State of the NFC East: It's a good Monday for the New York Giants

In today's morning notebook, Keane has a section called "State of the NFC East." Let's take a little bit of time to expand on that after Week 3 saw your New York Giants not only save their season but wind up -- at least for now -- propelling themselves into the middle of the NFC East race.

I can't go as a far as the New York Daily News did and predict that the Giants will win the NFC East. The Giants' victory over the Washington Redskins combined with the Dallas Cowboys' loss to the Atlanta Falcons, though, leaves the Giants with hope. And with Dallas missing stars Tony Romo and Dez Bryant for the next several weeks the time is now for the Giants to take advantage.

They can't get those two blown games to open the season back. They can't expect any help next week from the 0-3 Drew Brees-less New Orleans Saints, who host Dallas in Week 4.

The Giants, though, can help themselves. They can make those those first two unfortunate weeks a footnote to a successful season. They can put themselves in position to make a serious run at the NFC East by going to Ralph Wilson Stadium on Sunday and beating the Tyrod Taylor-led Buffalo Bills, then by taking advantage of the 1-2 San Francisco 49ers on Sunday Night Football in Week 5.

That would put them at 3-2 heading into a Week 7 game on the road vs. the Philadelphia Eagles and a Week 7 game at home against the Cowboys. By then we will probably know whether the Giants are NFC East contenders or pretenders.

The Giants are quarterbacked by Eli Manning. The rest of the division is currently quarterbacked by Branden Weeden, Sam Bradford and Kirk Cousins. Umm, advantage Giants. Here is another weird, meaningless stat. The Giants, who have scored 78 points and given up 72, are the only team in the division to have scored more points than they have allowed.

Who knows what any of this really means, or what it will mean in four months. For now, though, it is a pretty good Monday morning if you are a Giants fan -- even if the Giants didn't get any help from the New York Jets. Seriously, though, should have known better than to expect any. Regardless, a few days ago the worry was that an 0-3 start would leave us talking about Tom Coughlin's future and the 2016 NFL Draft. This is much better.