NFC East win totals: Cowboys, not Eagles, ready to fly in 2020

Find line reports, best bets, and subscribe to push notifications in the Betting News section.

The NFL schedule is set, the draft is behind us, and teams are finally taking the form we expect to see them in when the season kicks off. It's a perfect time to revisit win totals for teams in every division - starting with the closest division in football, from a betting perspective.

The Eagles (9-7) won the NFC East by a feather in 2019, beating the Redskins (3-13), Cowboys (8-8), and Giants (4-12) in consecutive weeks to clinch the division's lone playoff berth. Can they become the NFC East's first repeat champion since 2003-04?

Here are the division's win totals from theScore Bet in New Jersey:

Dallas Cowboys (9.5)

How many wins is Jason Garrett's absence worth to this franchise? That's the question for Cowboys bettors heading into 2020, with Mike McCarthy taking over a team that ranked sixth in DVOA last year but finished .500 thanks, in part, to mismanaged game situations.

Continuity is king, especially in an offseason like this, so buying high on a team with a coaching change is risky. But is this high? Dallas has averaged 10 wins over the last four years under Dak Prescott, and the team returns its core pieces with a promising coaching staff.

Philadelphia Eagles (9.5)

Philly bettors have cried injury so much in regards to last season that you'd think the entire team ended up on injured reserve. And yes, it was close. But many of the team's key players aren't exactly free of the "injury-prone" label, and even a full-strength roster has some question marks - namely on the back half of the defense.

Two offseason additions - corner Darius Slay and receiver Jalen Reagor - will play significant roles in positional groups that were decimated by injury. Quarterback Jalen Hurts could be a savior, too, but his mere presence could also cast a cloud over a team that hardly needs one. The Eagles are easily a 10-win squad at full potential; can they reach it?

New York Giants (6)

Don't sleep on the Giants. Some books have them among the favorites to lead the league in losses, but that doesn't add up after they added legitimate talent to key areas of weakness during a busy offseason.

James Bradberry and Blake Martinez were probably overpaid, but they're still major fixtures for a defense that needs stability, as is versatile safety and rookie Xavier McKinney. Top-five pick Andrew Thomas should help curb some of Daniel Jones' fumbling issues, which alone could be worth a win or two. Buy low on a rising squad.

Washington Redskins (5)

Going under on a low number can feel like a nightmare near the end of the season (see: 2019 Dolphins), but the Redskins are a reach to win six games after mustering just two in a down year for the NFC East a season ago.

The roster is still underwhelming outside of the defensive line. Ron Rivera might be the man for the job in D.C., but it's hard to see that resulting in a Year 1 turnaround.

Best bet

Cowboys over 9.5 wins

Look, if Andy Dalton starts the season under center, that's obviously less than ideal. But that's a risk worth taking on arguably the NFC's third-best roster, which had the makings of an elite team a year ago, according to advanced metrics, and should benefit from a coaching upgrade.

We thought about the Giants here, too, and if the total was a half-win lower, we'd have grabbed the over. Until the Eagles show some consistency - they've exceeded 9.5 wins once in the last five years - we're staying away from a talented but unpredictable group.

C Jackson Cowart is a betting writer for theScore. He's an award-winning journalist with stops at The Charlotte Observer, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Times Herald-Record, and BetChicago. He's also a proud graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, and his love of sweet tea is rivaled only by that of a juicy prop bet. Find him on Twitter @CJacksonCowart.