For as wild as the NFC East can be at times, it’s been pretty straightforward to start the season: a clear-cut favorite, a dark horse, and two teams fighting to avoid the cellar. Let’s take a closer look at how the Dallas Cowboys fare amongst their divisional counterparts.

Even with the tush push close to getting pushed out of the league completely, the Philadelphia Eagles appeared in control offensively on Sunday. Yes, Jalen Hurts was sacked four times and fumbled once, and yes Saquon Barkley was contained. 

But, Hurts turned in his best passing performance of the season with 226 yards and three touchdowns while AJ Brown looked rejuvenated in his own right. The much maligned wide receiver turned in six catches for 109 yards and a touchdown. 

Defensively, they limited Davante Adams to two catches for 12 yards after his opening touchdown and kept Matthew Stafford to 152 yards and one touchdown after that play. All that is to mean that, outside of one splash play, they largely stifled what had been an explosive offense. 

And, thanks to a standout special teams play to win the game, they remained undefeated. Perhaps more importantly, they stay atop our power rankings. 

In what had the potential to be a bit of a trap game with Jayden Daniels out, the Washington Commanders, well, commanded the game from the start. They got rushing touchdowns from three different players, Marcus Mariota tossed one to Luke McCaffrey, and the special teams contributed a punt return touchdown for good measure to an all-around productive day for the offense. 

On the other side of the ball, the pass rush did well to sack Geno Smith five times. However, they didn’t force a turnover and seemingly simply forgot to cover Tre Tucker all day. The veteran wide receiver recorded eight catches for 145 yards and three touchdowns. 

Still, they showed that even without their young prodigy behind center, that they can take care of business and get a much needed rebound from Week 2 in Green Bay. 

How disappointing and demoralizing was the Week 3 loss to Chicago? I seriously considered moving the Cowboys all the way to the bottom of these rankings. 

However the head-to-head win over New York keeps them out of the cellar for now. Even still, between their paltry effort on offense (14 points against a defense that lost to JJ McCarthy and gave up 50 the week before) and letting Caleb Williams finally look like the prince that was promised, it’s hard to feel too great about the direction of this team. 

In the meantime, the return of Micah Parsons looms. If they can’t pull that upset off, that Week 2 win might not be enough to keep them out of the basement. 

The defense limited Kansas City to nine first half points and still trailed going into halftime. That sentence alone tells you all that you need to know about this New York Giants team: they have a defense capable of limiting very good offense, and an offense that, when they’re not playing Dallas, simply isn’t capable of moving the ball. 

Now, it appears that they’re finally going to do something about that with the news that Jaxson Dart is moving into the starting role. With Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo, he won’t be totally without weapons.

 Hopefully, he’s able to give the offense the spark they so desperately need to match what their defense is capable of.  

As mentioned in the beginning of this piece, there’s a clear hierarchy in the division so far. However, it’s entirely possible that the Commanders get hot and push the Eagles. They showed as much after proving that they’re more than just Daniels. 

It’s entirely possible that the Giants get the spark that they’ve been praying for from Dart and separate themselves from the Cowboys at the bottom of the division. With those things in mind, for as cut and dry as this division may seem, it’s not even close to set in stone yet.