Any of the four teams could win AFC East Blumenfeld - Getty Images By Dan Leberfeld Posted Oct 5, 2008 The AFC East has emerged as one of the toughest divisions in football. At first, it looked like New England would run away with it, but then Tom Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week One. They are still a solid team without Brady, but they are much more beatable on a weekly basis. And when the Jets traded for Brett Favre, not only did they help themselves, but they made Miami a viable team by cutting Chad Pennington, who then signed with the Dolphins. Without Pennington, Miami would likely be sitting at 0-4 right now, but instead are 2-2, and contenders for the division. Buffalo is a good team, but some people might have gotten ahead of themselves putting them in Canton too soon when they started 4-0. Let's not forget they needed fourth quarter comebacks to beat teams that are so bad they have already fired their coaches - Oakland and St. Louis. And in Week One, Buffalo beat a Seattle team that clearly isn't very good as we saw today at Giants Stadium. And the Jets at 2-2 look like a team that is probably going to get better as the season progresses, but is currently giving up way too many points. So a division that looked like it was New England's for the taking, is now one that any of the four teams could end up winning. And because the teams will likely beat up on each other all year, and knock each other off, it might be hard to get a wild card team out of the division.
Here's my take on the rest of the division. Bills - Not scary. Good record but the Cards just showed that some offensive fireworks are the key to pummeling this team and there are enough teams capable of that (including the Jets) that the Bills should not win the division. Patriots - Moderately scary. They look a lot like they did in 2000. They are scrapping together wins as best they can, barely pulling out games solely due to superior coaching. But those wins came against an unbearably lackluster Jets team and the Niners. Let's see if they can beat a good team. Dolphins - Slightly scary. They're well coached, have chemistry and Chad is on his game right now. But we all know how Chad wears down. And once teams stop Ronnie Brown, the offense is gonna be in trouble. Still, although I hate the Dolphins, I gotta give credit where it's due - Parcells has applied his usual Midas touch and the team has done a remarkable turnaround.
No kidding on the Phins. 1 turnover this season...that's the kind of situation where Pennington can be successful, and there's no doubt that he's part of the reason for that impressive stat. If you don't turn the ball over then you can hang with any team on any given Sunday. That's what scares me about them.
I dunno. I think we have work to do to take the division, but if the secondary can shore up, we'll be fine. A little improvement int he running game wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Maybe his passes travel further in the warm air down there. j/k Actually, I am happy that Chad is having success. I think NY grew tired of him, but Chad is still a gamer and a team can feel very confident that he can be the face of the team with no worries. That last game of the year is gonna be a tough win for us. You know if we have playoff hopes riding on a win, Miami will really make us earn it, or send us crying into the off-season.
That part gave me the shivers. After the dominance we've had over the Phins all these years, I could see something like that playing out.
Is it just me or does anyone else think Leberfeld is a really poor writer? I mean, significantly worse than the other Jets beat writers. The sentence in bold just looks like it wasn't written by a professional writer. And isn't Canton the Hall of Fame for individual players? Can you say a team is headed for Canton? Sorry to sound like I'm venting, just wanted to see if anyone else agreed with this.
Leberfeld sucks, to be plain. I give Cimini a lot of crap for the way he inserts bias into an article, but he is probably the best of the beat writers in terms of writing ability.
gotta love it tho....id rather see a knock out drag em' out division..... rather than the pussy nfc west.....where if you close your eyes and wish hard enough you'll win that shitty division....
