Cowboys and Eagles dominate roster strength comparison across NFC East

1 month ago 12

In a caller station connected however Cowboys escaped agent/trade acquisitions augment the roster, we looked astatine positional rankings to recognize wherever Cowboys players fertile against their NFL peers.

We besides took deep-dive look astatine the apical 35 players connected the roster (as per positional ranking) connected the presumption that the apical 32-35 players correspond the projected starting lineup and contiguous rotational extent of an NFL team, and that capable prime among your apical 35 separates contenders from lottery teams. But looking astatine that 35-player database successful a vacuum near america with much questions than answers, truthful readers asked to comparison those numbers against the different NFC East teams, which is precisely what we’re going to bash today.

Positional Rankings

The thought down positional rankings is to find a metric that makes each players successful the league comparable. Currently, the lone work that offers a metric for each azygous subordinate successful the league is Pro Football Focus (PFF), but alternatively of looking astatine the grades they delegate to the players, we’re going to look astatine wherever a fixed subordinate is ranked comparative to the different players successful the league astatine his position.

Because each presumption radical has a antithetic fig of qualifying players, I’ve converted each positional rankings to a standard of 0 – 100. The highest ranked subordinate astatine a presumption gets 100 points, the lowest ranked subordinate gets zero, everybody other lands determination successful between.

I did that calculation for each NFC East players connected the 2025 and 2026 rosters based connected the wide ranking standard provided by PFF and divided the results into quintiles, which delivers the pursuing positional ranking groups:

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Positional Ranking	Description
100-80	Blue-Chip Players
79-60	NFL starter prime astatine position
59-40	Average to somewhat beneath mean player
39-20	Underperformer
19-0	Red Flag

Some analytical housekeeping: For this full analysis, 150 snaps for the respective NFC East squad is the minimum threshold for inclusion for each subordinate into the Top 35. For kickers and punters, that fig is 100 peculiar teams snaps. The ranking for each subordinate is determined by their PFF ranking (by full discourtesy oregon full defense), I’ve listed the minimum thresholds for those rankings for each presumption astatine the bottommost of this post. Because I’ve had to massage those thresholds to acceptable the NFC East players, immoderate information points for Cowboys players disagree somewhat versus the erstwhile station linked above.

With that retired of the way, 1 reasonably straightforward mode of comparing rosters is to look astatine however the Top 35 agelong crossed the quintiles for each team, with the proposal that much players successful the bluish and greenish quintiles bespeak a stronger roster.

Top 35 Positional Ranking	Cowboys	Eagles	Giants	Commanders
100-80	8	11	3	9
79-60	13	9	8	6
59-40	7	6	7	7
39-20	7	7	11	12
19-0	—	2	6	1

The roster conflict successful the NFC, arsenic expected, is betwixt the Eagles and the Cowboys, with the Giants and Commanders featuring lone arsenic array padding. The Cowboys person 21 players successful bluish and greenish versus 20 for the Eagles, though the Eagles person much prime successful the bluish quintile – astatine slightest based connected the positional ranking disconnected PFF grades.

If we simply mean the Top 35 rankings, we get 61 for Philly and Dallas, 45 for New York, and 53 for Washington.

However, the contented present is that each positions are treated equally. The Cowboys for illustration person their 3rd WR, Ryan Flournoy, among the 8 bluish players. Flournoy lone played 479 snaps, but this gives him the aforesaid value arsenic George Pickens, who had a small implicit doubly the snaps (968) Flournoy had. To close for that, we request to set for full fig of snaps crossed the Top 35 for each team.

Snap-adjusted Roster Rank

The mathematics present is beauteous simple: We multiply each Top 35 player’s drawback number with his positional ranking, and past disagreement the sum by the combined drawback number of the Top 35 players. Additionally, due to the fact that we person the information for the 2025 roster and the existent (per June 27) 2026 roster, we tin instrumentality a look astatine however the Top 35 rosters person evolved versus past year.

