2010 NFL Division Preview: NFC East

Yesterday I put up a post by Michael Wright that gave 15 thoughts he had about his New York Football Giants for this upcoming season. I hinted that my NFC East preview would be written in the near future so here it is. This is the third installment of my eight-part preview of the 2010 NFL season, breaking it down division by division. In each of these posts I will preview each team in the division and then at the end I will predict who will win the division and how the other three teams will end up behind them.

To read my other divisional previews just click on the appropriate link:

NFC South

NFC West

In the NFC East we have had a lot of drama this offseason. A face-of-the-franchise quarterback being traded to another team within the division. Big name veteran free agency signings. A team trying to bounce back from a disappointing 2009 season. A team trying to build on their first playoff win since 1996. We had a big name quarterback get bloodied in the preseason opener. There was a prima donna receiver refusing to carry pads. You get the idea. Let’s jump in.

Teams: Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins

Let’s Define A “Truck”

According to dictionary.com a truck is defined as “any of various wheeled frames used for transporting heavy objects.”

Job well done. A great post if I do say so myself.

No, just kidding, this post is not about  a lorry -as the Brits call it- but instead it’s about the word “truck” as a verb, and more specifically the meaning it has acquired with football connotation. Most people know this term, but for those of you that don’t it is in reference to when a player (usually in possession of the ball) flattens or “runs over” his opponent – like a truck.

This is not an example of somebody getting trucked

Friday 5 – Our Football Teams

For those of you that haven’t been counting down for nearly six months, football season officially starts in less than five weeks with the first games of the college season being on Thursday, September 2. This means I thought it would be a good time for us to evaluate our personal desires for how we would (realistically) like our respective teams to fare this season. Bryan and I are both Tennessee Vols fans, he’s a Missouri Tigers fan, I’m an Indianapolis Colts fan and he’s a St. Louis Rams fan. So for our Friday 5 I’ll put up the schedule for each game, how many wins we expect/hope that team to get and at then end for the final part, to complete the ‘5’ in Friday 5 I will put up a total. I will also plan on putting up some sort of weekly chart or graph or both or something to provide something to look at for the progressions our teams our making towards the goals that we are setting for them. Let’s get started:

Friday 5 – Favorite Highlights

This is going to be short because I have a lot I need to do but figured this would be a good way to start my day. I’m simply putting up my five favorite football highlights. This isn’t including anything that has personal, emotional or any other sort of biased attachment or they would simply be plays from the Colts Super Bowl XLI win, the win during that year’s AFC Championship game, Peyton Manning throwing his 49th TD in 2004, the Vols 1998 National Championship and one of my favorites from Peyton at Tennessee. But alas, none of those will be included. These are just highlights that I love to watch over and over simply because of how awesome they are as football plays, not because they had any sort of meaning (to me or anyone) or influence over a game or season. This was hard to narrow down to five so there are a ton of honorable mentions, but I’m sure all those will come up in the comments. Let’s get started:

What does your team need to do to make the playoffs?

This post will be similar to all of the other posts I have done on this very topic. The only difference for this one is that I will have four categories (AI, COD, HAC, AO) instead of six. But I will still be laying out for each team what they need to do to make the playoffs, clinch their division, get a first-round bye, and/or get the #1 seed in their conference. First let’s layout what the NFL playoffs would look like if the season ended right now.

What does your team need to do to make the playoffs?

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THIS POST IS OUT OF DATE! CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATED VERSION!

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This post will be similar to the posts I did last week. I will be laying out for each team what they need to do to make the playoffs, clinch their division, get a first-round bye, and/or get the #1 seed in their conference. First let’s layout what the NFL playoffs would look like if the season ended right now.

In the AFC the seeding would be as follows: 1. Indianapolis Colts, 2. San Diego Charger, 3. New England Patriots , 4. Cincinnati Bengals, 5. Baltimore Ravens, 6. Denver Broncos… so the Bengals and Pats flipped and the Ravens jumped both the Jags and the Broncos, knocking the Broncos down to the 6 seed and the Jags out all together.

In the NFC: 1. New Orleans Saints, 2. Minnesota Vikings, 3. Philadelphia Eagles, 4. Arizona Cardinals, 5. Green Bay Packers, 6. Dallas Cowboys. Absolutely nothing has changed here.

However, six of the 12 teams I just listed are still in danger of not making the playoffs at all. To determine how much danger they are in and what the other teams in the league need to do and have happen from them to replace one of those teams I will be using the NFL’s official tie-breaking procedures to see who needs to win which games to reach the postseason.  I will be grouping the teams into six categories (AI, COD, HAC, CFH, MML, AO) you’ll see what it all stands for below) to separate them by mathematical probability of making it to the playoffs. Here are the categories:

What does your team need to do to make the playoffs?

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THIS POST IS OUT OF DATE! CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATED VERSION!

**********************************************************************************

This post will be similar to the posts I did last year. I will be laying out for each team what they need to do to make the playoffs, clinch their division, get a first-round bye, and/or get the #1 seed in their conference. First let’s layout what the NFL playoffs would look like if the season ended right now.

In the AFC the seeding would be as follows: 1. Indianapolis Colts, 2. San Diego Charger, 3. Cincinnati Bengals, 4. New England Patriots, 5. Denver Broncos, 6. Jacksonville Jaguars.

(NB: I was going to explain how the Jags still have the second wild-card spot but Paul Kuharsky -one of my favorite writers at ESPN.com- beat me to it, so I’ll just link you to that. To view it click here.)

In the NFC: 1. New Orleans Saints, 2. Minnesota Vikings, 3. Philadelphia Eagles, 4. Arizona Cardinals, 5. Green Bay Packers, 6. Dallas Cowboys.

However, nine of the 12 teams I just listed are still in danger of not making the playoffs at all. To determine how much danger they are in and what the other teams in the league need to do and have happen from them to replace one of those teams I will be using the NFL’s official tie-breaking procedures to see who needs to win which games to reach the postseason.  I will be grouping the teams into six categories (AI, COD, HAC, CFH, MML, AO – you’ll see what it all stands for below) to separate them by mathematical probability of making it to the playoffs. Here are the categories: