Just how bad is the NFC East this year? Worse than you think

Where does the 2019 NFC East land among the recent worst divisions in football?

The Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants turned in to a showcase for the world to see just how poor the NFC East is shaping up in 2019.

By the end of the first quarter, many fans were questioning how their addiction to football could keep them tuned in to this contest.

With all four teams in the division sitting with losing records, this really begs the question: When was the last time we saw a division that looked this bad over an entire season?

Let’s take a dive into the dregs of the NFL every year for the last decade.  The 2019 NFC East is just two losses away from becoming just the fourth division since 2009 to win 10 or fewer non-divisional games.*

*for this analysis, ties are considered 0.5 wins

The projected point differential for the East is -183, which would be the sixth worst of any division since 2009.  At this point, we might not be able to call this the worst division ever, but there is a real case to consider it one of the bottom five.

Sidenote: the worst has to belong to the 2009 NFC West, which went 9-31 with a point differential of -341 in their out of division games, far and away the worst in recent memory.

Wins and losses don’t always tell the whole story.

As we’ve seen this year with the Dallas Cowboys in particular, teams can look great by some metrics and still come out on the losing end more often than not.  In the same spirit as above, we can analyze each division’s statistics in games played outside their own division.  We’ll start by ranking divisions in terms of their EPA differential over the course of the season, similar to what’s done in our weekly EPA power rankings.

 

The East isn’t the worst on either offense or defense, but it is bad enough at both to sit with the 12th worst EPA differential of any division since 2009.  It’s pretty remarkable when you consider that EPA loves the Cowboys offense this year (second best by raw EPA/play in 2019).  If it weren’t for the Cowboys, who knows what kind of records this division could set.

In fact, even with the Cowboys, they still might set some new standards.  The NFC East has fumbled 50 times in non-divisional games in 2019, more than any division since 2009.  The 24 fumbles lost is the second most by any division, trailing only the 2011 NFC East’s 26.  Somewhat strangely, that iteration of the East finished with a positive offensive EPA, positive score differential, and 18 wins.

The 40 takeaways by the East’s defenses are tied for the 12th fewest in a year, and their turnover differential is the 10th worst.

There is a not-unlikely scenario in which this division winner finishes with a losing record for what would be the third time since 2010.  In fact, the Cowboys could potentially enter the playoffs with fewer wins than either of the previous teams with this dubious honor.

So how does the East compare to our most recent examples of middling divisions?  Well, they’ve played closer games, but still may not win as many as the previous divisions.

The 2014 NFC South did it with historically bad defense.  They had the worst EPA/play allowed of any division since 2009.  This year’s NFC East is a touch worse on defense than the 2010 NFC West, but it’s extremely close.  The 2014 South’s offense was also the best of this bunch, with this year’s East once again coming in second.  The only real point of hope for this division is in the point differential.  The East will almost certainly finish with a point differential much better than either the 2010 NFC West or the 2014 NFC South, and yet they might also have fewer wins.

It’s been a bad division, made worse by bad luck.

It’s been a painful year for fans of any NFC East team, but perhaps folks can take solace in marveling at just how bad the division as a whole has been.  There is real potential to see the Cowboys be the first 7-9 team to enter the playoffs since the 2010 Seahawks.  Somewhat poetically, their most likely wildcard opponent happens to be the Seahawks.

It’s been a ride this season, and my only advice is to sit back and revel in the chaos, because we might not see something like this again for some time.

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