Bruce Allen: NFC East the SEC of the NFL

AP

The NFC East remains a top television draw, and the size of the markets involved makes the teams in that division among the best-covered.

But its members may have a skewed vision of where they actually reside.

During an interview with ESPN 980 (via the Washington Post), Redskins General Manager Bruce Allen said his team resided in the league’s toughest division.

“There’s so many changes in the playoff teams each year — I think half of them change each year anyway,” Allen said. “And in our division, you know, we’re in the SEC of the NFL. This is the big leagues. I think when the Giants last won the Super Bowl, they won it with a 9-7 record. So we have to keep competing in our division, and that’s what our focus is.”

There’s only one problem with Allen’s SEC-NFC East comparsion.

The NFC East has won two of the last 17 Super Bowls (both by the Giants), while the SEC has provided nine of the 15 BCS national champions, with five teams contributing to the haul.

And besides, teams in the NFC East get punished for circumventing the salary cap from time to time.

104 responses to “Bruce Allen: NFC East the SEC of the NFL

  1. The best division in football should at least be able to send more than one team to the playoffs. AFCN sent 2 last year and 3 the year before. 4 Super Bowls the past 11 seasons.

    I’m not saying the AFCN is decidedly the best division in football, the NFCN and NFCW are great too, but I dont understand why the NFCE is so overrated every year. If it wasn’t for the Giants they would be nearly irrelevant the past decade.

  2. He must be referring to the SEC of 10 or 15 years ago, when the PAC 12, Big 12 and Big Ten were all superior.

    The collective strength of the divisions go a little something like this:
    NFC West
    NFC North
    AFC North
    NFC East
    NFC South
    AFC South
    AFC East
    AFC West

  3. hahahahahha! It’s funny because everyone knows the NFC West is the toughest and the NFC East is soft!! Tell me another one Bruce Allen you’re hilarious!

  4. None of the NFC East teams have good defenses, and only the Redskins have an elite QB. It’s the most competitive division, sure, but it doesn’t contain the best teams.

  5. Thank GOD I’m a REDSKINS fan. World class owner. World class GM. World class HC. World class QB. World class RB. World class WRs. World class Defense. World class Top to bottom. If it weren’t for the Redskins, this LEAGUE would be a JOKE. #BurgundyandGoldStandard

  6. Well, at least it provided me a chuckle. Other than the Giants, none of these teams have really been a legit threat to win a Superbowl in the last decade and change.

    This year the best division in the NFC (and all the NFL in my opinion) is the NFC West. 49ers and Seahawks can beat anyone on any given Sunday and are built to win in the playoffs. Rams under Fisher are improving ever year and were the best in that division against other division foes last year.

    So lets get off how “great” the NFC LEast is, especially trying to self anoint as the “SEC of the NFL”….

  7. Really, the Redskins GM thinks his division is the best in NFL, that’s so unusual.

    I bet it has nothing at all to do with protecting his own job security by talking up how “hard they have it” in that division.

  8. The NFC East is overrated every year.
    This year the NFC West is the best division in football.

  9. NFC East has been a really bad division the last few seasons. Easily the worst in the NFC. Maybe Bruce Allen is preparing excuses.

  10. The NFC Washington belongs to Robert Griffin and the REDSKINS for the next two decades. The three stoges in NY, Dallas and Philly can have the scraps/sloppy second place. #Dealwithit

  11. The NFC West can boast that they have 2 of the NFL’s best teams in the Seahawks and the 49ers…but they are very much top-heavy. The NFC East features 4 teams that all can make a considerable splash in the NFL this season. Even the NFC South are no pushovers…the Falcons and Saints can beat anybody in the NFL, but they too are top-heavy in their division.

  12. “And besides, teams in the NFC East get [unfairly] punished [by John Mara] for circumventing the salary cap [that didn’t exist] from time to time.”

    There. Fixed it for ya.

  13. John Mara is a CHEATING weasel. The ULTIMATE payback will happen in February 2014 when RGIII and the REDSKINS hoist the 4th Lombardi at Metlife Stadium. #GodsTeam

  14. I’m a big Giants fan and even I have to be fair and admit how bad the NFC East is. There’s never a wild card team from the NFC East. No NFC East team ever even wins 11 games. Even the old and falling apart Giants last year were almost able to win the division. The second wild card is usually better than the NFC East champion.

  15. I might have agreed till that Redskins playoff humiliation last year. They actually won the Division … that’s how amazingly weak it is.

  16. The AFC North has consistently had at least 2 teams in the playoffs every year & 5 Super Bowl appearances with 4 Super Bowl wins since 2001.

