Cowboys and Eagles dominate roster strength comparison across NFC East

In a recent post on how Cowboys free agent/trade acquisitions augment the roster, we looked at positional rankings to understand where Cowboys players rank against their NFL peers.

We also took deep-dive look at the top 35 players on the roster (as per positional ranking) on the assumption that the top 32-35 players represent the projected starting lineup and immediate rotational depth of an NFL team, and that sufficient quality among your top 35 separates contenders from lottery teams. But looking

at that 35-player list in a vacuum left us with more questions than answers, so readers asked to compare those numbers against the other NFC East teams, which is exactly what we’re going to do today.

Positional Rankings

The idea behind positional rankings is to find a metric that makes all players in the league comparable. Currently, the only service that offers a metric for every single player in the league is Pro Football Focus (PFF), but instead of looking at the grades they assign to the players, we’re going to look at where a given player is ranked relative to the other players in the league at his position.

Because each position group has a different number of qualifying players, I’ve converted all positional rankings to a scale of 0 – 100. The highest ranked player at a position gets 100 points, the lowest ranked player gets zero, everybody else lands somewhere in between.

I did that calculation for all NFC East players on the 2025 and 2026 rosters based on the overall ranking scale provided by PFF and divided the results into quintiles, which delivers the following positional ranking groups:

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Positional Ranking	Description
100-80	Blue-Chip Players
79-60	NFL starter quality at position
59-40	Average to slightly below average player
39-20	Underperformer
19-0	Red Flag

Some analytical housekeeping: For this entire analysis, 150 snaps for the respective NFC East team is the minimum threshold for inclusion for every player into the Top 35. For kickers and punters, that number is 100 special teams snaps. The ranking for each player is determined by their PFF ranking (by total offense or total defense), I’ve listed the minimum thresholds for those rankings for every position at the bottom of this post. Because I’ve had to massage those thresholds to fit the NFC East players, some data points for Cowboys players differ slightly versus the previous post linked above.

With that out of the way, one fairly straightforward way of comparing rosters is to look at how the Top 35 stretch across the quintiles for each team, with the hypothesis that more players in the blue and green quintiles indicate a stronger roster.

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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 battle in the NFC, as expected, is between the Eagles and the Cowboys, with the Giants and Commanders featuring only as table padding. The Cowboys have 21 players in blue and green versus 20 for the Eagles, though the Eagles have more quality in the blue quintile – at least based on the positional ranking off PFF grades.

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

However, the issue here is that all positions are treated equally. The Cowboys for example have their third WR, Ryan Flournoy, among the eight blue players. Flournoy only played 479 snaps, but this gives him the same weight as George Pickens, who had a little over twice the snaps (968) Flournoy had. To correct for that, we need to adjust for total number of snaps across the Top 35 for each team.

Snap-adjusted Roster Rank

The math here is pretty simple: We multiply each Top 35 player’s snap count with his positional ranking, and then divide the sum by the combined snap count of the Top 35 players. Additionally, because we have the data for the 2025 roster and the current (per June 27) 2026 roster, we can take a look at how the Top 35 rosters have evolved versus last year.

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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”, some might say, how can the Cowboys and Eagles, who spent only $60 million and $55 million respectively in free agency, remain largely unchanged, while the Giants ($190 million) and Commanders ($239 million) got worse despite their megabucks spending in free agency? Two key reasons:

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

If you sign 10 players with an average rank of 40, but lose 10 players with an average rank of 60, you’ve weakened your roster. That’s the whole gist of it, though it can be a little more complicated than that.

If we use the Cowboys as an example, they lost ten Top 35 players and gained nine. The snap-adjusted rank improved from 54.3 for the players lost to 58.0 for the players gained, so a net gain. And that’s pretty much what you want to see in free agency: bring in players that will improve your team more than the players you lost. But as we’ll see, that’s not a simple as it sounds.

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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 have a higher ranking than the players lost – and have more snaps – the overall Top 35 number increases slightly, form 65.3 to 65.4.

Not every Cowboys fan is impressed with what the Cowboys did in free agency. But going by this Top 35 analysis, they are the only team in the East that improved via external player acquisitions.

