NFL Preview: AFC East

Filed in NFL by on August 31, 2011

Leading up to the NFL season kickoff, Nick Tedeschi and Cliff Bingham will break down each division and offer recommended bets with the last offering being a look at the playoff picture and overall Super Bowl wagers. It is a must for every fan.

INTRODUCTION by Cliff Bingham

Can I bring some stats into the discussion nice and early here?

As we all know, each NFL team plays 16 games per regular season – six within their own division and ten others (four against another division in their own conference, four against a division in the other conference and two against other teams within their own conference). For example, last season New England played six matches against the remainder of the AFC East, four against the AFC North, four against the NFC North and one each against members of the AFC South (Indianapolis) and AFC West (San Diego). You get the idea.

Anyway, four teams per division, each of them to play matches against ten opponents from outside of their division. If teams were perfectly equal, you’d be expect sides to go 5-5 in these ten matches and thus each division to go a collective 20-20 each season, right? Now, check out the actual results for the past three seasons:

1. NFC South 73-47 (24 wins last season, 21 wins in 2009, 28 wins in 2008)

=2. AFC East 70-50 (24, 20, 26)

=2. AFC South 70-50 (18, 26, 26)

4. NFC East 68.5-51.5 (20, 22, 26.5)

5. AFC North 61.5-58.5 (21, 21, 19.5)

6. NFC North 54-66 (21, 20, 13)

7. AFC West 48-72 (19, 18, 11)

8. NFC West 35-85 (13, 12, 10)

Look at the last two on the list, remembering that last year they played each other in 16 matches – wow…. just, wow.

Not all NFL divisions are created equal, which becomes very important when assessing the strength of the schedule faced by each team and just as importantly, which teams had their records inflated (or deflated) in part by the quality of opponents they faced in 2010.

AFC EAST

Nick Tedeschi

New England overachieved in 2010. They won 14 games but they played more like an 11-12 win team and the days of the vicious stompings appeared to be over. It was a year of flux. Randy Moss was shipped off and the defence was a major worry. The Patriots were quite lucky in that regard. They were the 25th-ranked defence in yards allowed and they had a below average defensive DVOA (for all you Football Outsiders nerds) but they were eighth in scoring defence. That bend-but-don’t break idea seems a little risky considering the depth, or lack thereof, among defensive backs, who struggled against elite receivers last year.

Albert Haynseworth is the big recruit on defence. He was terrible at Washington but Bill Bellichick loves a reclamation project and Haynesworth offers plenty of upside. An ability to offer some pass rush should assist the secondary though losing Ty Warren was a bit of a surprise. The defence could improve but there is little there to suggest it should improve.

Tom Brady, of course, remains an elite quarterback and he will likely benefit from a receiver like Chad Ochocinco, who may be highly strung like Randy Moss but who offers the ability to catch both short and long passes. But there will likely be a regression in his numbers and the overall turnover numbers of the team. The Patriots recorded a +28 turnover differential last year, the biggest differential since 2003.

Turnovers tend to be nothing more than luck and they tend to regress to the mean the following year with 29 of the 35 teams to record a differential of +10 or worse regressing in wins the following year. Of those, 22 regressed by more than three games. Three of the four teams who have had a +20 differential have dropped three-plus games.

New England will likely win their ninth AFC East title in eleven seasons but they will go back to being an 11-12 win team.

Popular opinion has the New York Jets as the likely challenger to the Patriots but they are a team I will be happy to lay. The Jets have lost the last two AFC Title games but in each they have never appeared likely. They continue to sneak into a wildcard spot after some questionable offense in the regular season and they have done little to upgrade their roster.

The big additions to the roster have been at wide receiver with Plaxico Burress and Derrick Mason giving the Jets a quality receiving corps with Santonio Holmes and Dustin Keller but Mark Sanchez has yet to prove himself that he can get his receivers the ball and he led the NFL in dropped interceptions last year.

The loss of Shaun Ellis to the Patriots has also meant a major downgrade in defence even with former Bill Aaron Maybin joining. Ellis played a key role in the complex blitz packages the Jets like to dial up and he will provide plenty of intelligence to rivals New England.

The Jets had a good run with injury in 2010 and appeared to overachieve with their offense. Expect them to fall from an 11 win team to an 8-9 win team.