    Easily the best division in the 21st Century.

  17. @ rextraordinaire, dude you better check a calendar and some history. If you are going to make that comment you are going to need to go back about 50-60 years ago. The facts don’t lie. Since 1955 Alabama (multiple) Florida (multiple) LSU (multiple) Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee have all won National Championships.

  18. Come On Man! No matter how bad the NFC East is, they will always get more props than any other division in the NFL…Hey, the AFC Jets totally suck year after year, but they seem to drain most (if not all) the oxygen out of ESPN more than any other NFL team…ESPN needs a new director of operations to kill this BS…
    GO SEAHAWKS!

  19. We get it. You all there hate the Redskins.

    It’s still not a racist name. It just isn’t. Benign adjectives, such as black, white and red, in order to distinguish people just is not racist. Otherwise male and female along with mr, mrs, and ms. and miss would be sexist terms. But I guess that’s on the list for next decade.

    Nice hate post, but it’s still not a racist name.

  20. twilson said:

    “What’s he suppose to say? The NFC East is the Mountain West of the NFL?”

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    I can think of a MUCH better thing he could have said.

    1. No comment.

    A better alternative would have been to say nothing at all.

  21. And besides, teams in the NFC East get punished for circumventing the salary cap from time to time.

  22. Most competitive maybe, but no way it’s the best. Can’t really fault him for saying his division was the best though. All you people saying you know which division it is already for this upcoming season are crazy though. Things change rapidly in the league right now. Let’s wait and see.

  23. Your division has elite defenses???

    Btw, why worry about the division???

    Isn’t 6 games out of 16 less than 50% or the whole season???

  24. sorry kids one year does not make the NFC west the best.

    Last ten years.
    division taking a second team to the playoffs.
    NFC EAST 7 out of 10
    NFC NORTH 5 out of 10
    NFC SOUTH 4 out of 10
    NFC WEST 2 out of 10

    And when was the last division other than the NFC BEAST to bring two teams to the playoffs?

    NFC EAST did it in 2006 and 2007

    How goes your teams NFC WEAK?

  25. 7-9/9-7(at best) …. that sounds a lot less like a power house division and more like the NFC West from a few years ago, when everyone with common sense referred to it as a joke division.

  26. That’s a good one Bruce, but with G.M.’s like you Jerrah, and Howie, the N.F.C. East is a shadow of it’s former self. Especially on the defensive side of the ball. Guess thats what happens when you give your QB’s monster contracts. (the rest of the team is built on the cheap) Trade a boatload of draft picks when you’re in cap hell… (HTTR) Draft backup QB’s with important draft picks. (HTTR, Philly) Philly and the G-men will take over this division because of better cap management and overall roster management. Objective opinion from a Browns fan.

  27. Funny, cause since 1998 only 2 divisions have had every team go to the Super Bowl and that’s the NFC South(although Atlanta pre re-alignment) and the NFC West.

  28. Naw…it’s the Redskins time to be king of the hill, all you whiney crybabies get a diaper and pacifier, you’re gonna need it!

    HTTR! RGIII BABY!

  29. True not one year or 10 years make the NFC West the best division…………….THIS year makes the NFC West the best division and it’s not even close.

    SF and Seattle are true big dogs that have serious fire power. Rams and Cards aren’t a laughing stock either.

    What have the Redskins actually done outside of drafting RG3? We know what the Cowboys do every year for the last 20 years (cue Reggie Miller’s choke sign). Giants? Always a strong team but too frenetic. Oh, almost forgot the Eagles. Forget about the pre-season….Chip Kelly’s offense is going to get obliterated.

  30. He is absolutely correct. Redskins smacked down the champs last year, won the division, and until RG3 got hurt, made the Seahawks look like a division 2 college team. Only one poor performer, which was the Eagles. Which is to be expected because they are the only team with an empty trophy case in the division.Since 1991, it is the only division to boast 3 different Super Bowl winning teams.

    The NFC West and South are close, but those two conferences have two horrible teams each. The AFC East is so sorry that it has inflated the Patriots W-L record over the past decade. NFC North has one good team. AFC North looks like it is vulnerable to a change in the status quo. AFC South sucks. AFC West sucks.

  31. The NFC East has won two of the last 17 Super Bowls (both by the Giants), while the SEC has provided nine of the 15 BCS national champions, with five teams contributing to the haul.
    ———-
    Way to pick and choose a segment to support your argument. How about the NFC East has won 12 of the 47 total? Heaven forbid the Eagles ever pulled their share of the sled, then what?

