The NFC East has been known for largely being a poor division in the NFL, but I think there is one team here that fans shouldn’t sleep on for 2022.
The NFC East sometimes called the “NFC Least” has been one of the worst divisions in football during this century. The division has been so bad that there hasn’t been a repeat champion since 2004, which is the longest streak in league history.
There have been years where the division winner was a legitimately good football team. After all, it was the Philadelphia Eagles who won the Super Bowl in 2017, and the Giants enjoyed Super Bowl championships in 2007 and 2011.
The Cowboys have also had a few good years as well, recently winning 12 games in 2021.
But I’m not concerned about those teams heading into 2022.
I want to focus on the Washington Commanders, a team that most seem to be writing off for 2022.
In a very winnable NFC East, the Commanders are set up nicely to surprise many and make the playoffs.
First and foremost, the Commanders are tied with the Cowboys for the easiest schedule in the NFL this season.
Yes, the entire NFC East has very easy schedules, but it’s still worth mentioning that Washington’s is technically the easiest.
Secondly, they have the second-best quarterback in the division. While this might not be the best honor to have, it’s still something of note. The modern-day NFL calls for teams to have a good quarterback to win games.
Teams who are unsure of their signal-caller aren’t usually going to win much.
Well, it’s clear that, while Carson Wentz isn’t as good as Dak Prescott, he’s still the clear second-best in the division.
Carson Wentz was efficient last season, passing for 27 touchdowns and only tossing seven interceptions.
This brings me to my next point, which is the Commanders’ 2021 performance. They went 7-10 last season, which is by no means an awful record, but they went 7-10 while their quarterbacks threw for only 21 touchdown passes and tossed 15 interceptions.
Their team passer rating of 85.8 is quite mediocre, and Taylor Heinicke, while exciting at times, is clearly not the answer for them.
Just ask yourselves, if we replaced the Commanders’ 2021 quarterback production with Carson Wentz’s 2021 production, how many more wins would the team have?
Well, Heinicke had 22 total touchdowns in 2021, including one on the ground, and Carson Wentz had 28 total touchdowns in 2021.
Those six more touchdowns would have accounted for 42 more points, given they attempted a PAT after each one.
This would have brought their points per game number up from 23rd in the league in 2021, to 18th in the league.
To take this a step further, this would have been a points per game average of 22.1 for the 2021 NFL season.
If we look back at their schedule and look for each game their defense allowed less than 22 points per game, but the team lost, we find three occasions, where they lost 16-20 against the Chargers, 10-17 against the Broncos, and 16-20 against the Eagles.
If they had scored at least 22 points per game during those games, they’d have won them all, which would have given them three more wins, bringing their total to 10 wins for the 2021 season.
I think with the difference in quarterback production from Heinicke to Wentz, we will see a much-improved offense.
There’s also the defense to consider, as they were the 4th best scoring defense in 2020, but were the 25th ranked defense in 2021.
It’s unclear what happened here, but I don’t think it’s farfetched to think that the Commanders defense could show a bit of improvement in 2022.
If their defense ended up about average, that could also influence certain games.
Beyond that, the team has stud players on both sides of the ball, including two solid tackles in Charles Leno and Samuel Cosmi, a great receiver room with Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel, and Jahan Dotson, and great players on defense in Chase Young, Montez Sweat, and Jonathan Allen.
The Commanders’ roster is very good, and Carson Wentz is going to be a noticeable upgrade for them in 2022.
I wouldn’t count them out in the NFC East next season.