The Dolphins, for mine, can improve. They have concerns at quarterback with Chad Henne’s temperament questionable. They lack a real power running game. They went 1-7 at home in 2010, losing to bad teams like Buffalo and Detroit.

The turnover indicator suggests they will improve by a couple of wins and I expect Reggie Bush to be a good fit at the Dolphins in a modified wildcat formation, taking over the Ronnie Brown role. If their defence holds (and it should with no significant losses), Henne starts performing like he did in 2009 and they can start winning at home, the Dolphins can be an 8-9 team and potentially sneak into the wildcard race.

The poor old Buffalo Bills won’t do much. Does anything ever change up there? Linebacker Nick Barnett is their biggest in, they still have a quarterback controversy and they don’t have one area that they excel at. I would expect an improvement on the 4-12 season last year but not by much with a 5-6 win likely. The best Bills fans can hope for this year is that the announcment doesn't come that they are moving to either Toronto or Los Angeles.

Predicted Finish: New England 11-5, Miami 9-7, New York Jets 8-8, Buffalo 6-10

Recommended Bets

·         2 units on New York Jets UNDER 10.5 wins at $1.67 (IAS)

·         1 unit on New York Jets UNDER 10 wins at $1.91 (Sportingbet)

·         2 units on Miami OVER 7 wins at $1.73 (IAS)

·         1 unit on Miami OVER 8 wins at $2.60 (Sportingbet)

·         0.25 units on Miami to win AFC East at $16.00 (IAS)

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Cliff Bingham

Last year they went a collective 9-7 against the NFC North, 9-7 against the AFC North and 6-2 against the rest of the AFC, landing them the top spot in my divisional power rankings. This year they get the stinky AFC West (who I’m predicting the AFC East can go 11-5 against) and the NFC East (predicting 9-7), so as a collective I think the AFC East will jump from 36 wins to an even more impressive 38 wins this season.

The AFC East landscape should be dominated by the Patriots and Jets again, both of whom have managed to make a couple of upgrades to already extremely strong squads.

Let me be the kajillionth person to hose down concerns about what the signings of Albert Haynesworth and Chad Ochocinco may do to the culture at New England. They key issue here is that both of them cost the Patriots almost nothing to acquire, and therefore there’s no feeling that they need to stuck with through thick and thin. They’re expendable. If they cause too much grief, Bill Belichick (who has a history of doing this – Deion Branch and Randy Moss are prime examples) can simply cut the cord with either or both of them and do his team little to no harm. But if they both offer something, New England would be a clear winner on the deals. The Pats don’t have much room for improvement from 14-2 last season though, so I will give them that mark again.

The Jets have done a little tinkering too and found a couple of upgrades to an already strong side. While Mark Sanchez doesn’t always make perfect decisions and his numbers aren’t exactly causing a fantasy football stampede, he does win his share of football games and should only improve his QB savvy a little with another year of experience under the belt. I’m going to shuffle the Jets up by a win to 12-4, good enough to win most divisions but not enough to topple New England.

The playoffs may be a very different story though – the Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez combination have already won four road playoff games in just two seasons, while the Patriots were bounced from the playoffs in their first match in both of the least two seasons (including an exit at the hands of the Jets last season). In short, I like the Pats to capture the AFC East but the Jets to capture the AFC title.

Miami and Buffalo will be the also-rans once again. The Dolphins have some new weapons on offense (none more famous than Reggie Bush), but with the QB position unstable at best, it’s hard to see them reaching, let alone breaking, 8-8. The fact that Chad Henne has his feelings hurt by crowds booing and that they’re reported to be reaching out to an approximately 259 year-old Brett Favre a season after it was clear that the NFL had passed him by only furthers the case for a poor season on the horizon.

As for my beloved Bills, it’s the same old, same old – an old and mediocre coach, a new castoff of another team (Tyler Thigpen) joining the QB battle and very little else to enthuse about. The season hasn’t even started and I could already use a hug.

Predicted finish: New England 14-2, New York Jets 12-4, Miami 7-9, Buffalo 5-11.

Recommended Bets

·         1.5 units on New England OVER 11.5 wins at $1.67 (IAS)

·         1 unit on New York Jets OVER 10.5 wins at $2.10 (Sportsbet)

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