NFC East - History

History

Although the St. Louis Rams are geographically farther east than Dallas, the Cowboys remained in the NFC East and the Rams stayed in the NFC West because of long-standing rivalries: the Cowboys with all three other teams in the East, and the Rams with the San Francisco 49ers in the West.

The NFC East teams have combined to be the most successful division in the NFL since the 1970 NFL merger with 20 NFC Championship wins and 12 Super Bowl victories, the highest marks of any division in the NFL. Each of the current NFC East's four teams has won at least three NFL titles during their existence; however, only Philadelphia has yet to win a championship in the Super Bowl era. The division features a number of prominent rivalries such as the Cowboys–Redskins rivalry and Eagles–Giants rivalry. Because the division's teams are in some of the United States' largest media markets (New York No. 1, Philadelphia, No. 4, Dallas-Fort Worth No. 5, and Washington No. 8), 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, as the Cowboys won two and the Giants and Redskins took one each, all against the Buffalo Bills (those same three teams won seven out of ten Super Bowls, from 1987–1996).

ESPN's Chris Berman often calls this division the "NFC Patrick" due to its geographical similarity to the old Patrick Division of the NHL, now known as the Atlantic Division.

The Eagles are the only division team to play in the city they are named after:

  • The Cowboys play in Arlington, Texas
  • The Giants play in East Rutherford, New Jersey
  • The Redskins play in Landover, Maryland and are headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia

All the AFC East teams also play in the suburbs (in fact, the New York Jets share a stadium with the Giants). The only team not from either East division to do so is the Arizona Cardinals, a former NFC East team now playing in the West (they originally played in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, but moved to another suburb, Glendale, in 2006).

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