Washington has the inside track on the NFC East crown
The NFC East is still the worst division in football this season yet one of its teams will earn a postseason berth, with home-field advantage, nonetheless. And with five weeks remaining in the season, it looks like the Washington Football Team is the best of the worst.
Washington shoved Dallas into the division’s basement on Thanksgiving after throttling the Cowboys 41-16 on the road at AT&T Stadium. The loss pushed the Cowboys’ odds to win the division from 5-to-2, the second choice, to 7-to-1, the fourth. The Football Team moved up from 9-to-2 to 2-to-1. However, they don’t have smooth sailing to a divisional title. Washington has tough games remaining against the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks, but an opportunity to add some wins against the Philadelphia Eagles, Carolina Panthers and perhaps the San Francisco 49ers, who are forced to play at State Farm Stadium in Arizona after Santa Clara County, home of the 49ers and Levi’s Stadium, prohibited NFL games under its new coronavirus restrictions.
The Philadelphia Eagles lost to the Seahawks on Monday Night Football, their third loss in a row, diminishing their hopes for back-to-back division titles. New York is playing the most consistent football in the NFC East (three-game winning streak) but were handed a significant setback once starting quarterback Daniel Jones went out with a hamstring injury in the second half of the team’s 19-17 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday. If not for the injury to Jones, the Giants would have been the front runner, but Colt McCoy is a downgrade at the position. McCoy has three starts over the past five years, completing 65 of 102 passes for 653 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions, giving him a passer rating of 78.6. Jones results this year weren’t much better (78.7 passer rating) but he was the 12th best passer of 2020 per the game charters at Pro Football Focus, who subjectively grade the plays of each player in the NFL. In other words, Jones performance was sound despite the lack of results. During McCoy’s three games of 2018 he was rated as the 32nd best passer among 36 qualified players at the position by Pro Football Focus. He was ranked 28th out of 31 passers for the week in his only start of 2019.
Washington is also helped by New York’s remaining schedule. The Giants have the toughest schedule of the group and the fifth-toughest overall, per the combined winning percentage for all their opponents (.574). Philadelphia (.545) and Washington (.555) have comparable schedules. Dallas has the fourth-easiest slate of remaining games (.389), however there might not be enough time for the Cowboys to claw their way back into the playoff picture.
With five games left in the NFC East, nothing is certain except one of these teams will be crowned the division winner with as few as four victories on their ledger. It’s unlikely all teams go winless for the remainder of the regular season, however. Based on 1,000 simulations of the season that take into account a team’s actual record plus its expected record based on points scored and allowed, Washington has a 43% chance to win the NFC East this year, most likely with a 6-10 record. Then it is a dead heat between Philadelphia and New York followed by Dallas.
No other division has this much uncertainty. The Green Bay Packers are minus-10,000 on the money line to win the NFC North, meaning you have to wager $10,000 to win $100. The same is true for the New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs. The only other division with the eventual divisional leader in doubt is the NFC West, where the Seahawks (minus-167) are slight favorites over the Rams (plus-175).
The price of a playoff spot could be high for the NFC East team making the postseason. Non-playoff teams get picks No. 1 to No. 18 with the team earning the worst record picking first overall. Teams eliminated in the wild-card round get picks No. 19 to No. 24, again in ascending order of the worst record. Assuming the woeful NFC East participant is just fodder for the No. 5 seed (which, heading into Week 13, is the Los Angeles Rams) then it stands to reason the chance to win the division equates to the team’s chances of picking 19th in the upcoming draft. The other three are almost guaranteed a pick in the top 10, most likely at No. 4, No. 7 and No. 8 depending on where they finish in the division.