The NFC East is the only division that is still undecided heading into Week 17. The Philadelphia Eagles are playing a win and you’re in game against the New York Giants, while the Cowboys need an Eagles loss coupled with a victory over Washington to take the crown.
Can the Giants beat the Eagles?
The Eagles are currently 4.5 point favorites heading into Sunday. Philadelphia is riding a three-game winning streak, while New York comes into this one having won its last two contests. Looking back at just these past three weeks, the Giants actually have a better offensive EPA/play than the Eagles, and both teams are in the top ten in the NFL. This is of course a great example of why we should be careful with small sample size splits, because neither of these teams have a top ten offense. But the fact remains that these teams have scored a very respectable 77 and 94 points over their last three.
Daniel Jones threw five touchdown passes last week and finished with the highest EPA/play of any quarterback with at least 20 plays (dropbacks + rushes) in Week 16. It was a good enough performance to bring his season-long EPA/play up from -0.6 (last in NFL) to -0.01 (27th in NFL). Carson Wentz is still outperforming him on the year (16th in EPA/play) which might be even more impressive considering the lack of receivers on the roster.
Of course, if we’re looking at Week 17, they’re still missing half of their receiving group plus tight end Zach Ertz. The Giants defense is not good, but that doesn’t mean this will be an easy day for Philadelphia. New York has been dreadful against the pass, but fairly decent against the run.
The completely depleted Eagles air attack against an awful Giants secondary makes for a really interesting match up that will probably be no fun to watch despite its unpredictability.
Will Dallas beat Washington?
Let’s say Philadelphia happens to lay a stinker in New York which seems entirely possible given the way the NFC East has gone this season. What are the odds Dallas completes the season sweep of Washington and takes the division title?
Dallas is favored by 11 points per ESPN, but I have them favored by 18 when using an opponent adjusted EPA model. Of course, this is the same model that had the Cowboys as 10-point favorites over Buffalo just four weeks ago, so even this heavy favorite can’t be counted on. But the point is, this shouldn’t be close.
Washington’s defense has been very bad this year, but the Dallas D really hasn’t been much better. The biggest feature of this game is that we will see the second-largest disparity between opposing offense efficiency of any game this week (with Baltimore and Pittsburgh slightly edging this one out).
Washington has been really bad this year on offense, pretty much regardless of who is in at quarterback. Dwayne Haskins has shown improvement in recent weeks, which means a Case Keenum start this week is probably a good thing for Dallas.
Should I watch the Week 17 games?
At the end of the day, Dallas still doesn’t have a great shot at the division. They don’t control their own destiny, and Philadelphia plays a bad Giants team. But there’s always a chances, and if nothing else, this should be a good week to see Dallas light up an opponent one more time before the offseason. There’s also some good history to be made here as well. If Dallas does indeed beat Washington by the 18 points I have them projected at, they’ll finish the year at 8-8 with a point differential of +100.
That’ll be the first time since 1989 that a team had a triple-digit point differential and fewer than nine wins to show for it. So no matter what there will be something to watch for.
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