The Eagles faced a tough task in replacing four players with a positional ranking above 80, chief among them A.J. Brown, and from a Top 35 perspective were only able to replace those four “blue” players with four “green” players (60-80). As a result, the snap-adjusted rank declined quite a bit, from 57.4 for the players lost to 50.8 for the players gained.

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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 increased snap count for the players gained, that reduces the Eagles Top 35 rank from 68.0 to 67.0. Not a big drop overall, but it does bring their Top 35 closer to the Cowboys at 65.4.

For the Giants, the picture looks markedly different, as they lost 13 of their Top 35 players from last season, and only gained nine players to replace those 13 in the TOP 35 – all of that at a significantly lower ranking.

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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 free agents this offseason. But from a Top 35 perspective, only nine of those players exceeded 150 snaps last year and had a positional rank that qualified them for the Top 35. Replacing players with an average of 55.6 with other players with a 42.9 average is not a winning proposition, and this partly explains the Giants’ overall Top 35 score dropping from 51.0 to 46.0.

Finally, the Commanders sit somewhere between the other three teams. They actually did quite well at the top of their acquisitions, with four players at 80 or above, but then added a lot of roster fillers, which resulted in a drop from 56.4 for the players lost to 49.4 for the players gained.

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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 number of Top 35 players acquired is lower than the Top 35 players lost

This may initially feel like an academic point, but it is critical when you look at something like the Top 35 roster: When you lose more Top 35 players than you gain, you have to fill up those lost spots on the Top 35. And where are you going to get those extra players from to fill up the Top 35? From your veteran players currently sitting outside the Top 35, which means you’re diluting your Top 35 with non-Top 35 players, essentially downgrading our roster.

The Giants are a clear example for this: they lost 13 of their Top 35 players from last season, and only gained nine players in their stead. They now need four veteran players to move into the Top 35 that were outside the top 35 in 2025. These are the four “elevated” players.

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Without these four players, the Giants Top 31 would average a 47.8 snap-adjusted ranking, with them the Giants drop to 45.5. Overall, the Giants drop from 51.2 to 45.5, the biggest drop in the NFC East, leaving the Giants as easily the worst team in the East heading into 2026.

Again this is not some hypothetical exercise. If you assume that the Top 35 represents your starters and key backups, there’s a good chance your backups will be called upon at some point in the season, and you don’t want a bunch of red-flag players having to step up.

The other NFC East teams have no issue with this type of structural roster imbalance. If you’re a GM already on the hot seat, you may want to avoid putting together a roster like this.

Side-by-side Roster Comparison

In the next table, I’ve bunched the Cowboys and Eagles Top 35 rosters into one table for easy comparison. As you review the figures and charts in the rest of this post, keep in mind that the numbers give a directional indication of how a player performed last year, but shouldn’t be seen as a definitive statement of a player’s quality. While I’m confident that a player marked in blue had a better year than a player marked in yellow, there is probably less of a difference between players with a value of, say, 75 and 85 than the numbers and the color code would seem to indicate.

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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 may have noticed that the Eagles, especially at the top of the table, tend to have a higher snap count than the Cowboys players. In fact, where the Cowboys have a combined 19,801 snaps in their Top 35, the Eagles have 23,183, a plus of 17%.

In total, the Eagles have just 37 players qualifying for this list while the Cowboys have 46. Which means the Cowboys had to go much further down the depth chart to field players last year than the Eagles did (be it for injury or performance reasons), and ultimately, this may have been the difference between an 11-6 and a 7-9-1 finish: the depth beyond the Top 35 just wasn’t there when the Cowboys needed it.

The cornerback position illustrates this point: the Eagles had a strong trio of cornerbacks playing for most of the season in Quinyon Mitchell (1,045 snaps, 96 Pos. rank), Cooper DeJean (1,097, 94) and Adoree’ Jackson (625, 20). The Cowboys not only released Kaiir Elam (458, 46) and Trevon Diggs (424, 33) during the season, but then had to fall back on a few young, down-roster guys for a little over 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.

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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 can make all sorts of assumptions about 2026 for any team: how the coaching will improve, how the rookies will contribute, how injured players will come back stronger than ever, how underperformers will turn the corner, how under-the radar players will emerge, how a scheme change will raise the bar – all of that is valid. But the NFC East teams have to do all of that with the rosters above. And right now, the Giants are starting with a distinct disadvantage, while the Eagles and Cowboys will likely compete for the division title.

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

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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