Snap-adjusted Top 35 Positional Ranking
Year	Cowboys	Eagles	Giants	Commanders
2025	65.3	68.0	51.2	55.4
2026	65.4	67.0	45.5	50.9
Change	+0.1	-1.0	-5.7	-4.5

“Wait a second”, immoderate mightiness say, however tin the Cowboys and Eagles, who spent lone $60 cardinal and $55 cardinal respectively successful escaped agency, stay mostly unchanged, portion the Giants ($190 million) and Commanders ($239 million) got worse contempt their megabucks spending successful escaped agency? Two cardinal reasons:

Reason #1: The positional ranking of acquired Top 35 players is little than the Top 35 players lost

If you motion 10 players with an mean fertile of 40, but suffer 10 players with an mean fertile of 60, you’ve weakened your roster. That’s the full gist of it, though it tin beryllium a small much analyzable than that.

If we usage the Cowboys arsenic an example, they mislaid 10 Top 35 players and gained nine. The snap-adjusted fertile improved from 54.3 for the players mislaid to 58.0 for the players gained, truthful a nett gain. And that’s beauteous overmuch what you privation to spot successful escaped agency: bring successful players that volition amended your squad much than the players you lost. But arsenic we’ll see, that’s not a elemental arsenic it sounds.

Cowboys Top 35 players lost					Cowboys Top 35 players gained
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank	Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Jadeveon Clowney	ED	372	17/139	88	Cobie Durant	CB	819	42/138	70
Dante Fowler	ED	358	22/139	84	Jalen Thompson	S	978	38/116	67
Osa Odighizuwa	DI	691	43/154	72	Charles Snowden	ED	324	47/139	66
Solomon Thomas	DI	417	62/154	60	Rashan Gary	ED	653	54/139	61
Kaiir Elam	CB	458	74/138	46	Jonathan Bullard	DI	326	65/154	58
Juanyeh Thomas	S	264	75/116	35	Dee Winters	LB	993	54/108	50
Jack Sanborn	LB	229	70/108	35	Otito Ogbonnia	DI	159	86/154	44
Jalen Tolbert	WR	464	105/158	34	PJ Locke	S	173	73/116	37
Trevon Diggs	CB	424	93/138	33	Tyler Johnson	WR	292	117/158	26
Logan Wilson	LB	224	78/108	28
Total		3,901		54.3	Total		4,717		58.0

Because the players the Cowboys gained person a higher ranking than the players mislaid – and person much snaps – the wide Top 35 fig increases slightly, signifier 65.3 to 65.4.

Not each Cowboys instrumentality is impressed with what the Cowboys did successful escaped agency. But going by this Top 35 analysis, they are the lone squad successful the East that improved via outer subordinate acquisitions.

The Eagles faced a pugnacious task successful replacing 4 players with a positional ranking supra 80, main among them A.J. Brown, and from a Top 35 position were lone capable to regenerate those 4 “blue” players with 4 “green” players (60-80). As a result, the snap-adjusted fertile declined rather a bit, from 57.4 for the players mislaid to 50.8 for the players gained.

Eagles Top 35 players lost					Eagles Top 35 players gained
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank	Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Joshua Uche	ED	244	9/139	94	Arnold Ebiketie	ED	384	29/139	79
A.J. Brown	WR	915	13/158	92	Jonathan Greenard	ED	559	33/139	76
Brett Toth	G	363	14/100	86	Dontayvion Wicks	WR	409	52/158	67
Jaelan Phillips	ED	469	24/139	83	Marquise Brown	WR	551	58/158	63
Nakobe Dean	LB	462	50/108	54	Johnny Mundt	TE	401	62/125	50
Sydney Brown	S	250	75/116	35	Tariq Woolen	CB	962	73/138	47
Adoree’ Jackson	CB	625	110/138	20	Elijah Moore	WR	193	87/158	45
Jahan Dotson	WR	637	147/158	7	AJ Epenesa	ED	488	96/139	31
Kylen Granson	TE	250	118/125	6	Michael Jordan	G	718	83/100	17
Total		4,215		57.4	Total		4,665		50.8

Combined with an accrued drawback number for the players gained, that reduces the Eagles Top 35 fertile from 68.0 to 67.0. Not a large driblet overall, but it does bring their Top 35 person to the Cowboys astatine 65.4.

