Someone needs to start confiscating rockers around the NFC East, because everyone’s apparently getting knocked off theirs lately.
About a week after the New York Giants swung a trade with the Minnesota Vikings for quarterback J.J. McCarthy, the rest of the division apparently took that as an invitation to go certifiably bonkers.
Right after the G-Men acquired McCarthy, they released this offseason’s inescapable talking point, Odell Beckham Jr., before also losing wide receiver and special teams ace Braxton Berrios for the year. The Philadelphia Eagles are in full-fledged crisis mode, losing superstar right tackle Lane Johnson to retirement and trading two-time Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens to the Ravens, while running back Saquon Barkley and wideout DeVonta Smith are out with hamstring injuries. Jerry Jones can’t do anything quietly, so naturally, the Cowboys went out and traded for Steelers star cornerback Joey Porter Jr. And the Commanders are seemingly throwing patience out the window with Jayden Daniels’ dislocated elbow entering their Week 5 matchup against Big Blue. Breathe in. Breathe out.
It’s almost too much to unpack, yet here I am, just a Giants fan doing my best Vince Lombardi impression, trying to figure out what the hell's going on out there.
What in the world is happening around the NFC East?
- Commies are playing a dangerous game with Jayden Daniels
- Cowboys made the most Jerry Jones trade imaginable
- Eagles are acting like their season is already over (yay!)
- Let’s not pretend the Giants haven’t been busy, too
Commies are playing a dangerous game with Jayden Daniels
Let’s dive into the Commies first, since it feels relatively straightforward. Washington needs a win desperately, and desperate times call for desperate measures.
The Commanders lost Daniels to a dislocated elbow suffered on the final play of the first half against the Cowboys in Week 2. The video looked gnarly. It just popped right out of the socket. It’s not his throwing arm, and there was no ligament damage, so it could have been a lot worse, but we’re still talking about a 25-year-old quarterback two years removed from winning Offensive Rookie of the Year and leading Washington to the NFC Championship Game.
And we’re going to rush him back for a Week 5 game against the Giants? Feels terribly shortsighted. My assumption -- and you know what happens when you assume -- is that Washington sitting at 1-3 has a lot to do with it. Another loss would put its playoff hopes on life support, while head coach Dan Quinn’s job could go down the drain with them after he entered the season as a member of the Toasty Buns Club.
Marcus Mariota spraining his MCL only adds to the desperation. He’s expected to miss a couple of weeks, leaving seventh-round rookie Athan Kaliakmanis as the last resort after he took over in Washington’s 30-13 Week 4 loss. I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that if Mariota were healthy, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
It’s giving Robert Griffin III vibes, and I don’t like it.
Cowboys made the most Jerry Jones trade imaginable
Speaking of things I don’t like, Joey Porter Jr. is a Cowboy now. That’s not fun, especially considering I really wanted him in East Rutherford. Where do we even start with this team?
Dallas is 2-2, sitting second in the division behind the 3-1 G-Men. Their offense is humming, but their defense has been Oscar the Grouch-level garbage, as usual. Instead of taking a level-headed approach, Jerry Jones went looking for the shiniest object because he can’t help himself. Will JPJ help their defense? Probably. Will he suddenly turn it into a Super Bowl-caliber unit? Probably not.
The Cowboys have the second-worst rushing defense in football, allowing 150.3 yards per game on the ground. Explain to me how a Porter Jr. blockbuster fixes that. Instead of building top-to-bottom talent, Jones always seems to opt for four or five stars and hopes they make up for everything else. Football doesn’t really work that way.
Honestly, it’s working out for everyone but the Cowboys, so maybe they should just keep doing what they’ve been doing. As long as they keep underperforming when it counts, I’m all in.
Eagles are acting like their season is already over (yay!)
You know who’s not all in? The Philadelphia Eagles. Can anyone tell me what the heck is going on with this team? Armed with two first- and two second-round picks in 2028, it feels like they’re loading up for some major changes following the 2027 season.
Punting on 2026 and next year would be quite the choice, but that’s certainly how some of these moves look. They traded superstar wideout A.J. Brown in the offseason. Their two best remaining playmakers are working through hamstring injuries. They just sent Jurgens to Baltimore. And Johnson’s retirement was shocking, leaving a massive hole on their offensive line that teams don’t typically fill five weeks into a season.
It all makes me wonder how much Philly is already thinking beyond this year. They might not say they regret giving Jalen Hurts a five-year, $255 million extension that runs through 2029, but it’s clearer than ever that he’s a limited quarterback whose supporting cast has done a lot of heavy lifting. That doesn’t make him bad. I’m just calling it how I see it.
Quinn isn’t the only NFC East coach feeling some heat, either. Nick Sirianni is 61-28 with a championship in two Super Bowl appearances in five-plus years, but at some point everyone’s shine eventually wears off. You’d think the Eagles were 0-1,000,000 based on the vibes right now, yet they’re sitting at 2-2 and only one game behind the Giants. Had it not been for a last-minute loss to the Los Angeles Rams, they’d be 3-1 and leading the division.
That’s why sending Jurgens to Baltimore for a 2028 second-round pick feels so strange. He hasn’t played particularly well, but their season is nowhere close to over. It’ll be interesting to see how they hold up with Barkley and Smith’s hammies not at 100%, but if Philly wants to take a temporary backseat in the division, I know a team that’d love to exploit that.
Let’s not pretend the Giants haven’t been busy, too
Finally, we get to Big Blue football. I’ll keep this one relatively short and sweet because the moves to bring in McCarthy and release OBJ actually make sense.
McCarthy gives Harbaugh and Co. an intriguing developmental option behind Famous Jameis with a ceiling considerably higher than Jake Haener’s. His athleticism and mobility also give Matt Nagy a quarterback who can run more of what the offense was originally designed to do with Dart if Winston struggles down the stretch.
As for Odell’s release, it certainly came as a surprise, but it’s not like it wasn’t warranted. One target over three games with no receptions, receiving yards, or touchdowns doesn’t exactly scream immovable, especially when he offers no special teams utility. And while the Giants seem comfortable carrying only three receivers on the active depth chart in Malik Nabers, Darnell Mooney, and Malachi Fields, adding depth with some third-phase juice makes plenty of sense.
Harbs is a special teams guy through and through, and giving that often-overlooked phase of the game some TLC is already paying off. Undrafted rookie kicker Dominic Zvada hasn’t missed a kick and is ahead of the pace for Big Blue’s single-season rookie scoring record, while punter Jordan Stout is sending the ball into orbit and flipping the field in ways Giants fans haven’t seen in a while.
So if Harbaugh wants a more versatile special teams guy who moonlights as a receiver, get the man what he wants. Compared to whatever everyone else in the NFC East is doing right now, it feels reasonable.
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