The National Football Conference – Eastern Division or NFC East is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference in the National Football League. It currently has four members: the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Football Team. The division was formed in 1967 as the National Football League Capitol Division, keeping with the theme of having all of the league's divisions starting with the letter "C." The division was so named because it was centered on the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., and the country's birthplace, Philadelphia. In 1967 and 1969 the teams in the NFL Capitol Division were Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington and the expansion teamNew Orleans Saints, which had been replaced by the New York Giants for the 1968 season. As of 2019, the NFC East is the only division in the league in which all four current teams have at least one Super Bowl win.
History
The NFC East has a long history of being geographically inaccurate. While the New York Giants, Philadelphia, and Washington are based on the East Coast, Dallas and St. Louis remained a part of the East from the 1970 merger until 2002 despite being geographically west of most teams in the conference. To begin with, the Cowboys were only located east of two NFC teams that were outside of the East division while the Cardinals were east of one additional such team. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the Central as an expansion team in 1976; they’re located east of Dallas and St. Louis. The Cardinals relocated to Phoenix to start the season and stayed in the East through ; that made them located west of every team in the NFC except for the Rams, 49ers and Seahawks. The Rams relocated from Los Angeles to St. Louis to start the season and stayed in the West, while the Carolina Panthers joined the West as an expansion team that same season; this made the Cardinals and Cowboys west of every team in the conference except for the 49ers and Seahawks from 1995–2001.
General information
The NFC East teams have combined to be the most successful division in the NFL since the 1970 NFL merger with 21 NFC Championship wins and 13 Super Bowl victories, the highest marks of any division in the NFL. The division features a number of prominent rivalries such as the Cowboys–Eagles rivalry and Giants–Redskins rivalry. Because the division's teams are in some of the United States' largest media markets, the NFC East receives a high amount of coverage from national sports media outlets. In the early 1990s the division claimed four consecutive Super Bowl champions, all 4 against the Buffalo Bills, with the Giants and Redskins respectively winning back-to-back in Super BowlsXXV and XXVI; and the Cowboys winning twice after in Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. Those same three teams won seven out of ten Super Bowls, from 1986-87 to 1995-96 The Eagles are the most recent team in the division to win a Super Bowl, Beating the Patriots 41-33 in Super Bowl LII. The NFC East was the first division since the 2002 realignment to send 3 teams to the playoffs when the 2006-07 NFL playoffs had Philadelphia winning the division and Dallas and New York taking both wildcard spots. The Philadelphia Eagles are the only NFC East team to actually play in the city of the team's naming, Philadelphia. The other three teams play in suburbs of the major cities they are named after. The Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington, Texas, and is the only team in this division that is not based in the Eastern Time Zone. The Washington Redskins play in Landover, Maryland and the New York Giants play in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where they share a stadium with the New York Jets. Analogously, three of the four AFC East teams do not actually play within the city of their naming. The NFC East can also be called the most valuable NFL division. All four teams in the division are in the top ten of most valuable NFL franchises. The next closest division is the AFC North, which is not completed until the 26th ranked Cincinnati Bengals.
Division lineups
Place cursor over year for division champ.
Division champions
As NFL Capitol Division
There was one division sweep of the Capitol Division, 1969 Cowboys 6-0
As NFC East
* A players' strike in 1982 reduced the regular season to nine games. Thus, the league used a special 16-team playoff tournament just for this year. Division standings were ignored; Washington had the best record of the division teams and won the Super Bowl.
++ The 1987 Redskins are the only NFC 3rd Seed to win the Super Bowl.
# The 2011 New York Giants are the only sub-10-win team to win the Super Bowl, as well as the only team to win the Super Bowl as the NFC's 4th Seed.
All four teams in the NFC East have won the Super Bowl. The Cowboys lead with five, followed by the Giants with four, the Redskins with three, and the Eagles with one. In overall NFL history, however, the Giants lead with eight league championships, followed by the Redskins and Cowboys with five each, then the Eagles with four. There have been two division sweeps of the NFC East Division, the 1998 Dallas Cowboys and the 2004 Philadelphia Eagles.
+ A players' strike in 1982 reduced the regular season to nine games, so the league used a special 16-team playoff tournament just for this year.
** The 2007 New York Giants are the only NFC East team to win a Super Bowl as a Wild Card team, and the only NFL team in history to win the Super Bowl as a 5th Seed in either Conference.