For the Giants, the representation looks markedly different, arsenic they mislaid 13 of their Top 35 players from past season, and lone gained 9 players to regenerate those 13 successful the TOP 35 – each of that astatine a importantly little ranking.

Giants Top 35 players lost					Giants Top 35 players gained
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank	Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Dexter Lawrence	DI	754	19/154	88	DJ Reader	DI	583	33/154	79
Austin Schlottmann	C	363	14/45	69	Shelby Harris	DI	511	58/154	62
Cor’Dale Flott	CB	798	44/138	68	Tremaine Edmunds	LB	959	41/108	62
Wan’Dale Robinson	WR	973	57/158	64	Patrick Ricard	FB	274	48/107	55
Greg Van Roten	G	1,151	38/100	62	Daniel Faalele	G	1,011	61/100	39
Daniel Bellinger	TE	556	48/125	62	Isaiah Likely	TE	487	78/125	38
Chauncey Golston	ED	173	71/139	49	Gerg Newsome	CB	804	105/138	24
Dane Belton	S	705	64/116	45	JuJu Smith-Shuster	WR	620	129/158	18
Bobby Okereke	LB	1,104	65/108	40	Calvin Austin	WR	481	140/158	11
Russell Wilson	QB	220	37/52	29
D.J. Davidson	DI	256	121/154	21
Rakeem Nunez-Roches	DI	242	124/154	19
Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles	LB	225	88/108	19
Total		7,520		55.6	Total		5,730		42.9

Per Spotrac.com, the Giants signed 20 escaped agents this offseason. But from a Top 35 perspective, lone 9 of those players exceeded 150 snaps past twelvemonth and had a positional fertile that qualified them for the Top 35. Replacing players with an mean of 55.6 with different players with a 42.9 mean is not a winning proposition, and this partially explains the Giants’ wide Top 35 people dropping from 51.0 to 46.0.

Finally, the Commanders beryllium determination betwixt the different 3 teams. They really did rather good astatine the apical of their acquisitions, with 4 players astatine 80 oregon above, but past added a batch of roster fillers, which resulted successful a driblet from 56.4 for the players mislaid to 49.4 for the players gained.

Commanders Top 35 players lost					Commanders Top 35 players gained
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank	Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Bobby Wagner	LB	1,132	10/108	91	Rachaad White	RB	575	11/107	90
Chris Rodriguez Jr.	RB	255	31/107	71	Tim Settle	DI	383	26/154	83
Tyler Biadasz	C	954	15/45	67	Leo Chenal	LB	440	20/108	81
Deebo Samuel	WR	713	56/158	65	Odafe Oweh	ED	538	28/139	80
Zach Ertz	TE	551	47/125	62	Chig Okonkwo	TE	666	61/125	51
Preston Smith	ED	283	63/139	55	Charles Omenihu	ED	567	84/139	40
Von Miller	ED	420	71/139	49	DJ Davidson	DI	256	105/154	32
Jeremy McNichols	RB	337	58/107	46	Nick Cross	S	1,111	80/116	31
Noah Igbinoghene	CB	373	96/138	30	K’lavon Chaisson	ED	835	96/139	31
Eddie Goldman	DI	320	110/154	29	Anthony Firkser	TE	187	90/125	28
Jacob Martin	ED	700	100/139	28	Van Jefferson	WR	582	114/158	28
Sheldon Day	DI	203	119/154	23	Ahkello Witherspoon	CB	186	108/138	22
Jalyn Holmes	DI	251	122/154	21
Total		6,492		56.4	Total		6,326		49.4

Reason #2: The fig of Top 35 players acquired is little than the Top 35 players lost

This whitethorn initially consciousness similar an world point, but it is captious erstwhile you look astatine thing similar the Top 35 roster: When you suffer much Top 35 players than you gain, you person to capable up those mislaid spots connected the Top 35. And wherever are you going to get those other players from to capable up the Top 35? From your seasoned players presently sitting extracurricular the Top 35, which means you’re diluting your Top 35 with non-Top 35 players, fundamentally downgrading our roster.

