NFC East: 2011's Worst Division in Football

There is no more overrated division than the NFC East.

The NFC West, with all four of its teams finishing with losing records in 2010, has borne the wrath of football media for having been allowed to send a team to the postseason. But that scorn has leveled off since that team, Seattle, beat the defending champs in their playoff game last year. Also, San Francisco's resurgence has made the West a far less easy way for bored beat writers to fill space.

But while the West was an easy target, they were also a safe one. While the Bristols and Big Apples of the NFL took their shots freely at the West last season, they've been considerably quieter about the worst division in football this season.

The much-ballyhooed bureau of east-coast organizations is having a down year. With the Giants winning late in their Sunday night showing against Dallas, Eli and company assumed command of the East. Their 7-6 record is the worst of any division-leading team.

Dallas can add last night's defeat to its slate of embarrassing nationally-televised losses this season. Philadelphia was one of those teams that beat Dallas on an earlier Sunday night telecast, but they haven't really beaten anyone else. And Washington is still terrible; we could just as easily write "the sky is blue" or "Tiger Woods likes prostitutes."

While these teams aren't being called out collectively, the management practices of each club individually have taken fire.

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is squeezing every last dollar out of his DC-area fanbase, only to overspend on aging talent that can't produce on the field.

Philadelphia head coach Andy Reid, who has run the Eagles since 1999, has been hearing the calls for his job grow louder this year after the team went through an offseason spending spree of its own. In New York had wondered aloud whether or not their team had quit on their head coach, Tom Coughlin  

Jason Garrett, of all those, probably deserves the most scorn. His lucrative contract as offensive coordinator undermined Wade Phillips, who really only seemed to speak whenever Jerry Jones' lips were moving, if you know what I mean. So everyone spent 2007 through 2010 just waiting for Jones to dump Phillips out on his ass and hand the reins to Garrett.

And that's exactly what happened. When the Cowboys came out of the gate last season at 1-7, Wade got the axe and Garrett finally got his shot. The results are not dissimilar: the Cowboys aren't closing out games and Romo's bipolar play continues. But now the defense, led by coordinator Rob Ryan, is struggling.

And let the record show that Wade Phillips never iced his own kicker.

The NFC East wasn't always this bad. They originally were known as the Capitol Division, and took shape in time for the 1967 season, shortly after the ink had dried on the AFL-NFL merger. According to the standings archive at NFL.com, that division consisted of the Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys and an expansion team in New Orleans named the Saints (perhaps you've heard of them).

The following season, the New York Giants, who were originally assigned to the Century Division, swapped places with the Saints. In 1970, the Cardinals (then in St. Louis) came aboard the Capitol Division, which was renamed as the East Division in the NFL's new National Football Conference.

That tradition of that division and those teams is a large reason why those teams remain so popular today. The Cowboys, who began play in 1960, are the whippersnappers of the division, by far the youngest of the four teams. The Giants, Redskins and Eagles, who entered the league in 1925, 1932 and 1933, respectively. They've been watched by generations of fans as they chased team after team off of their lawns.

The NFC East also boasts a bloc of owners whose influence in NFL affairs might be unrivaled. Snyder and Giants owner John Mara, who inherited control of the team from his father, wield as much power as anyone.

Jerry Jones, the Cowboys owner who fired Tom Landry, is as big a dog as one could hope to find in the NFL ranks. His new, billion-dollar Cowboys stadium seems to have every amenity possible. One might also suspect that if the North Texas market for football would ever dissipate (ha), that the structure could just rocket into space and expand the NFL's reach that way.

It's rare for all four of these teams to be struggling at once. And there are some bright spots among its member teams this season (Eli Manning, for one) But let's be clear: right now, this division is terrible.

And if you'd care to contend that point, start with the Giants, who won one game in their last five and now sit atop the division with tiebreakers in hand.Or maybe start with the whoring optimism of the league's media pundits toward Tony Romo, a guy who, at age 31, is still handled with kid gloves like a rookie that's still learning the offense. Start with the Maras, who insist on thinking of themselves as a cut above the rest of the league but can't afford their own stadium. I could go on.

And just to put a pretty little bow on this, only one NFC East team has won a Super Bowl since 1997. That was Eli's Giants, and to be fair, that victory was impressive. But nothing about the NFC East is impressive now. Just don't expect anyone to acknowledge it.