  32. sampsonswag01 says:Aug 23, 2013 1:39 PM

    “SF and Seattle are true big dogs that have serious fire power. Rams and Cards aren’t a laughing stock either.”

    Let me stop laughing for a second…

    Okay. The Seahawks are one of the most overrated teams in the NFL. They needed a QB to blow his knee out to squeak out a playoff win. I’ll give you the 49ers, but they should have lost the NFC Championship if Atlanta could learn to cover a tight end or if pass interference was actually called on NFC West teams.

    Seattle better watch out. If they start actually calling PI on their “physical” DBs, they will have one of the worst defenses in the league. Hell, there’s a YouTube clip of Santana Moss getting tackled by a DB while he was running a route right in front of a ref. No flag.

  33. Hey Bruce,

    When comparing yourselves, you want to use a comparison that elevates your position, not one that looks at a lower level of play.

    Doctors: “Another successful brain surgery, we’re looking as smooth as those guys in the mail room. Up top!”

  34. He’s entitled to his opinion but you would think a GM of a team would be more informed. If his division is so strong, how many teams made the playoffs last year beyond the requisite one? OK, how about overall records against the other divisions, how did the NFC East fare against the others? (not well) Ok, if you are so strong, did the one team that represented the NFC East actually win one of its playoff games? (no)

    Idiot.

  35. Between 1970-2009, the NFC East went to 19 out of 40 Super Bowls played and won 11 out of those 19 times. So on average, an NFC East team was in the Super Bowl once every two years and won once every four years. You can’t point to any other division in pro football and say the same thing.

  36. “Thank GOD I’m a REDSKINS fan. World class owner. World class GM. World class HC. World class QB. World class RB. World class WRs. World class Defense. World class Top to bottom.”
    *********************
    Absolutely.

    But in the Third World.

  37. The NFC East has won two of the last 17 Super Bowls (both by the Giants), while the SEC has provided nine of the 15 BCS national champions, with five teams contributing to the haul.

    Got anything else to add NFC east nerds?

  38. And when was the last division other than the NFC BEAST to bring two teams to the playoffs?

    NFC EAST did it in 2006 and 2007

    How goes your teams NFC WEAK?

    Well I guess you don’t remember last season when the 49ers and Seahawks were both in the final four for the NFC? That is a helluva lot sooner then 2006 and 2007.

  39. dalcow4 says:
    Aug 23, 2013 12:27 PM
    Does he mean the NFC Easts gets a free pass into the playoffs every year like the SEC gets a free pass into the BCS?

    ———————

    And beat regularly the other “hard working conference teams” in Championships and in Bowl games

  40. To the NFC west lovers….Seattle is good as long as they play 16 home games and the Niners are our b-word. If either of those teams were in the NFC East, they’d both go 8-8 as well.

  41. @uschawk,

    He meant the only division to provide both Wildcard teams. Which is a total of three playoff teams.

  42. @taintedlombardis says

    The NFC North only has one good team? Didnt they send two to the playoffs last year and a team that didn’t make it won 10 games. They sent two teams to the playoffs 5 out of the last ten years including having 2 teams in the NFC Championship a few years ago.

    Thats ok though keep talking about your division in 1991 and how that makes it the best today.

  43. HAHAHAHAHA!

    Right. Won 8 straight superbowls, right? NFCE isn’t even the best division in the NFC. What a joke.

  44. I’m a NFCE fan, but the numbers don’t lie. See below for non-division winning percentages for 2008 – 2012.

    Divisions Avg Win % 08 – 12 Rank
    NFC South 0.58 1
    AFC East 0.55 2
    AFC North 0.535 3
    NFC East 0.525 4
    AFC South 0.515 5
    NFC North 0.505 6
    AFC West 0.405 7
    NFC West 0.38 8

  45. What a slam against the SEC, much less the rest of the NFL!

    Bruce Allen please, the ’80s are calling….

  46. Everyone wants to talk about how every other division is better than the NFC east but look at the Super Bowl wins

    NFC east……12 wins
    Next up….arc north 8 wins

    People are so quick to forget who the real champs are

  47. Steeley McBeam says:
    Aug 23, 2013 12:15 PM
    The best division in football should at least be able to send more than one team to the playoffs. AFCN sent 2 last year and 3 the year before. 4 Super Bowls the past 11 seasons.

    I’m not saying the AFCN is decidedly the best division in football, the NFCN and NFCW are great too, but I dont understand why the NFCE is so overrated every year. If it wasn’t for the Giants they would be nearly irrelevant the past decade.