The Giants are a wide illustration for this: they mislaid 13 of their Top 35 players from past season, and lone gained 9 players successful their stead. They present request 4 seasoned players to determination into the Top 35 that were extracurricular the apical 35 successful 2025. These are the 4 “elevated” players.

Without these 4 players, the Giants Top 31 would mean a 47.8 snap-adjusted ranking, with them the Giants driblet to 45.5. Overall, the Giants driblet from 51.2 to 45.5, the biggest driblet successful the NFC East, leaving the Giants arsenic easy the worst squad successful the East heading into 2026.

Again this is not immoderate hypothetical exercise. If you presume that the Top 35 represents your starters and cardinal backups, there’s a bully accidental your backups volition beryllium called upon astatine immoderate constituent successful the season, and you don’t privation a clump of red-flag players having to measurement up.

The different NFC East teams person nary contented with this benignant of structural roster imbalance. If you’re a GM already connected the blistery seat, you whitethorn privation to debar putting unneurotic a roster similar this.

Side-by-side Roster Comparison

In the adjacent table, I’ve bunched the Cowboys and Eagles Top 35 rosters into 1 array for casual comparison. As you reappraisal the figures and charts successful the remainder of this post, support successful caput that the numbers springiness a directional indication of however a subordinate performed past year, but shouldn’t beryllium seen arsenic a definitive connection of a player’s quality. While I’m assured that a subordinate marked successful bluish had a amended twelvemonth than a subordinate marked successful yellow, determination is astir apt little of a quality betwixt players with a worth of, say, 75 and 85 than the numbers and the colour codification would look to indicate.

Giants players “elevated” to TOP35
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Chris Manhertz	TE	209	106/125	15
Korie Black	CB	184	119/138	14
Marcus Mbow	T	325	88/100	12
Isaiah Hodgins	WR	363	140/158	11

Cowboys TOP 35					Eagles TOP 35
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank	Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Brandon Aubrey	K	194	1/33	100	Quinyon Mitchell	CB	1,045	6/138	96
Quinnen Williams	DI	275	2/154	99	Zack Baun	LB	1,098	6/108	94
George Pickens	WR	968	7/158	96	Cooper DeJean	CB	1,097	8/138	94
Dak Prescott	QB	1,135	5/52	90	Jordan Mailata	T	1,045	6/100	94
Ryan Flournoy	WR	479	18/158	89	Moro Ojomo	DI	779	12/154	92
Tyler Smith	G	1,110	15/100	85	Jihaad Campbell	LB	712	14/108	87
CeeDee Lamb	WR	732	24/158	85	Jordan Davis	DI	715	24/154	84
Brevyn Spann-Ford	TE	300	23/125	82	Tyler Steen	G	1,080	16/100	84
Tyler Booker	G	1,003	21/100	79	DeVonta Smith	WR	954	27/158	83
Javonte Williams	RB	769	24/107	78	Jalen Carter	DI	698	27/154	82
Kenny Clark	DI	746	39/154	75	Jalen Hurts	QB	1,037	10/52	81
Donovan Ezeiruaku	ED	603	38/139	73	NEW: Arnold Ebiketie	ED	384	29/139	79
NEW: Cobie Durant	CB	819	42/138	70	Braden Mann	P	163	7/33	79
NEW: Jalen Thompson	S	978	38/116	67	Lane Johnson	T	449	22/100	78
T.J. Bass	G	352	33/100	67	NEW: Jonathan Greenard	ED	559	33/139	76
NEW: Charles Snowden	ED	324	47/139	66	Dallas Goedert	TE	853	38/125	70
DaRon Bland	CB	743	48/138	65	Landon Dickerson	G	908	32/100	68
DeMarvion Overshown	LB	218	38/108	65	NEW: Dontayvion Wicks	WR	409	52/158	67
James Houston	ED	305	53/139	62	NEW: Marquise Brown	WR	551	58/158	63
NEW: Rashan Gary	ED	653	54/139	61	Nolan Smith	ED	481	52/139	63
Cooper Beebe	C	767	18/45	60	Jalyx Hunt	ED	722	61/139	56
NEW: Jonathan Bullard	DI	326	65/154	58	Cam Jurgens	C	873	21/45	53
NEW: Dee Winters	LB	993	54/108	50	Saquon Barkley	RB	834	52/107	51
Jake Ferguson	TE	786	64/125	49	NEW: Johnny Mundt	TE	401	62/125	50
NEW: Otito Ogbonnia	DI	159	86/154	44	NEW: Tariq Woolen	CB	962	73/138	47
Bryan Anger	P	134	19/33	42	NEW: Elijah Moore	WR	193	87/158	45
Terence Steele	T	1,163	58/100	42	Darius Cooper	WR	233	103/158	35
KaVontae Turpin	WR	380	95/158	40	Byron Young	DI	350	105/154	32
Malik Hooker	S	593	73/116	37	NEW: AJ Epenesa	ED	488	96/139	31
NEW: PJ Locke	S	173	73/116	37	Kelee Ringo	CB	313	98/138	29
Luke Schoonmaker	TE	392	86/125	31	Fred Johnson	T	698	73/100	27
Caelen Carson	CB	211	102/138	26	Andrew Mukuba	S	672	88/116	24
NEW: Tyler Johnson	WR	292	117/158	26	Grant Calcaterra	TE	401	95/125	24
Sam Williams	ED	474	104/139	25	NEW: Michael Jordan	G	718	83/100	17
Hunter Luepke	FB	252	81/107	24	Marcus Epps	S	308	98/116	16

