Tom E. Curran • E-mail

It's a big weekend in the best division in the NFL. The Gang of Four in the NFC East – Dallas, Philly, Washington and the Giants – have had that perfect confluence of excellence and intrigue emerge early in 2008.

And this week, the interest spikes.

In Philly, the coulda-been 4-0 Eagles are hosting the stunning Redskins and hoping to avoid going sub-.500. The 'Skins, meanwhile, would love a chance to validate their fairly stunnin' 26-24 win at Dallas last week with another "you better take us seriously" performance in Philly.

The defending Super Bowl champion Giants – still trying to get respect – host the Seahawks.

Finally, this weekend's episode in the "Dallas Cowboys: 2008" reality series has the Boys trying to bounce back from the loss to Washington while also dealing with the fallout of last weekend’s bomb-lobbing of Terrell Owens. And who’s coming to town? The Cincinnati Bengals and the NFL's other biggest clown receiver, Chad Johnson.

But while the Cowboys court and revel in the hype and chaos, the most compelling story may be the Giants who are trying to avoid selling the drama.

So far, the Giants beat Washington in the season opener (a game where the 'Skins played as if it was their fifth preseason game), waxed the hapless Rams and then had their hands full with the winless Bengals before winning. Their level of play for 2008 is still unknown because A) they haven't played a bona fide "good" team and B) their sample size for how they’ll deal with the success of 2007 is still too small.

Think about it: It's the fifth week of the regular season and Plaxico Burress – the most important component of their passing attack outside of Eli Manning – is already suspended for a week because of his persistent disregard for team rules this year.

To me, Burress' attitude would seem a symptom of a Super Bowl hangover. But head coach Tom Coughlin's suspension and the response of Burress' teammates could be the hair of the dog to cure Burress and anyone else trending toward self-satisfaction.

If you're a Giants fan, you should be feeling good that defensive end Justin Tuck said he "absolutely" supported the suspension of Burress and that the decision is "indicative of our coaches trying to make a statement as far as every guy on this football team is equal and I think [Coughlin] got his point across."

The flip side of the Giants' approach to Burress is what's gone on in Dallas where T.O. does what T.O.'s good at – making it all about him and then pretending he's the ultimate team player.

After the loss to the 'Skins in which Owens saw the ball on more than a third of Dallas' offensive plays, Owens brayed that he didn’t get the ball enough.

That, of course, led to quarterback Tony Romo – who's become troublingly willing to allow Owens to pee all over his territory – to talk platitudes about great players wanting the ball and blah, blah, blah.

This after Romo forced the ball in repeatedly to a well-covered Owens (the second-best receiver in NFL history if catching isn’t part of the equation). This Sunday, Romo will try to spoonfeed Owens against the hapless Bengals to try and placate him while a guy who gives legit 100 percent effort – running back Marion Barber – has to wait in line for his touches. But T.O. wasn't calling out the offense of Jason Garrett or the decision-making of Romo. He just was frustrated. And we all know babies have a hard time with stoic.

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Which brings us to the Eagles and Redskins. The Eagles – as well as they’ve played on both sides of the ball, at times – are 2-2 thanks to heart-wrenching losses at Dallas and Chicago. Last weekend, they showed all the imagination of a great German comedian by running into the teeth of the Bears goal-line defense in the fourth quarter. They paid for it with a loss. Now they’re dinged up and doing some navel-gazing about their inability to close games out.

"You can't go through the course of a game and play three or three-and-a-half quarters of good football and then don't capitalize at the end," McNabb told Philly reporters this week. "You don't win too many games like that, especially when you get opportunities to put teams away. You have to be able to put them away. You hate to keep saying the same things, that you have to learn from it, we have to get it done."

That hasn’t been the problem for the surprising 'Skins, who are 3-1 and have Jason Campbell playing with underappreciated composure and efficiency at quarterback. That Washington has gotten to 3-1 after its "We’re playing TONIGHT?!!?!" opening to the season is shocking. But not only are they ahead of Philly, if they can get a win on Sunday their next three are against the Rams, Browns and Lions. Washington – WASHINGTON – could be 7-1 by the middle of October.

As a certain narcissistic wideout in Texas would say, "Getcha popcorn ready!"

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