Thursday night showed that the Dallas Cowboys should be OK in NFC East

Remember that minute-and-a-half this week when folks were trying to talk themselves into the Washington Redskins being NFC East contenders? That was fun.

Thursday night showed what the NFC East has to offer. Washington, a punchless offensive team that keeps trying new quarterbacks and eventually will have to admit they have none. The New York Giants, who let Washington hang around, seemingly in hopes of blowing a big lead for the third straight game, but the Redskins were too bad to take the bait.

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The Giants are 1-2 after a much-needed but not very impressive 32-21 win. Washington is 1-2 as well, and if that looked like a playoff team to you on Thursday night, raise your standards. The Philadelphia Eagles are perhaps the NFL’s biggest train wreck and will be trying to salvage their season at the red-hot New York Jets on Sunday.

All this proves that the Dallas Cowboys should be just fine. Sure, there’s no Tony Romo and no Dez Bryant for a while, but who in the NFC East looks capable of winning the division?

Crazy enough, unless the Eagles find themselves by Sunday, the best candidate might be the Giants. Had they not totally screwed up the first game of the season at Dallas, then blew Week 2 as well against the Atlanta Falcons, they could be 3-0. They’re not, and they’re two losses behind Dallas and behind in the tiebreaker, but at least they showed some signs of life on Thursday night.

The Giants can do some things well. They have a solid running game, with three backs sharing the load. Eli Manning played pretty well. Odell Beckham is still ridiculous, as evidenced when he snagged a 30-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to finally put the game away. But it’s still not a team that will strike fear into anyone. The win Thursday night was necessary, but it came against a team that was absolutely putrid. Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins was off all night, padding his stats in garbage time but showing again why he won’t be the answer to the team’s quarterback issues.

It’s fair to wonder if the Cowboys will struggle in the upcoming weeks. But if you say they won’t win the NFC East, you have to answer a simple question: Who is good enough to take it from them?

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab