Who will win the AFC East?
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by user Drpatriot
As the preseason goes on, there continues to be debate about the status of the AFC East. First of all, who will win it? Second, is the Patriots dynasty over? Third, are the Dolphins legitimate contenders for the AFC East title, and beyond? I decided to answer these questions and more by writing an analysis of the AFC East where it stands today.
Buffalo Bills:
Let me start off by saying one thing: This is not the Bills’ season. That single sentence will basically sum up the next few paragraphs, so if you’re only interested in the major contenders you should skip this section and go to the Miami Dolphins part.
Still with me? Alright. Where to begin? I suppose the quarterbacking mess is the best place to start. J.P. Losman shouldn’t be a starting QB in the NFL. The play of Losman was ranked by Football Outsiders as 44th out of quarterbacks with over 100 passes, only above our interception amigos Kyle Orton and Alex Smith, who tossed 13 and 11, respectively. His DPAR was -31.3; to translate into regular English, J.P. Losman, compared to Cincinnati Bengals’ QB Anthony Wright, is as bad as Eli Manning was good. In other worse, J.P. Losman is absolutely terrible. Kelly Holcomb wasn’t much better, though he at least ranked above Anthony Wright at 32nd in the league. They should have never passed over Matt Leinart in the draft.
At RB, the Bills appear a little bit better set; Willis McGahee ranked 10th out of all NFL RBs last year behind Buffalo’s terrible offensive line. However, McGahee wore down last year after being used far too often in place of an actual passing attack. He should have a better season this year if either Losman or Kelly Holcomb can finally figure out what they’re doing at QB.
Defensively, the Bills lost a lot of steam. Losing LB Takeo Spikes for the season appears to have made a huge impact, dropping the Bills from 1st-ranked defense in the league of 2004 to a pathetic 26th in 2005. His return should help significantly. However, it won’t solve the Bills’ problems in the running game; the Bills allowed 4.59 yards per run last year. The Bills hope that free agent Larry Tripplet and rookie John McCargo will be able to help in this respect, but I have my doubts.
Predicted Record: 5-11 and back to the drawing board...again.
Miami Dolphins:
The Miami Dolphins’ season hinges on the play of Daunte Culpepper. Culpepper, who is currently recovering from tearing the ACL, MCL and PCL, may or may not have the skills and ability to come back and play at his 2004 level. Interestingly, his 2005 dropoff wasn’t really that bad; though it was a dropoff, his “off” season was exaggerated by his first 2 games, tossing 8 interceptions and no touchdowns against Tampa Bay and Cincinnati. However, he significantly improved in the next few games, throwing 6 touchdown and 4 interceptions over 5 games until he got injured.
Unfortunately for the Dolphins, Culpepper’s mobility will be an issue; he was sacked on 13% of his pass plays BEFORE he injured his leg, ranking 2nd worst in the league among starting quarterbacks; David Carr was first, giving you an idea of the type of mobility we should expect from Culpepper. Luckily for him, Miami was the 5th-best offensive line in pass protection last year, so he should get significantly better protection than Minnesota gave him (the Vikings were ranked 29th). This fact should give Culpepper the ability to perform better in the pocket than he could in Minnesota. Unfortunately, this doesn’t give us extra hope because he is coming off an injury that will limit his mobility more than a weak offensive line would; it seems that he is rushing his way back for the three-ligament tear to his knee, an injury that should take over a year to recover, and it is likely that he will regret that in the long run. Unless the Dolphins’offensive linemen have amazing pass-blocking skills, it seems unlikely that Culpepper will be able to withstand the pressure physically.
Starting RB Ronnie Brown should get many more touches this year. Football Outsiders’ DPAR stat ranks Ronnie Brown as the 30th-best RB in the league last year with a 5.0 rating, ranking near Deuce McAllister, Kevin Jones and Steven Jackson. Unfortunately, his DPAR is worse than the DPAR of full-time backups Jonathan Wells, Adrian Petersen and Cedric Houston. It is likely that Brown will have a good year simply because of progress over his career and the addition number of carries he will receive.
On the defensive side, the Dolphins shouldn’t be quite as optimistic. Football Outsiders ranked their defense 10th and 11th against the run and pass, respectively, last year. However, these numbers are significantly worse than in 2004, where they were 9th and 5th against the run and pass. In addition, the Dolphins lost Sam Madison and Lance Schulters to free agency. The Dolphins hope that rookie Jason Allen and free agent Will Allen will be able to fill these holes, but a drop in performance is expected.