You whitethorn person noticed that the Eagles, particularly astatine the apical of the table, thin to person a higher drawback number than the Cowboys players. In fact, wherever the Cowboys person a combined 19,801 snaps successful their Top 35, the Eagles person 23,183, a positive of 17%.

In total, the Eagles person conscionable 37 players qualifying for this database portion the Cowboys person 46. Which means the Cowboys had to spell overmuch further down the extent illustration to tract players past twelvemonth than the Eagles did (be it for wounded oregon show reasons), and ultimately, this whitethorn person been the quality betwixt an 11-6 and a 7-9-1 finish: the extent beyond the Top 35 conscionable wasn’t determination erstwhile the Cowboys needed it.

The cornerback presumption illustrates this point: the Eagles had a beardown trio of cornerbacks playing for astir of the play successful Quinyon Mitchell (1,045 snaps, 96 Pos. rank), Cooper DeJean (1,097, 94) and Adoree’ Jackson (625, 20). The Cowboys not lone released Kaiir Elam (458, 46) and Trevon Diggs (424, 33) during the season, but past had to autumn backmost connected a fewer young, down-roster guys for a small implicit 1,300 snaps: Caelen Carson (211, 26), Reddy Steward (519, 14), Trikweze Bridges (248, 8), and Shavon Revel (334, 0).

On to the Giants and Commanders.

