The second half of the NFL season kicks off Thursday night with the New York Giants hosting the Washington Commanders in an NFC East showdown. On the surface it does not look like a marquee game, but a case can be made that it is actually huge.
Washington enters at 2-5-1 while the Giants sit at 5-2-1. If the Commanders pull off the upset, they would move within two games of New York and throw a wrench into the division race, creating a path, however unlikely, to a six-win team winning the NFC East.
No team in NFL history has ever won its division with only six victories, but the scenario is realistic enough to examine. Here is what would have to happen down the stretch with the Commanders, Giants and Cowboys, setting the Eagles aside for this exercise.
Washington would need to beat the Giants on Thursday, lose to the Bengals, then win two very winnable road games against the Cardinals and Titans. After that, the Commanders would drop four in a row to the Texans, Falcons, Vikings and Jaguars, games in which they would likely be underdogs, before closing the season with a Week 18 win over the Cowboys to finish 6-10-1.
The Giants would have to lose eight straight before beating the Eagles in the finale. New York will probably be an underdog in at least five of its seven games from Week 11 through Week 17, so most of those losses are plausible. The biggest stretch is a Week 12 defeat at Indianapolis, but the Giants are surrendering 123.6 rushing yards per game, and it is easy to picture Jonathan Taylor going off and leading the Colts to a shocking win.
The Cowboys, currently 4-5, would need to lose to the 49ers, Titans, Seahawks, Rams and Jaguars while beating the Eagles and Giants, then fall at Washington in Week 18 to land at 6-11. Dallas still has the 49ers, Rams and Seahawks on the schedule and figures to be a heavy underdog in all three. The hardest result to envision is Tennessee winning in Dallas, but five of the Titans' seven losses have come by one score and they just took the Bengals to overtime in Week 8.
If all of that unfolds, the final NFC East standings would read Commanders 6-10-1, Giants 6-10-1 and Cowboys 6-11. Washington would claim the division thanks to a better head-to-head record against New York, going 1-0-1 in the season series.
Not counting strike years, only three teams have ever won a division with seven wins: the 2010 Seahawks, the 2014 Panthers and the 2020 Commanders. Given that Washington was the last team to get in with seven, it would almost be fitting if the Commanders broke new ground by reaching the playoffs with six.
As a division winner, the six-win Commanders would host a game in the wild-card round, and based on how the NFC North is playing out, the opponent could be a team with twice as many wins.
If a six-win team ends up hosting a playoff game, the NFL might have to go back to the drawing board with its postseason format. A Lions proposal in early 2025 would have based seeding on each team's final record, with all four division winners still qualifying but none guaranteed a home game. Should the NFC East or the NFC South, or both, produce a six-win champion, the league may have to revisit that idea in the upcoming offseason.
