Ranking the NFC East, 2019: The All-NFC East team

Since the beginning of June, Hogs Haven has been publishing a series of articles called Ranking the NFC East, 2019, aimed at reviewing the rosters of the four NFCE division teams position-by-position in an effort to identify the best players.

Today we’ll wrap that up by naming an All-NFC East team, based primarily on the polling results from each article.

To re-visit any of the position group articles, just follow these links:

• Running Backs
• Quarterbacks
• Tight Ends
• Wide Receivers
• Offensive Lines

• Safeties
• Cornerbacks
• Linebackers
• Edge Rushers
• Defensive Lines

Head Coaches

The All-NFC East team (offense & defense)

It can’t be ignored that this is a Redskins fan site, so there’s always gonna be a bit of Kool-aid and burgundy colored glasses in effect, but overall, I think fans made a real attempt to be balanced in their assessments of the players and position groups.

Much like last season, it was clear that Philly fans were visiting in the largest number from among the three rival fan bases, reflected in both the comments and the voting.

Also like last year, the Cowboy fans were pretty much a non-factor. I get the feeling that they are a pretty insular bunch overall — more Cowboys fans than football fans, if you know what I mean.

In consequence, the Redskins probably got a bit of benefit in the poll results, while the Cowboys probably got shaded down by the lack of Dallas fan visits to the Hogs Haven site.

In any event, this has never been portrayed as a ‘scientifically valid’ poll; rather, it is intended as a bit of off-season fun aimed at helping us all be a little more educated about our division before the preseason and regular season start in earnest.

So, feel free to add a big grain of salt, but I present below the ALL NFC EAST TEAM as determined by the polling results from out off-season Ranking series.

You’ll note that the Eagles ended up with the strongest roster assessment overall, though the voting was heavily skewed towards the offensive side of the ball for Philly.

Washington, who showed up as having the second-strongest roster in the voting, was favored on the defensive side of the ball. The theme for the Redskins offense seems to be — not so much lack of talent — but questions about what they have at every position group. We don’t know who the starting QB is, whether Trent Williams will show up to play, who will win the LG camp battle, whether Jordan Reed can stay healthy, or which WR (if any) are capable of stepping up and having a productive season.

The Cowboys, similar to the Redskins, were seen to be stronger on the defensive side of the ball, with their greatest strength coming at linebacker, where Dallas players occupy 3 of the 4 positions on the All-NFCE team. The Redskins, meanwhile, were seen to clearly have the best edge rush group and interior DL, as well as finishing at the top of the voting at CB, with Dallas seen as a close second at this position with their young and talented group of DBs.

The Giants were seen by voters to clearly have the weakest depth and starting players. Only Saquon Barkley and Will Hernandez were rated best player in the division at their positions. When it came to assessing depth at position groups, the Giants were only seen to have the best depth at one position — quarterback — while they were rated last in depth for 5 position groups. It should be noted that at some positions — notably defensive line and cornerback — the Giants were seen to have a young corps of players that can be quickly augmented and improved in a season or two via free agency and good drafting. There’s no doubt, however, that readers who voted in the polls see the Giants as being in position to put up their third consecutive season marred by too many losses as a result of a roster in transition in 2019.

In the chart above, I failed to include the offensive line positional group rankings by team. This was deliberate. I didn’t ask the questions about BEST and WEAKEST in the polls accompanying that article, and there was no clear consensus in the comments section, and a lot of criticism about the results of the ‘best player’ poll results. All in all, it seemed best to simply omit the position group from the overall rankings.

If I were relying on these poll results to predict the final division standings for 2019, I would have to put the Eagles at the top of the division and the Giants at the bottom. Additionally, the poll results would put the Redskins in 2nd place and Dallas in 3rd, but — again — bear in mind that this is not a random poll of NFL fans from across the country. Opinions will differ.

Great collaboration

I need to acknowledge that this 2019 Ranking the NFC East series was a team effort, with film breakdowns and player analysis provided by other Hogs Haven contributors who did most of the hard work.

Please join me in offering special thanks to Andrew York, Jason Frye, and KyleSmithforGM, who each volunteered time to do the hard work of player assessment. Their analyses actually formed the heart of these articles, while my own contribution was more administrative in nature. It’s a special labor to undertake the study of a half-dozen players in a position group and commit to a deadline every two weeks when one still has all the commitments and demands of daily life to contend with, so I hope readers can appreciate the efforts these three guys made.

I also want to thank the Eagles and Giants fans (and Cowboys fans, too, if there were any) who came to visit and add to the discussion over the past two months. It’s a joy to be able to just enjoy football together and share knowledge about each other’s teams before the regular season arrives, passion rises, and the trash talking takes over.

Finally, I want to thank the Hogs Haven members who are Redskins fans, who were almost always gracious to our visitors. I know it can be a challenge not to figuratively ‘throw down the gauntlet’ when rivals come to ‘our place’, but I was impressed by the level of acceptance and genuine discussion I saw in the comments section of each article in the series.

But, feel free to put all the bonhomie away once the games start.