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Cowboys-Giants Final Score: Both NFC East teams look unimpressive on Sunday Night Football

The division might not be as good as some think.

New York Giants vs Dallas Cowboys Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images

The Dallas Cowboys defeated the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football by a final score of 19-3. Despite the fact the score is lopsided, the truth is neither team look particularly impressive on Sunday evening.

Dallas still has some nice offensive weapons, for sure. Ezekiel Elliott is a threatening presence. But I wasn’t really impressed by Dak Prescott at all. He threw a number of inaccurate passes that Draft Twitter would kill Carson Wentz for making. Dallas held the ball for over 34 minutes and only scored 19 points.

People will come out of this game saying the Cowboys’ defense looks good, but that’s not the impression I got.

Rather, it’s just that the Giants’ offense really sucks. Like, a lot. The offensive line was terrible, as everyone expected it to be. Eli Manning was so non-threatening and just ... bad. New York’s running game averaged 2.9 yards per carry. I’m really unsure why people thought of them as division favorites entering this season.

It’s obvious that the absence of Odell Beckham Jr. really hurt the Giants on Sunday. But it’s not like he’s going to come back and fix everything. New York still had a crappy offense when OBJ played all last year. In 2016, the Giants ranked 27th in offensive points per game with 17.6.

Of course, the Giants and Cowboys aren’t the only NFC East teams who played a brand of ugly football on Sunday. The Eagles and Redskins showed they have their fair share of flaws as well, though Philadelphia ultimately outplayed Washington for a win.

It’s just one week, and things can always change in the never-constant NFL, but my immediate impression of the NFC East is that it’s not all that great. I’m not really surprised, either, because the Giants and Cowboys have been poised to take a step back from last year. I think the Eagles are hovering around 9-7 and I feel like Washington will be in the five to seven win range.

I still expect the division to come down to the Eagles and Cowboys. I think those are the two best teams in the NFC East.

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