The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Don’t look now, but Washington has the inside track on the NFC East crown

Analysis by
Staff writer|
December 1, 2020 at 12:19 p.m. EST
The Washington Football team’s remaining schedule makes it the favorite to win the NFC East crown. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

The NFC East is still the worst division in football, yet one of its teams will nonetheless earn a postseason berth, with home-field advantage for at least one game. And with five weeks remaining, it looks like the Washington Football Team is the best of the worst.

Washington shoved Dallas into the division’s basement on Thanksgiving by throttling the Cowboys, 41-16, at AT&T Stadium. The loss pushed the Cowboys’ odds to win the division from 5-2, the second choice, to 7-1, the last. Washington moved up from 9-2 to 2-1.

However, Washington doesn’t have smooth sailing to a division 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 will be 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.

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The Eagles lost to the Seahawks on Monday night, 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 division, with a three-game winning streak, but 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 on Sunday.

If not for the injury to Jones, the Giants would have been the front-runner, but Colt McCoy is a clear 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’s results this year weren’t much better (78.7 passer rating), but he has been 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’s performance is better than his results.

During McCoy’s three games of 2018, on the other hand, he was rated 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 after 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, according to the combined winning percentage of their remaining opponents (.574). Philadelphia (.545) and Washington (.555) have comparable schedules. Dallas has the easiest slate of remaining games (.389), but there might not be enough time for the Cowboys to claw their way back into the playoff picture.

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With five games left for every team in the division, nothing is certain except that one of these teams will be crowned the NFC East’s winner, potentially with as few as four victories, an admittedly outlandish scenario that would require at least two ties. Based on 1,000 simulations of the rest of the season that take into account every team’s actual record plus its expected record based on points scored and allowed thus far, Washington has a 44 percent chance to win the division, most likely with a 6-10 record. Then it is a dead heat between Philadelphia and New York, followed by Dallas.

NFC East in 2020
Projected record
Chance to win division
Washington Football Team
6-10
44 percent
Philadelphia Eagles
5-10-1
25 percent
New York Giants
5-11
24 percent
Dallas Cowboys
4-12
7 percent

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 a bettor would have to wager $10,000 to win $100 if the Packers claim the title. The same is true for the New Orleans Saints (NFC South) and Kansas City Chiefs (AFC West). The only other division with the eventual winner in apparent doubt is the NFC West, where the Seahawks (minus-167) are favored over the Los Angeles Rams (plus-175).

The price of a playoff spot could be high for the NFC East team that wins the division. Non-playoff teams get draft picks No. 1 to No. 18, with the team with the worst record picking first overall. Teams eliminated in the postseason’s first round get picks Nos. 19 to 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, would be the Rams), then the NFC East winner would almost certainly pick 19th in the upcoming draft. The other three teams in the division are almost guaranteed picks in the top 10.