I wrote a post awhile back picking the New York Jets to win the AFC East this season, but what about the rest of the division? New England, with Bill Belichick as coach, always has to be taken seriously as a contender, and Miami, under Bill Parcells’ overall guidance, rose from the dead 2 years ago only to backslide last season. I feel the Patriots will contend but they have gotten to the point where they’ve become arrogant in thinking they can just dump players and plug in replacements without missing a beat. In my opinion they made a mistake in trading away Richard Seymour prior to last season and missed his presence, on the field and in the locker room. They made another personnel mistake bringing in LB Adalius Thomas, and admitted that mistake by cutting him recently. I see the Pats contending for the AFC East crown but settling for a wild card. I give them a slight advantage over Miami for one reason – the quarterback position. Tom Brady is in somewhat of a decline but he’s still miles ahead of the Dolphins’ Chad Henne. Most prognosticators, when handicapping this division, don’t even mention the Buffalo Bills. They have become that irrelevant to the national media the last decade, other than the Terrell Owens distraction last year. They will go into this season, under new coach Chan Gailey, with zero expectations, which is not a bad spot for a young, growing team. There is a mistaken assumption that the Bills have no talent at all. Actually, there is a wealth of potential talent on this team, but the situation was skewed by the fact that 20 players wound up on injured reserve last season and they finished the season with a very depleted roster. The Bills can surprise some people if Gailey is successful at 2 things – sorting through the roster he has and maximizing the talents of the young players, and finding and developing a competent, not great but competent, quarterback among the 4 he has to work with.