    Great post Steely! Something else to add to this…3 out of the last 4 years I believe Cincy, Pitt and Bmore have been top 10 defenses…. Since 1996 AFC North has won 4 SB’s and all of this talk of the NFC West??? yea they are strong NOW but how many SB’s have the NFC West won since 1996?? 2?? Rams and 49ers?? NFC West needs to win more SB’s and place more than 3 teams in the top 10 for defense and also send 3 teams to the playoffs before they even scream supremacy….

    People,

    AFC North Reigns Supreme! HANDS DOWN! 🙂

  48. Steeley McBeam says: Aug 23, 2013 12:15 PM
    but I dont understand why the NFCE is so overrated every year. If it wasn’t for the Giants they would be nearly irrelevant the past decade.

    You must not get it, let’s break it down for you. The Eagles are a top 5 media market team meaning $$$$$$$. I would assume the cowboys are as well but I’m not a fan so I couldn’t tell ya. Basically our division gets the most attention and media coverage. We are the most entertaining division because our rivalries are second to none. Deal with it 😉

  49. Everyone wants to talk about how every other division is better than the NFC east but look at the Super Bowl wins

    NFC east……12 wins
    Next up….arc north 8 wins

    People are so quick to forget who the real champs are
    ———————–

    If you are willing to go back far enough The ivy league conference has by far the most college championships. That still doesn’t mean they are the best college conference today

  50. NFC East may have a bunch of Super Bowl rings but other than the G-men…none in a long while. I think the NFC West will be tough this year as will the AFC North.

    I really think the G-men will win the East going away. Dallas is not a December/January team, philly will be much improved but not enough and the skins will be no more than 8-8.

    I don’t think the NFC North is far away from being the toughest either.

  51. slbasegame257 says:
    Aug 23, 2013 2:47 PM
    The best team in the NFC East lost by double digits to the second best team in the NFC West in the playoffs at home. Just saying.
    ————-
    Giants beat SF 26-3 in SF last year in a game that SF circled on their calendars for, you guessed it, getting beat again at home the year before in the NFCCG…. Just sayin’

  52. The big bad 9ers are so smitten and scared of the Giants, they signed away one of our SB heroes (Manningham) and Jacobs just to prevent those guys from kicking their rear ends again (for a third time in a row). Ask any honest 9er fan their one fear from last year and I guarantee it will be that the Giants missing the playoffs.

    Heck…go back to 89′. The 14-1 9ers sat their team the last week against the Rams just so the Rams would edge the Giants out for the last WC spot. 9er players later admitted it wasn’t for rest but to avoid the Giants who’d been whippin them for the better part of the decade.

    foolish NFC West fans…they have one good year and….well….they start to sound like Skins fans.

  53. Gantt says, “And besides, teams in the NFC East get punished for circumventing the salary cap from time to time.”

    Well, if Roger Goodell were commissioner of the SEC and Baby John Mara were AD at LSU, Goodell would appoint Mara to the SEC Competition Committee, and Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Auburn and Tennessee would be on bowl-ineligible probation every year.

  54. I’m a fan of an NFC East team, but you could make a pretty good argument that every other division has at least one team that is better than any of the four teams in the NFC East.

  55. The Giants, Redskins, and Eagles fan base are located in the most densely populated areas of the US. Then you have the Cowboys who remain America’s team even if they haven’t played like it in years. People love or hate Dallas and that makes people tune in to see what happens.

  56. The NFC west is the best division followed by the north. This is Because the teams in both of those divisions have been historically bad the past ten years letting them get top 5 picks year after year. Good gms like Schneider and baalke have helped turn the tide

  57. It’s about time the NFC West provides any competition. Seahawks have been irrelevant since Shaun Alexander, 49ers irrelevant since Steve young, cards have been bad since jake Plummer, and the rams since Vermeil. Ya NFC West looks good now but they were the skid mark of the NFL for over a decade. Welcome back!

    AFC North- anybody who was anybody in that division is old now. Steelers are old, ravens WERE old, but this is the bengals division to lose.

  58. Of course the NFC East is the SEC of the NFL. Who can even argue this. And of course the great Cowboys are the Bama of the NFL and still Americas team.

    We love that you hate us…. It shows your jealousy!

  59. logicalvoicesays says: Aug 23, 2013 12:23 PM

    I wish I could trade the Eagles from the division and get better competition from Arizona. Philly is a JOKE, pop warner franchise. #SuperbowlVirgins

    Two NFL Championships. And Redskins suck.

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