Cream rises to the top in NFC East

 The Giants and Eagles have separated themselves from the bottom teams on the vaunted NFC east.  Year in and year out the NFC east is one of the toughest, deepest divisions in football and this year the predictions envisioned something similar. The Cowboys and their talented roster were picked by many to be the first team to host a Super Bowl in their own stadium, as this year’s Super Bowl will be played in Jerry Jones lavish new facility. However their season has turned out to be one of the most disappointing in team history, Wade Phillips became the first coach Jerry Jones has fired during the season and Mr. Jones favorite prodigal coach Jason Garrett will finally get his shot to be a head coach, even though he’s been getting paid like one for the past 2 seasons, earning $3 million a year, the most for any coordinator in the league. The Cowboys weekly blunders and the injury to Tony Romo have effectively put the nail in Dallas’ coffin. The Redksins too have proved to be disappointing and dysfunctional; the pairing of Donnovan McNabb and Mike Shanahan was supposed to lift the Redskins offense which had struggled the past few seasons. The majority of that blame was put on the shoulders of Jason Cambell whose now playing pretty well for the surprisingly competitive Raiders.  In retrospect that blame appears to be misplaced, things got worse last week for the skins when Shanahan took McNabb out of the game for the last two minutes, claiming Rex Grossman gave them the best chance to win in the 2 minute drill. Shanahan made the mistake of trying to make up various excuses that don’t sound offensive while trying to explain his decision; the truth is that people who have watched McNabb frequently throughout his career know that he’s simply not a very good quarterback in the 2 minute drill. Eagle’s fans have been railing against McNabb’s ability in late game, clutch moments for years now, but their claims were dismissed, that must have just been the crazed Eagles fan base looking to knock down a great QB because they can’t be satisfied right? Wrong, the Philly fans were correct in their assessment that McNabb tends to fall short in clutch situations, most notably the incident where he puked while trying to lead the Eagles downfield against the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and his questionable decision making against the Cardinals in the 20009 NFC championship game.

                Anyway, enough about the riff raff of the division, the Eagles with Michael Vick returning at QB looked impressive in a win over the Colts and the incomparable Peyton Manning. As a former owner of a Pit Bull I don’t like Vick, and would like to see him fail, however it can’t be denied that he is playing excellent football this season, he still has his explosiveness and is a better passer then he ever was earlier in his career.

                Finally, I’ll do what ESPN completely failed to do this weekend, give credit to the best team in the NFC, the New York Football Giants. At the risk of sounding like an over optimistic fan, 2010 is starting to feel a lot like 2007, only this time our offense is much better than it was in 2007 and our defense is looking just as stout, giving opposing quarterbacks nightmares. Granted the Seahawks aren’t the mid nineties Cowboys, but the thoroughly dominant performance the Giants displayed has to have fans of Big Blue excited. In a closing note, Hakeem Nicks and Eli Manning have become one of the most dangerous passing combinations in the league; the Giants have finally found a deep threat to replace Plaxico Buress.