Shoot. I don't have the book, and I don't want to be a homer...but I have trouble seeing the NFC East under .500 collectively.

I think, realistically speaking, that there was a much greater difference between the Eagles and Giants last season than one David Akers FG. Although I do think the Eagles will be the better team this year (mostly b/c of McNabb's improving health).

Also, when will bloggers stop using that idiotic strike through formatting for "comedy"? It's so dumb.

1. Well, not only do they have to fight themselves for 6 games, but they have the AFC North (probably tied with the NFC East for 2nd best division in the entire NFL?) as well. Although that might be balanced by also playing the NFC south, which could be the 2nd or 3rd worst division in the NFL depending on how good you expect Arizona to be.

Plus the Cowboys have Green Bay and Tampa bay as their two other games. I'm sure the Giants probably have at least one hard team as one of their two extras, don't know about Philly/Washington.

Well, not only do they have to fight themselves for 6 games,

That doesn't matter, unless you mean that they'll incur more injuries than other divisions would. Any division is always at .500 against itself.

but they have the AFC North (probably tied with the NFC East for 2nd best division in the entire NFL?) as well.

There would still be six games against other NFC teams. It's just not easy for the NFCE to be one of the top divisions in football and be under .500 overall. But maybe the point is that the division is overrated...in which case, I disagree, but I could be wrong.

#3: The NFC East plays the NFC West, not the South. Philly's SOS games are Chicago and Atlanta, so that's two free wins there barring a disaster.

My bad, I was thinking West and said South, hence mentioning Arizona.

4. Sorry, I missed the word "collectively", I thought you were talking about the Cowboys/Giants being at 7-9 in Bill's projection. If you were referring to Bill's evaluation... he has the NFCE at a game over .500 (which is, probably, a little bit of an underestimation.

4. Sorry, I missed the word “collectively”, I thought you were talking about the Cowboys/Giants being at 7-9 in Bill’s projection. If you were referring to Bill’s evaluation… he has the NFCE at a game over .500 (which is, probably, a little bit of an underestimation.
Eagles +3 games over .500, Redskins even, Cowboys -2, Giants -2...that's one game under. Right? :-)

Even a game over .500 isn't much for a divisin that's supposedly so strong.

#8 ...and a team with the defending SB champ returning almost the same starting line-up. I'd argue they've improved their secondary with young talent since last season, but we'll see...

"...the difference between the Giants and the Eagles in the regular season was exactly one David Akers field goal that hit the upright."

I had a problem with that when I read it in the PFP and I still do. That makes it sound like 'if Akers hits that FG, the Eagles make the playoffs and the Giants do not.' In reality, if Akers makes the FG, it goes into overtime and there is a 50-50 chance the Giants win anyway.

So is the regular-season gap between the teams smaller than people think? Sure. But the regular-season gap wasn't just a doinked FG. The doinked FG could have been extremely important, or it could have been no more important than Chase Blackburn's penalty was in the Super Bowl.

8. Well, if you want to do it that way, the Eagles are +6 (11-5), so it'd be 2 games over .500

I was more looking it as number of games "behind" a .500 record.

8. Well, if you want to do it that way, the Eagles are +6 (11-5), so it’d be 2 games over .500

Oh, oops. Sheesh. I think I was looking at the 11 wins for the Eagles and 8 for the Skins, and somehow ending up with 11-8 as the Eagles' record. I will give myself a slight break because it can be hard to do this stuff between bouts of work, but still...pretty lame. :-D Sorry.

Even so, two games over still isn't much.

#10... My favorite thing is that everyone remembers the missed kick and not the Jacobs' fumbles. They occurred 20 yards from the Eagles' goal line (giving them a FG when they were having trouble moving the ball) and 10 yards from the Giants' goal line (a TD ends that game, a FG gives them a 6 point lead).

The 2007 Giants were a team that always had to overcome their own bad play. In the playoffs, they were the same team with the mistakes eliminated.

7-9 for the Cowboys is just silly.

Eagles +3 games over .500, Redskins even, Cowboys -2, Giants -2…that’s one game under. Right?

Wrong. Eagles +3, Redskins even, Cowboys and Giants -1 (unless you go by wins-losses, in which case it's Eagles +6, Redskins even, Cowboys and Giants -2). Or, you could just add up the predicted wins/losses for all 4 teams, and get a combined record of 33-31. (11+8+7+7 = 33 wins, 5+8+9+9 = 31 losses).

Anyway, I doubt it'll be that close. They were 40-24 last year, and I don't think they'll regress that much, given that the Eagles are likely to improve significantly, and the rest of the division will probably still have winning/non-losing records.

Dallas 11-5, Philadelphia 10-6, New York 8-8, Washington 7-9.

I think that looks pretty close Yaguar, though honestly the boring think of predicting them all 9-7 or 8-8 would probably end up the best.

16,
I think thats pretty close, but maybe even 1 or 2 more wins could easily be in there.

Honestly FO's chapter on Dallas is just awful. I'm biased, but it just doesn't make any sense. Their reasoning doesn't really make any sense, it seems their just trying to write what the numbers show (and the numbers predicted 6.4 wins last year, which was laughable). Romo is supposedly risky (why? he hardly ever gets hit) and if some major players are hurt then they will decline (bigtime analysis there). Dallas was 18th in adjusted games lost least year, so they weren't that healthy. The Cowboys offense is the most talented in the NFC and the defense is really, really deep. If they don't finish above .500, I'll eat my hat (okay, unless Romo misses most of the season).

FO is predicting a big year for the Eagles so assuming thats true they should get at least ten wins.

The Giants should finish at least .500 as well. Come on, they just won the Superbowl and FO thinks Eli will breakout. The injury to Osi hurts but they are still pretty good on both sides of the ball.

The Redskins probably aren't that good, but even they have a sot at the playoffs. IF they were in the NFC South, they could easily win the division.

The AFC north isn't even close, they don't have any top team. I'll take Dallas and Philly over anyone there.

I think the NFC East might be the best division actually. I'd say Dallas is a wash with the Colts (especially with Manning's injury), Philly and the Jags are about even, the Giants are much better than the Texans, and the Redskins are about even with the Titans, maybe better.