Part Six of a Nine Part Series in which Sharkey and the ManInBlack preview the entire NFL Season, all the way through the Super Bowl.  Today, the guys take a look at the AFC East.

Sharkey Says:

Without question, this should be one of the more entertaining divisions in football this season.  The Jets are the most talked about franchise in the NFL lately, and that should continue for most of the season.  They’re fun to watch, a throwback to the old style of football.  And their larger than life coach, Rex Ryan, is a walking soundbite.  You tune in anytime he has a microphone, because he’s always saying something worth hearing.

Throw in the Patriots, who are once again defending divisional champions, and will now have a fully healthy Tom Brady at the helm (don’t forget, it takes 2 years to fully recover from the injury he suffered), and the Dolphins, whose offensive attack is always entertaining, and this is a division that we’re all going to want to watch, from start to end.

But there is one team in this division that isn’t so much fun, and that’s those lovable Buffalo Bills.  They don’t have an offensive line.  They don’t have a quarterback.  They don’t have a defense at all.  Their coaching situation is mediocre at best, unless you buy into the Chan Gailey experiment.  The only thing they had going for them last year was their backfield, with Marshawn Lynch and the emergence of Fred Jackson.  So it makes perfect sense that the Bills wasted their #9 overall draft pick on a running back, right?  I like CJ Spiller, but he’s not the answer in Buffalo.  It’s going to be a long winter up there, and I have to imagine I’m being generous by saying the Bills will finish this year with a 2-14 record.  Yikes.

The Dolphins are a team on the rise, certainly.  They had a great offseason, particularly with the additions of Brandon Marshall and Karlos Dansby, whom I particularly wanted the NY football Giants to acquire.  We all know how good their line is on offense, and what their running game is capable of.  And, I’m not as skeptical of Henne as a lot of people are.  He showed flashes last year, and certainly can be a game manager.  In this offense, if you can hand the ball off, and just throw it up towards Marshall 10 times a game, you can be a successful QB.  I’m more worried about their defense, particularly their super-young secondary.  In a division where Randy Moss, Wes Welker (maybe), Santonio Holmes, Braylon Edwards, Jericho Cotchery, and Lee Evans roam the outside, switching to an uber-aggressive Mike Nolan man-coverage defense with this young group may ruin the season.  All told, I think they’ll be good enough to finish 9-7, which probably won’t be good enough to make the playoffs.

It definitely won’t be good enough to finish ahead of the New England Patriots, who I like to finish 11-5.  With the offseasons in Miami and New York getting all the press, it’s become popular to write off this Patriots team for this reason or that.  I don’t buy it.  I think this team is actually better than 11-5, but I have fears of giving them a better mark because of their tough schedule.  In addition to playing the Dolphins & Jets twice each, the Pats will get visits from the Bengals, Ravens, Vikings, Colts, and Packers, as well as find themselves traveling to Pittsburgh and San Diego.  Even so, this team is poised to remind everyone why they were the team of the decade, and a special season may be on the horizon.

Of course, all anybody wants to hear about is the New York Jets.  They seem to be setting themselves up for a Super Bowl or bust type season in New York, and that has disaster written all over it.  This is the same team who was 7-7 last year, played two teams who didn’t start any of their starters, made the playoffs, played two great games, and then lost in the conference championship.  True, they had a great offseason, and the potential is there for them to be even better.  But how many times have we seen that said about the Jets?  More than once, that’s for sure.  Call me a critic, but I see 9-7 in their future again.  I recognize the fact that a 12-4 season is possible for this team, but I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised by a 7-9 campaign, if truth be told.

ManInBlack says:

We can agree on the pending awfulness of the Bills.  I even went one better than  you and gave them a 1-15 record.  I think they’ll be, by far, the worst team in the NFL this season.

I also had the Dolphins at 9-7.  They’ve made improvement, but Henne didn’t impress me at Michigan and he doesn’t impress me now.  The Wildcat doesn’t work nearly as well when that first running back goes down to injury.  Adding a stud reciever would be more impressive if they had a traditional system.

As far as the Pats go, I’m right around where you are, albeit one less win.  When I thought about the schedule, and Wes Welker going down, Brady’s questionable mindset, their terrible running game, I wanted to just give them a 9-7 record and call it a day.  But with Tom Brady (that bastard) I just can’t honestly say I think they’ll lose more than 6 games.  So that’s what I said.  The Patriots will end up 10-6.

Here’s where I call you Ozzy Osbourne, because you’re obviously on the Crazy Train.  The Jets at 9-7?  The team that went to the AFC Championship game last year?  The one that had probably the best defense in the AFC last year?  The one that added a pro-bowler and future hall-of-famer to back up their current running back?  I know Revis is holding out and that’s a big deal.  But unless Sanchez’s arm falls off the Jets are quite definitely a playoff team, even without Revis on the corner.  I have them going 11-5 and winning the division.

Sharkey Says:

Yes, I know the Jets were great last year.  Especially on defense.  And I know they added Antonio Cromartie and all his children.  And LDT.  And Santonio Holmes (what a steal).  But I can’t help but think of all the times the NY Jets were supposed to be great, and they stumbled.  And I also can’t help but remember that this team shouldn’t have even made the playoffs last year.

If the Indianapolis Colts had played their starters in week 16, for the entire game, they would have won, and the Jets would have been eliminated.  If that happened, and they finished 8-8, and missed the playoffs, would everybody be crowning them the team to beat right now?  I don’t buy it.

They have the potential to be a special team this year.  A Super Bowl is certainly within reach.  But I have a hard time believing that will happen.  I have a feeling this team is being talked about way too much.  When teams get this hyped in August, one of two things happen.  Most of the time, the team struggles, and seriously underperforms.  Or, every now & then (think, 2007 Patriots), the team just explodes, and lives up to that hype (except for in the last minute of their season, in the case of those Patriots).  I don’t see this team exploding.  9-7 is what I’m sticking with.  Maybe 10-6.  We’ll see.