the NY Giants, and two games up on the Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles play at 4:25 Sunday and their status will be important too, but they are unlikely to beat New Orleans.
If Washington loses, they will remain tied with the Giants for first-place but will be 2nd in the standings due to the season sweep earlier in the season. They would only be a game up on Dallas but with a sweep in-hand for them. They would drop to 5-8 with a loss and snap their current 3-game winning streak. The loss would also put a likely end to Washington’s Wild Card chances and they’d have to firmly fight for the division over the last three weeks of the regular season.
Dallas Cowboys NFC East Standing and Playoff Chances
Believe it or not, but the Dallas Cowboys are back alive in the NFC East race.
The team from the Lone Star State just won’t quit or give up on the 2020 season. They will be only one or two games game from the top of the division pending the WFT result in the late window.
Dallas has had a very difficult, ugly season. At times, they have been downright putrid and have embarrassed themselves in front of national audiences all year long.
Mike McCarthy didn’t improve or change his seemingly old-school ways that he claimed were thrown out the window after he was fired in 2018. The team has no identity or any stability at all this year on offense or defense. It’s been a very frustrating and challenging year for Owner Jerry Jones, the most recognizable billionaire in football.
Dallas defeated the Bengals Sunday handily. The win might have saved their season as it looked like it was slipping away (again) after an ugly showing against Baltimore last week.
With the win, Dallas moved to 4-9 on the year. In any other year, a 4-9 team is gearing up for a high draft pick but this is unlike any other year. The team five games back from .500 in December, is miraculously only a game and a half out from the division pending the WFT game. Dallas lost to them twice so they will need to have a better record than Washington to steal the division.
If WFT loses, Dallas will trail New York and Washington by only a game. It’s interesting because the Giants would move back to 1st place thanks to the tiebreaker over Washington but Dallas lost the H2H tiebreaker to Washington while having a game up on NY and has a game vs them in Week 17. The Week 17 contests between the NY Giants and Cowboys along with the WFT-Eagles game will decide this oh-so-close division.
Philadelphia Eagles NFC East Standing and Playoff Chances
The Eagles have been the most disappointing team in the NFC East this year. The reigning division champs have completely fallen apart this year from top to bottom. Starting with an ugly, embarrassing Week 1 loss to Washington, nothing has gone right for them all season long.
A major reason why is the shocking regression of their starting quarterback, Carson Wentz. Wentz’s play has hurt the Eagles’ offense weekly and he was finally benched in Week 13 for the rookie, Jalen Hurts. Hurts will look to provide a spark and offer a different explosive and speed element to this offense that has been lacking significantly all year.
This team looks light years away from their miraculous Super Bowl run just four years back. That 2017 season now feels like an eternity ago.
The Eagles sit at the basement of the NFC East in sole last place. They are 3-8-1 thanks to a tie earlier in the year with the Bengals. They trail the division leaders in NY and Washington by a game and a half. Philly split the season series with NY and they play Washington in Week 17 still. They are 2-2 in the division with games to play vs Dallas and Washington still.
They take on the Packers Sunday as huge underdogs in Hurts’ NFL debut as a starter. A loss would all but eliminate them from their unlikely playoff chances and a win would give them some life. With the win, they’d move back up above Dallas by a half-game lead for 3rd place in the NFC East. They’d still be only a half-game out on NY and either a half-game or a full game back from WFT pending their result today.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, the NFC East is as wide open as ever. Yet again, no team has seized the opportunities in front of them yet to create distance in the division. The NY Giants and WFT impressed last week with two huge upsets, two of the most unlikely of the 2020 NFL season.
It will likely come down to the Week 17 contests pitting Dallas-NY and Philly-Washington. Washington can take sole control with a win today or drop back into a tie and 2nd place with the Giants. This has been a crazy year and it doesn’t look like the ending of the NFC East race will be any different.