The lead in the NFC East standings will be on the line when the New York Giants visit the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night. New York, after powering through several substandard teams, dropped a home game to the lowly Dallas Cowboys last week while the Eagles spanked the fourth division team, Washington, on Monday night. Momentum may be in the favour of Philly, whose offense seems unstoppable, but nothing is certain in battles for control of the conference’s “Beast” division.

The priority for Coach Tom Coughlin’s Giants will be to contain Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who has been the league’s best offensive player through 10 weeks. Good luck. Vick went off for 5 total scores in the first half of Monday’s revenge game against the Redskins and has been equally capable slinging the ball from the pocket as he has been tucking it and bursting for big runs. If any team is capable of troubling Vick it is these Giants, with their talented defensive line. Ends Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora are two of the NFL’s best at pressuring the quarterback and they have the athleticism to chase after or seal the edges against Vick. Still, the Giants have no linebacker who can come close to spying Vick effectively and their secondary will be tested by the quarterback’s arm and the Eagles’ speedy receivers DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. Philadelphia will spread the field and throw early to set up the run, so the Giants’ third ranked rush defense will have little impact on the Eagles’ game plan. The keys for the Giants will be to apply pressure on Vick with a four man rush and to have their safeties, Antrel Rolle and Deon Grant, stay behind the Eagles’ deep threats.

On offense New York will try to get their smash-mouth running game going against an Eagles defense that is undersized and built to defend a lead. Defensive coordinator Sean McDermott’s unit is effective at blitzing and coverage but has been proven to soft against a power running game. If the Giants can establish running back Ahmad Bradshaw, they can keep quarterback Eli Manning out of dangerous situations where he might be forced into turnovers by the Eagles’ opportunistic defense. Defensive end Trent Cole will be in Manning’s face all day long and if Eli makes the mistake of throwing the ball up under pressure, he might find himself watching Asante Samuel or rookie Dmitri Patterson, the Eagles’ talented corners, trot into his end zone for a score. The Eagles will throw the whole bag of strikingly confusing blitz packages at Manning and his best solution is to hand the ball to Bradshaw to punish the middle of the defense.

This is one of the league’s best rivalries and Sunday’s edition is sure to be hard fought in the Philadelphia cold. The Eagles will be the best team the Giants have faced all season long and Vick is the most challenging player to prepare for. If the Giants can run the ball effectively then they might be able to keep up. Otherwise, Philadelphia will leave New York in their dust as they put up another high score and take over first place in the standings.

1. Dallas Cowboys

• Never before has an NFL team underachieved like the 2010-11 Cowboys, but at the same time-has any team ever been as unapologetically arrogant heading into a new season? Dallas talked itself up all throughout the offseason despite the team’s coaching staff admitting that training camp and the preseason did not go as well as planned. Now, owner Jerry Jones is left with a billion-dollar establishment and one of the worst teams in football. Whenever Dallas has looked like it’s about to turn everything around, the team has self-combusted and waved the white flag. The popular sentiment at the moment is to fire head coach Wade Philips, but Jones has candidly stated that no replacement can fix the ongoing disaster. Not exactly what fans want to hear from their team’s owner. Dallas obviously has all the pieces to compete for a place among the league’s elite, but the culture has to change in a huge way between now and the start of next season.

2. Kansas City Chiefs

• As much as Dallas was predicted to succeed this year, Kansas City was expected to fail. After a miserable 4-12 season in 2009-10, many though that the Chiefs would once again struggle on the defensive end and allow opponents to run up the score against them. While KC has still had trouble stopping other teams from controlling the air-the Chiefs are ranked 23^rd in opponents’ passing yards-the Chiefs have allowed less than 100 rushing yards per game. On the offensive end, Kansas City has been sensational. Quarterback Matt Cassel has five games with no interceptions thrown, but it has been the Chiefs’ rushing game that has their opponents at a loss. The running back tandem of Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones has been largely unstoppable, leading the Chiefs to the best running offence in the NFL and a place in the top third of the NFL standings.

3. Minnesota Vikings

• Expecting Brett Favre to put together a repeat of last season’s awesome performance-excluding the last play of the Vikings’ postseason-was probably unrealistic, but no one predicted Minnesota to be as bad as they are right now. The Vikings are 2-5, and Favre has been nothing short of awful as the

  team continues to play itself out of a postseason berth. A glance at the football scores doesn’t really do justice to some of the Vikings’ inspired outings this year, but losses are losses. The acquisition of Randy Moss last month injected some hope into a dying team, but the latter failed to make a significant impact in his two games with the team before being placed on waivers, in part for disrespecting the caterers at a post-practice team meal. Nothing has gone right this season for Minnesota, and now Favre is injured again. There is a silver lining to this latest setback, though: the team might start giving their other pivots a chance, thus giving fans a glimpse of what life will soon be like without Brett Favre.

Giants vs Cowboys Odds: Cowboys -3

Sportsbook odds have the Cowboys favored even though they have the worse record. Keep an eye on the injury report as the Giants might rest Brandon Jacobs this week. The Cowboys are desperate for a win and this is virtually their season. If they lose, they are probably out of the playoffs. Look for the Cowboys to get a key win and steer towards the playoffs.

Giants vs Cowboys Pick: Cowboys -3

Browns vs Eagles odds:

On one hand, you have a team that is mailing it in. That would be the Browns. They also have tuned out their head coach and are down to their third-string quarterback. That’s on top of the fact that they weren’t very good to begin with. Now they have to head to Philadelphia to play on Monday Night Football for the third time this season. Look for them to get their first loss on National television against one of the hottest teams in the league. Good luck.

Browns vs Eagles Pick: Eagles -14