The Washington Commanders
are entering the 2026 season with a chip on their shoulder. General manager Adam Peters revamped the Commanders' defense, and while he didn't surround Jayden Daniels with a ton of offensive talent, signing Stefon Diggs during training camp gave the offense a huge boost. There are still questions and unknowns about this team, but they are ready to prove to the NFL that they are for real.Former Dallas Cowboys and current Green Bay Packers linebacker Micah Parsons was asked to rank the teams in his former division, and his answers are very much in line with most NFL analysts and reporters.
Micah says the NFC East is the hardest division to predict 👀 https://t.co/kBudfFf5IL pic.twitter.com/b5MTvrUeiz
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 18, 2026
After naming the Philadelphia
Eagles and Dallas Cowboys as numbers one and two, respectively, Parsons says, "At number three, I think this is going to be the hard one, but the Washington Commanders, they proved it. They went to the NFC Championship; they added talent. I think this team can be the real deal. I don't know if they can handle the haymakers like the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, but time will tell."
The New York Giants were obviously in the fourth spot in the NFC East, but Parsons is essentially saying all the same things that most analysts say. The clear-cut leaders in the NFC East (as of now) appear to be the Eagles and Cowboys, in that order. Most analysts and reporters have the Commanders and Giants at three and four, also in that order, although there are always a few outliers that have a different perspective.
For the Commanders, though, this is just more of the same. Someone else not truly believing in them. Someone else not taking a chance on them. As a former member of the NFC East as part of the Cowboys' defense, Parsons knows this division better than most. It hasn't always been tightly competitive, but this year that might be different. Despite the majority of analysts and reporters citing this same order in rankings, the competition in the NFC East is far more fierce than a simple ranking can show.
Parsons does seem to understand that, though. Listening to what he had to say about each team, he acknowledges that there is a bit of a talent gap between the teams, but there are also a lot of changes in the division, especially with the Commanders and Giants. Those changes make for a lot of unknowns, which is why people take the "safe" picks in their rankings. The truth, though, is that even if this is the final outcome of 2026, it's going to be a close competition.
This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Where do Commanders land in Micah Parson's NFC East rankings?
