Daily News Agenda: So who will win the NFC East now?

Let's see. The Cowboys are 2-1, but will be without Tony Romo and Dez Bryant until November, and will be without defensive end Greg Hardy and middle linebacker Rolando McClain for one more game while they complete their four-game suspensions.

The Eagles, who were my pick to win the division three weeks ago, are 1-2. Their quarterback is healthy, but isn't playing worth a damn, which has pretty much been the case with the entire offense with the exception of the second half against Atlanta and the first half Sunday against the Jets.

Their $40 million running back has a hamstring injury and was averaging 0.5 yards per carry before he got hurt. Their starting right guard probably is out for a while. One of their starting defensive ends has a broken hand.

They need to open a triage unit in the inside linebackers' meeting room, where Kiko Alonso probably is gone for most, if not all, of the season, Mychal Kendricks is nursing a hamstring injury and DeMeco Ryans has an injured groin.

Forget the Giants and Redskins. I'm not even sure Perry Mason could make a case for them winning the division. This is strictly a two-horse race, and despite the struggles of their offense and the injuries to Alonso and Kendricks, my money's still on the Eagles.

The big question for the Cowboys is when will Romo be back from his collarbone injury? He definitely will miss the next four games against the Saints, Patriots, Giants and Seahawks. You figure they'll split those four games and be 4-3.

It seems a stretch that Romo will be back for the November 8 rematch with the Eagles at AT&T Stadium. But it's a possibility. Bryant, not so much.

The Eagles have the Redskins, Saints, Giants and Panthers in their next four games. I think Bradford and the offense will slowly but surely get better and they'll win three of those four and also go into that Cowboys game with a 4-3 record.

Looking at the final eight games on both the Eagles' and Cowboys' schedules, I think they'll both win five of their last eight.

That means the November rematch in Texas could – and probably will – decide who wins the division.

Of course, there probably will be more injuries by then that will throw a wrench into these 400-plus words of thoughtful reasoning. But right here, right now, the NFC East still is the Eagles' division to win.

In the land of the one-win team, the two-win team is king. Desiderius Erasmus said something along those lines, or maybe it was former Vikings first-round bust Erasmus James.

Regardless, if you're taking a snapshot of the NFC East after three games, you have to go with the Cowboys. Dallas is 2-1 despite a stunning series of key injuries, most to players who are expected to return. (That's key. If Tony Romo or Dez Bryant were gone for the year, different picture.)

When the season began, I thought the Eagles would win the East. That was before I grasped what an illusion the crisp offensive competence of the preseason had been. The Eagles can still do it, but Sam Bradford and the offensive line have to improve by leaps and bounds over the next month or so, and it wouldn't hurt if a Nelson Agholor or Josh Huff stepped up to take a little of the load off Bradford's shoulders.

In even giving the Eagles a chance going forward, I'm still assuming that at least part of Bradford's struggle is being rusty, being so far behind regular-season game-speed decision-making and tight-window throwing. If this really is all we're going to get from the 2010 No. 1 overall pick, well, the Eagles aren't going anywhere, even in this very winnable division.

The Giants are kind of a mystery team to me. You can make a case that with sharper crunch-time coaching, they'd be 3-0. There is talent on that roster, certainly enough talent to win this race of less-than-gifted teams. But I can't shake the feeling that with Tom Coughlin, we're seeing some of the same late-reign staleness and futility we saw here with Andy Reid.

Washington is always a mess. At home, that team might stumble past the Eagles this week, if the Eagles' offense still can't function consistently, but it isn't going anywhere, long-term.

Dallas will get back Romo, Bryant, Rolando McClain, Greg Hardy and Randy Gregory over the coming weeks. That's a lot of talent. In this division, the Cowboys are unlikely to be buried while they're ailing.

It's hard to even pretend the Eagles are functioning at the Cowboys' level at quarterback or along the offensive line.

Given how bass-ackwards the NFC East is, they might as well give the MVP of the division to Eagles rookie linebacker Jordan Hicks.

If Hicks hadn't fallen so heavily onto the left shoulder of Tony Romo in Week 2, the Cowboys would probably have run away with the division title.