Giants TOP 35					Commanders TOP 35
Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank	Player	POS	Snaps 2025	Rank/ Total	Pos. Rank
Andrew Thomas	T	802	5/100	95	Terry McLaurin	WR	433	6/158	96
Cam Skattebo	RB	295	12/107	89	Laremy Tunsil	T	802	8/100	92
Brian Burns	ED	863	26/139	81	NEW: Rachaad White	RB	575	11/107	90
NEW: DJ Reader	DI	583	33/154	79	Sam Cosmi	G	545	10/100	90
Abdul Carter	ED	844	30/139	78	Javon Kinlaw	DI	724	23/154	85
Roy Robertson-Harris	DI	627	40/154	74	Dorance Armstrong	ED	239	22/139	84
Malik Nabers	WR	216	42/158	73	NEW: Tim Settle	DI	383	26/154	83
Devin Singletary	RB	311	39/107	64	NEW: Leo Chenal	LB	440	20/108	81
NEW: Shelby Harris	DI	511	58/154	62	NEW: Odafe Oweh	ED	538	28/139	80
NEW: Tremaine Edmunds	LB	959	41/108	62	Luke McCaffrey	WR	174	40/158	75
Jameis Winston	QB	156	21/52	60	Daron Payne	DI	607	45/154	71
Tyrone Tracy	RB	548	44/107	59	Marcus Mariota	QB	510	18/52	65
Andru Phillips	CB	729	59/138	57	Jayden Daniels	QB	405	19/52	63
NEW: Patrick Ricard	FB	274	48/107	55	Ben Sinnot	TE	341	49/125	61
Kayvon Thibodeaux	ED	494	64/139	54	Jacory Croskey-Merritt	RB	406	43/107	60
Theo Johnson	TE	872	69/125	45	NEW: Chig Okonkwo	TE	666	61/125	51
Jermaine Eluemunor	T	1,088	57/100	43	Jeremy Reaves	S	708	57/116	51
Paulson Adebo	CB	759	82/138	41	Brandon Coleman	T	390	53/100	47
NEW: Daniel Faalele	G	1,011	61/100	39	Treylon Burks	WR	292	87/158	45
Jaxson Dart	QB	774	32/52	38	John Bates	TE	479	74/125	41
NEW: Isaiah Likely	TE	487	78/125	38	Jer’Zhan Newton	DI	432	93/154	40
Darius Alexander	DI	394	98/154	36	NEW: Charles Omenihu	ED	567	84/139	40
John Michael Schmitz Jr.	C	788	31/45	31	Trey Amos	CB	511	94/138	32
Darius Muasau	LB	453	80/108	26	NEW: DJ Davidson	DI	256	105/154	32
Jevon Holland	S	835	86/116	26	Jordan Magee	LB	364	74/108	31
Darius Slayton	WR	755	120/158	24	NEW: Nick Cross	S	1,111	80/116	31
NEW: Gerg Newsome	CB	804	105/138	24	NEW: K’lavon Chaisson	ED	835	96/139	31
Tyler Nubin	S	811	89/116	23	Frankie Luvu	LB	1,107	75/108	31
Jon Runyan	G	1,095	78/100	22	Jaylin Lane	WR	348	111/158	30
NEW: JuJu Smith-Shuster	WR	620	129/158	18	Josh Conerly Jr.	T	1,054	72/100	28
Chris Manhertz	TE	209	106/125	15	NEW: Anthony Firkser	TE	187	90/125	28
Korie Black	CB	184	119/138	14	NEW: Van Jefferson	WR	582	114/158	28
Marcus Mbow	T	325	88/100	12	Will Harris	S	560	86/116	26
NEW: Calvin Austin	WR	481	140/158	11	NEW: Ahkello Witherspoon	CB	186	108/138	22
Isaiah Hodgins	WR	363	140/158	11	Mike Sainristil	CB	1,024	114/138	17

You tin marque each sorts of assumptions astir 2026 for immoderate team: however the coaching volition improve, however the rookies volition contribute, however injured players volition travel backmost stronger than ever, however underperformers volition crook the corner, however under-the radar players volition emerge, however a strategy alteration volition rise the barroom – each of that is valid. But the NFC East teams person to bash each of that with the rosters above. And close now, the Giants are starting with a chiseled disadvantage, portion the Eagles and Cowboys volition apt vie for the part title.

For those interested, these are the PFF settings I utilized for the PFF ranking tables.

Offense			Defense			Special Teams
POS	# of Players	Minimum	POS	# of Players	Minimum	POS	# of Players	Minimum
QB	52	70 dropbacks	CB	138	150 snaps	K	33	15 attempts
WR	158	12 targets	DI	154	150 snaps	P	33	15 attempts
TE	125	—	ED	139	150 snaps
RB	107	15 blks	LB	108	150 snaps
G	100	150 snaps	S	116	150 snaps
T	100	150 snaps
C	45	150 snaps