Eagles Trying to Avoid Pitfalls of Defending NFC East Title
Anyone who gambles, whether it’s the conservative $5 bettor from time to time or the high roller, understands there is no such thing as a sure thing.
Except when it comes to picking the champion of the NFC East. Even then, it’s a guessing game, but you can always rule out at least one team every year. That team is the team that won it the previous season.
The East hasn’t had a repeat winner in 20 seasons, not since the Philadelphia Eagles won four straight from 2001-04 has the division had back-to-back champs. So, forget the Eagles doing it this year because they won it last year.
Depending on which oddsmaker you choose to look at, however, the Eagles are still the favorite to do it again this year, though the Dallas Cowboys have gotten some love in that regard, too.
Every so often, the New York Giants or Washington Commanders sneak out with a division crown, as Washington did in 2015 and 2020 and New York did in 2005 to halt the Eagles’ run.
Sometimes, fortune smiles on the underdog, which the Giants seem to be this season despite having the reigning coach of the year on the sidelines, Brian Daboll.
New York pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux was on Good Morning Football on Friday and said he likes being the underdog.
"I mean, it's been good for me,” he said. “I like to lay low. I'm happy that people are counting us out, cause that gives us more time to just work. We don't have to answer those questions, we don't have to worry about everybody looking at us.
“We can just keep our head down and grind. And I think you know, we love being the underdogs, cause that always gives us that story, that momentum to really work and really go after what we want."
Only the NFC West can rival the East for parity when it comes to which team will wear the crown, and even the West isn’t much of a match for the East in that regard.
Still, the West at least had a repeat winner as recently as 2017 and 2018 when the Los Angeles Rams did it. Since then, it’s been the Niners, Seattle Seahawks, Rams, and Niners again in that order.
While the East has been a master class in parity, and the West to a very small degree, that hasn’t been the case in other divisions.
In the AFC West, the Kansas City Chiefs have won the division for seven straight years. Until that run, it was the Denver Broncos who won it five straight years.
The last time anybody but the Broncos or Chiefs won the West was in 2009 when the then-San Diego Chargers put the wraps on their fourth straight division crown.
The New England Patriots had a stranglehold on the AFC East, winning 11 straight with Tom Brady from 2009-19. But since then the Buffalo Bills have taken control of the East, winning the last three in a row.
Since 2000, if it wasn’t the Patriots or Bills winning the division, it was the Miami Dolphins who did it twice (2000 and 2008) and the New York Jets once (2002).
The Cincinnati Bengals have won two straight in the AFC North while the two-year reign of the Tennessee Titans in the AFC South was ended by the Jacksonville Jaguars last year.
Over in the NFC, the Green Bay Packers had won the North three times in a row until the Minnesota Vikings took the division last season and the South has been dominated by the New Orleans Saints or Tampa Bay Buccaneers since 2017 when the Saints won four straight before the Bucs overtook them the past two seasons.
Mostly, the East has been the Eagles’ to win. They have had 10 division crowns since 2000. The Cowboys are the next closest with six.
The two rivals have bandied the title back and forth the previous six years, with each team winning three in that span, but none able to do it twice in a row. The Giants have four and the Commanders three since 2000.
Again, there is no such thing as a sure thing, but picking the East champion is close.
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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