Or would they?

Sunday's loss to Atlanta had more to do with Dallas' poor run defense, which came into the week No. 1 in the league. Devonta Freeman tattooed them for 141 yards and three touchdowns. That's right. He had more touchdowns against Dallas than DeMarco Murray had yards (two) the week before.

The Cowboys did hang with the Falcons until Brandon Weeden remembered he was Brandon Weeden, now 5-17 in his career as a starter. Dallas did not score in the second half on Sunday.

Hey, neither did the Eagles.

If Romo misses another seven games, as is the current tentative conjecture, it's easy to imagine the Cowboys going not much better than 2-5 in that stretch with losses to the Patriots, Giants, Eagles and Seahawks. The Nov. 22 visit to Miami figures to be the difference between 4-6 and 5-5 for Dallas.

So let's see where everybody else will be after 10 games, keeping in mind that speculating in the NFL is only slightly less reckless than walking across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope carrying an Acme anvil borrowed from Wile E. Coyote.

The Eagles should be favored in four of their next six, with the exceptions being at Carolina and maybe at Dallas. If they can win the Dallas game, 6-4 is a possibility. The Giants have some cupcakes and could be 5-5. And the Redskins … well, wake me when the Redskins get a quarterback.

So the Eagles will have a one- or two-game lead with six to go. Among those final six are games against New England, Buffalo, Arizona and at the Giants. Dallas has December road games in Green Bay and Buffalo, so they'll have their hands full, too.

It's going to come down to the final month, like it usually does. By that time, the Eagle' offense should be cohesive enough to win the division with a 9-7 record.

Unless Jordan Hicks gets hurt, of course.

The truth is, we already know who won the NFC East — the Atlanta Falcons, who have come from behind to beat the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys in consecutive weeks. All hail Matt Ryan, et cetera.

But that isn't the question. Despite all appearances to the contrary, one of the four teams in the division will, indeed, win it. It's a rule, after all. I started with the idea that the Eagles would win it. Now, after three games, what might have changed?

— The Cowboys have suffered two major injuries, to quarterback Tony Romo and wide receiver Dez Bryant. Romo is the biggest one, obviously, and his absence for half of the season is the most significant event in the NFC East so far.

— The Giants kind of looking like a bumping along, OKish kind of team. They're pretty much what you thought they would be.

— The Redskins look more troubled at quarterback than most people expected. Even after you got done digesting the whole benching of Robert Griffin III, there was the expectation that Kirk Cousins would at least be OK. So far, he is much less than that.

So there are down arrows for the Cowboys and Redskins and a sideways arrow for the Giants. Which leaves the Eagles.

The offense is much more scattershot than we anticipated, even factoring in that Sam Bradford would need some time to get up to speed. His inconsistency, and that of the offensive line, were the real culprits in the first two losses. But on the other side of the ball, it is fair to call the Eagles' defense a pleasant surprise. Three weeks in, that defense is the most improved unit of any unit in the division.

Overall, a sideways arrow. But when you look at the Eagles' schedule, you don't see a lot of great quarterbacks. They might have discovered a formula against the Jets — stop the run, feast on a middling quarterback trying to do great things — that might just work, provided that Bradford can make some progress.

I think he will. I still think the Eagles will win the division.

Ed Barkowitz...Eagles

Les Bowen…Cowboys

Bob Cooney…Eagles

Doug Darroch...Cowboys

Jim DeStefano...Eagles

Paul Domowitch…Eagles

Michael Guise...Eagles

Marcus Hayes...Cowboys

Rich Hofmann…Eagles

Dick Jerardi…Giants

Mike Kern...Cowboys

Ryan Lawrence...Cowboys

Tom Mahon...Eagles

Drew McQuade...Eagles

David Murphy…Eagles

Jeff Neiburg…Eagles

Mark Perner…Cowboys

Leigh Primavera…Eagles

Tom Reifsnyder…Giants

Christine Sherman…Eagles

John Smallwood…Eagles

Bob Vetrone Jr....Eagles

Deb Woodell...Cowboys

CONSENSUS: EAGLES