So is there hope that Miami will finally take over the AFC East? Many members of the media say yes, citing Miami’s six-game winning streak to end the year as evidence. My conclusion is somewhat different. First, the winning streak is misleading; first, the Patriots game at the end was a one-point win against the second string. The remaining games were against teams with a combined record of 26-54 (an average of 5.2 wins per team). Only one game was against a team with a winning record (San Diego). Second, the recovery of Daunte Culpepper is not going to be fast enough for the Dolphins; knee injuries like Culpepper’s to other NFL players have taken over a year of recovery to return to normal. Finally, the defense will not be reliable enough this year for the Dolphins to make a good run against strong offenses like Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Indianapolis and New England. The Dolphins will be in the running soon; unfortunately, this probably isn’t their year.
Predicted Record: 9-7 and just out of the playoffs
New England Patriots:
The New England Patriots are a very difficult team to rank. They had a lot of problems last year. However, many of these problems were due to injury to key players on their defense. The Patriots had past Pro Bowlers Tedy Bruschi, Richard Seymour and Rodney Harrison all on the bench by the bye week. Without their leadership on the defense, the Patriots fell to a disappointing start and had one of the worst defenses in the league. However, when the Patriots finally put two and two together on the defense; they went on to win four of their last five games, including a shutout against playoff-bound Tampa Bay and a one-point loss to Miami while playing the second string for almost the entire game. The Patriots are likely to pull things together better on defense this year, with Seymour and Harrison returning to the field and Bruschi returning by Week 3.
It is my sincerest opinion that Tom Brady is the best QB in the NFL; Football Outsiders ranked him third last year. Either way, he remains the only sure bet in the AFC East at QB. While battling minor injuries last year, Brady still led the NFL in passing yards. There are no questions at this position other than depth, where second-year pro Matt Cassel might not be enough; however, he has performed excellently in the preseason so far, leading the league in passing yards and having a 110.3 QB rating. Though WR depth and targets for Brady may seem lacking, TEs Daniel Graham, Ben Watson, Garrett Mills and David Thomas are all good TEs. The Patriots also have 2nd-round draft pick Chad Jackson, veteran Troy Brown and free agent Reche Caldwell at WR, and this is without Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch’s return.
At RB, the only question is who will get the carries. Corey Dillon is aging, but if he is unable to sustain any amount of success the Patriots can just hand the ball to rookie Laurence Maroney, who has impressed in the preseason. The one-two punch of these two backs, along with the third-down capabilities of Kevin Faulk, should make it hard for opponents to defend the run.
So will the Patriots dynasty end this year? My answer: it isn’t likely. With a young and dynamic offense and a recovering defense, the Patriots’ run isn’t quite over. A good offensive line and a fantastic defensive line will open things up in the offensive backfield and close things up in the defensive backfield. Questionable spots at LB are legitimate and answerable as Junior Seau has been signed to replace Bruschi while he is injured and LB Tully Banta-Cain is making a strong case for the starting spot on the outside in the preseason. And the offensive built towards youth in the draft this year, with new players on the OL, at WR, at TE and at RB. As always, watch out for this team in the postseason.
Prediction: 12-4 and into the playoffs
==New York Jets:== If the AFC East was a car, with Miami and New England as its front tires, the Jets would be the flat one in back. In only a single season, the Jets have rolled from playoff contenders to the doormat of the AFC. One major reason for this is the sudden decline of future Hall-of-Famer Curtis Martin. In 2004, Martin led the league in rushing and was still considered a premier runningback. Last year, Martin ruined many fantasy teams as he plummeted to a 735 yard, 5 touchdown season before injuring himself. Now we don’t even know if he will play this year, or ever again. Backup Cedric Houston impressed in limited action, ranking higher than Ronnie Brown in DPAR (see the Miami Dolphins section), but no one can tell if he’s for real or just a pretender. New trade acquirement Kevan Barlow could either float or sink in this offense. Again, no one really knows what new head coach Mangini has up his sleeve.
At QB, the confusion deepens, with injured old starter Chad Pennington, backup Redskins QB and former first-rounder Patrick Ramsey, second-round pick Kellen Clemens and emergency QB Brooks Bollinger all competing for the starting QB spot. At this point, it appears that Pennington is in the lead, but all of the QBs have been shaky in the preseason. Having WR targets like Laveranues Coles and Justin McCareins doesn’t help either.
And on the defense…well, who know what caused the defense to decline? After using four first-round picks on the defensive line, the Jets have the 4th worst run defense in the league. Go figure. A change to the 3-4 should help this unit, moving Shaun Ellis into the DE position and using Kimo von Oelhoffen and Dewayne Robertson at the other defensive line spots. The linebacking core will probably excel here, with Bryan Thomas moving to OLB and Jonathan Vilma, Victor Hobson and Eric Barton manning the other LB spots. The defensive backfield actually was above-average last year, but with Ty Law leaving it will probably slip back down to mediocre or worse.
Prediction: 5-11 and a ticket to the Top Five in the NFL Draft…again
Date
Sun 08/27/06, 5:06 pm EST
