It’s pathetic, but someone has to win it. The NFC East is truly bottom feeding this year. Their combined 4-team win total matches that of the 2 teams playing tonight. All four teams offer up a mediocre product, and in any other year one of them would have started to tank by now. But alas they are all still alive. Yep. Even with 3 fucking wins in 11 games, the Dallas Cowboys are still in the playoff race. Ugh.
Naturally there is plenty of banter over who is going to host a playoff game (and probably get walloped by Seattle or Minnesota), so today we’re taking a look at what the bookies have to say about it. Here are the early Vegas odds for the rest of the season (spreads refer to the NFC East team):
| NFC East Clown | Wk 14 | Wk 15 | Wk 16 | Wk 17 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giants | @Mia -1 | Car +3.5 | @Min +3.5 | Phi -1.5 |
| Eagles | Buf -1 | Ari +3.5 | Was -4 | @NYG +1.5 |
| Redskins | @Chi +3.5 | Buf +2 | @Phi +4 | @Dal +3.5 |
| Cowboys | @GB +7 | NYJ +3 | @ Buf +4 | @Was -3.5 |
Based on the spreads, Vegas is looking at a .391 combined winning percentage in this division, which is on par with some of the worst in NFL history. And they could easily do worse – Eagles and Giants losses this week would not be true upsets by any measure. But nevertheless (actually moretheless), somebody’s still gotta win.
Based on the spreads, the “first-place” Redskins are lined up to close out the season with 5 straight losses and Vegas has the Eagles and Giants finishing tied for 1st at 7-9. They would tie on head-to-head with the NYG favorite of a measly 1.5 at home, so the tiebreaker goes to divisional record – which Vegas also has tied at 3-3. Next is common opponents, which this year refers to the AFC East and the NFC South. The Eagles are 3-4 so far in that realm due, including a miserable and depressing 0-2 against the Florida teams. With the 1 point favorite against Buffalo, Vegas has the birds at 4-4. The G-men are 2-4 right now, with an odds-projected finish of 3-5.
So Vegas officially has the Eagles in the playoffs as of the time of publication. And the spreads aren’t that far-fetched. Sure some of them will flip, but for now, this may just be confirmation that we aren’t that crazy for continuing to invest our souls into this team.
