If you’ve been following NFC East this year, you’ve probably realized that it seems to be the only division in the NFL that nobody wants to beat. Despite that, someone HAS to win and this Sunday we will find out who that someone is.
As we move through the final week of the season, only the Eagles were eliminated from the playoff race, meaning that the Cowboys, Giants or Washington could end up taking the NFC East title home. The team that ends up winning the division will not only get a playoff spot, but will also be part of NFL history.
The three teams still alive in the NFC East race started the 2-7 season, which is remarkable, because neither team has ever made the playoffs in a year when they came out of the gate with a 2-7 record. Since the Super Bowl era began in 1966, there have been a total of 258 teams that started the season with 2-7 and none of them recovered to do the postseason, which means that the NFL teams are matched with 0 out of 258 in that situation. After Sunday, that record will improve to 1 to 260.
Of the three teams left standing, a Cowboys division title would have to be considered the most unlikely. At one point this season, the Cowboys had a 3-9 record and appeared to be dead. As for Washington and the Giants, both were 5-7 after 12 games, as they recovered after the 2-7 start. Washington had a streak of four consecutive wins after its poor start and reached 6-7 before losing two in a row and falling to the current record of 6-9. At the end of the Giants, they set up a streak of four straight wins for 5-7 before losing three straight to drop to 5-10.
The worst record of nine games that any team has ever recovered to reach the playoffs is 3-6, which has happened several times. The first time this happened was in 1970 with Bengals. The last time this happened was in 2012, with Washington. Eight years ago, Washington recovered from its bad start to win the division with Robert Griffin III.
This year, Washington is in charge of the division title. If the football team wins the Eagles on Sunday night, Washington will win the division. However, if the football team loses, the division title will go to the winner of the Cowboys-Giants game, which is scheduled to start at 1 pm ET on Fox.