AFC East Preview: A Surprise Playoff Team Emerges

Football is back, and with it is Fundamentally Unsound. It's truly the best time of the year, when the occasional cool morning brings whiffs of football across the city. Your weekends are no longer bleak with uncertainty, and Sundays are the most looked forward to day of the week.

As I do every year, I'll post a preview of each division, one per day, leading up to the Thursday night opener. I'll lay out my expectations, how I came to those expectations, or simply shit on a team I don't like or believe in. It's time to overload the brain with football knowledge. So without further ado, the AFC East, in order of how the teams will finish.

Buffalo Bills

Remember last year when people were saying the Bills may have missed their window, would take a step back, and lose the division to the Dolphins? Yeah, me neither.

You aren't hearing much of that this year off of Josh's MVP campaign, and while some if not most of that is because once media members see a trophy they become blinded by reality, I'd say it has more to do with the division around them (be patient, we'll get there).

The majority of the roster is the same; they made the right move to sign James Cook, who averaged a full yard per carry more than his backup on nearly double the carries last year. They swapped out an old pro-bowl pass rusher in Von Miller for old pro-bowl pass rusher Joey Bosa. They lost Rasul Douglas on the outside but brought back Tre'Davious White for cheap, hoping a full year of recovery from the Achilles will bring him back to his old form, and drafted a first round CB in case that didn't happen. An aging Amari Cooper was replaced with Josh Palmer, and outside of that the pass catchers are the same. And the O Line is solid (shoutout to the Shnow Man).

There's no reason to believe the Bills won't six-peat the division and contend for a Super Bowl. So I won't keep trying to find one. Record: 12-5

New England Patriots

Surprise!

I know those who are familiar with me may not be too surprised, as I've already laid out the path to fruition when the schedule came out. But I said then I'd wait to make any official predictions until now. And here we are, and I'm more confident than ever.

Confident that we have a guiding light as head coach that grown men will blindly but gladly follow into the abyss. Confident we have a budding star at QB that can limit some of the dumb turnovers he's been prone to early in his career (including this preseason). Confident we have a STUD at running back in Treveon Henderson, who'll two-headed monster the backfield with another stud in Rhamondre to take some pressure off of Drake. Confident that Stefon Diggs will prove the world wrong and return to his Buffalo form as a WR1. Confident our free agent signings on defense will pan out, and that we'll have one of the best secondaries in football. And I'm confident we'll be fighting for a playoff spot in December.

If our schedule wasn't as easy as it is I'd say we're a year away. But the time to pounce is now. The new New England Patriots are here. LFG.

My official prediction: see you in January. Seven seed. Record: 10-7

Miami Dolphins

You ever say something in the heat of the moment you shouldn't have, and even though it may not truly be how you feel when you return to baseline, the other person now thinks that's how you feel? And things may never be the same because of an accidental slip up, and how you feel 98% of the time is now perceived to be how you feel just 2% of the time?

There's a lot I wish I could take back on the Dolphins. And there's a lot that players on the Dolphins wish they could take back too.

Tyreek is still winning back the locker room, and early indications from Dolphins camp are he's having as much success as his on field performance last year (his worst year as a pro). Mike McDaniel is fully on the hot seat, as his dry, dorky humor is becoming less and less funny with each non-football headline coming out of South Beach.

They lost essentially their entire secondary, and didn't do much to replace it drafting two fifth rounders and adding some deep cut names that had minimal playing time last year (Minkah for Ramsey was an all around weird trade to me). Their front four will be nasty, but they'll need to be to have success on that side of the ball.

The offense is still loaded, and the main question remains: Can Tua stay healthy? But I'd like to pose another question: Why are you so irrelevant without him? Every team takes steps back without their starting QB, but almost none as drastic as what happens in Miami. Zach Wilson is there to backup Tua, and history says he'll get a shot at some point. That doesn't make me feel good.

I'm very low on this team. I went on a limb last year after being a Dolphin hater for years, but the hater has returned.

They could still be fun, but I think things implode for the Fins. Record: 7-10

New York Jets

Hahaha. The Jets.

In an outcome that no one could possibly have seen coming, the Aaron Rodgers experiment was an epic fail.

So they turned to the next big thing. The guy that has shined in every place he's been. The guy to end the Jets QB nightmares once and for all.

Justin Fields.

Again, hahahaha.

Idk man, what do you want me to say? That he's statistically been one of the worst QBs in football since he's entered the league when it comes to throwing? Want me to mention how he was benched for Russell Wilson, the same Russell Wilson that the Steelers didn't think was worth bringing back on any dollar amount over the veteran minimum? Or how you can't use the excuse that he was with a dysfunctional franchise since he was with Tomlin and Pittsburgh, or that he's now on an even more dysfunctional franchise in New York?

That would be mean, so I'll refrain from saying any of that. All I'll say is I like Justin Fields, I wish he worked out in Chicago. I also wish he worked out in Pittsburgh, but he didn't. And he didn't get beat out by Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

The Jets are not the place to resurrect your career, or at least they haven't been in three decades. Garrett Wilson alone, which is all they have at WR, isn't going to do it either. They'll have a dynamic running game which will net a few wins, but I foresee a one and done season for Fields, and another offseason of question marks for the J-E-T-S. Record: 5-12