AFC East

Dumping my thoughts on each team here; I’ll rank them within the division and eventually make my picks.

Buffalo Bills

They’re the model for team building; they pour their resources into the correct spots, and when a free agent leaves, they have contingency plans for their contingency plans. This offseason, they lost Jerry Hughes and Mario Addison; luckily, they had just doubled up EDGEs in the previous draft, and grabbed another in 2020 for good measure. Greg Rousseau, in particular, seems like a great bet to break out this year or next. Oh, and they had money lying around to grab Von freakin Miller. On the o-line, they’ve made sure to just remain good enough; they lost Darryl Williams and John Feliciano, but Ryan Bates seems likes ready-made starter, and they bought low on Rodger Saffold and Dave Quessenberry; the latter is an upgrade on Spencer Brown at RT, but Brown didn’t completely embarrass himself as a third-round rookie last year and he should make for a decent swing tackle. At corner, they let Levi Wallace go, but Dane Jackson can probably hold things down well enough, and they took Kaiir Elam in the first. At WR, Emmanuel Sanders is out; but that’s probably addition by subtraction since it means more Gabe Davis. Cole Beasley is out; Isaiah McKenzie probably should have been playing more often than he was, and they stole Khalil Shakir in the fifth (also Jameson Crowder is there). And that’s all of their areas of concern.

Josh Allen is more likely to win an MVP than regress at all; more so than Pat Mahomes, he and his team seemed to have completely figured out the 2-high looks by seasons end (save for the weird Falcons game). They ran the ball more often and more effectively with Devin Singletary, and while that’s not ideal when your QB is Josh Allen, Allen held the ball longer, cut down on risky throws and hunted big plays, which he’s extremely good at. The WR depth chart is at least 5 deep with legit NFL players, including a legit alpha and a potential breakout, and while Dawson Knox doesn’t really move any needles, he’s a reliable redzone threat.

I don’t really trust any defense week to week, in the regular season, in the NFL, but the Bills have an argument for best in the league. The one concern spot is the Jackson/Elam tandem at corner, but it’s not as if Levi Wallace was hugely reliable in coverage; he gave up catches and usually made the tackle, and that’s basically true of Jackson as well. Even if Von regresses a bit, the edge depth is encouraging. Should either position get hit with an injury/ineffectiveness, I would expect the Bills to be pretty aggressive around the trade deadline. When the team is making a perfectly defensible RB pick in the second round, they can clearly afford to part with a draft pick or two.

Sean McDermott is right around a top 5 head coach in my book, and he’s really become the model for what I think teams should be looking for. A CEO type with a defensive background, but with a clear vision for what his offense will look like; he’s usually on the right side of fourth down decision making (granted Buffalo does appear to be near the bottom of the league in penalties). Leslie Frazier got some head coach looks, but he’s back, and his track record in Buffalo has been great (unclear how much is Frazier and how much is McDermott, but the pair clearly are on the same page). The biggest loss, seemingly, is OC Brian Daboll, replaced by QB coach Ken Dorsey. It has been pointed out, however, that Dorsey’s arrival, not Daboll’s, coincided with Josh Allen’s leap into superstardom. I don’t want to dismiss the loss as unimportant, but Dorsey was going to be an OC this season either way, and the continuity and overall offensive vision is encouraging.

I’m inclined to say that the Bills are the safest bet to make the postseason, and probably the objective favorite to win the AFC. It’s hard to see what could go wrong here, outside of the obvious, catastrophic injuries that could occur (then again, if this were Case Keenum instead of Allen all season, I’d still not count them out entirely of a wild card spot). Strength of schedule appears neutral.

DK Bets I might make: Bills alt over 12.5 wins +175,

Miami Dolphins

Miami tried to tank and, I guess fired their good head coach for not tanking hard enough. Then they tried to tamper and get Tom Brady and Sean Payton. In the end, they have Mike McDaniels trying to fix Tua Tagovailoa with help from Tyreek Hill, Terrod Armstead, and a bunch of other free agent signings. Horrible owner, pretty underwhelming draft results during said rebuild, but in the end, there’s a lot to work with.

Tua has been a borderline starter through two years (generously). In his defense, he’s dealt with injury and has been paired with a brutal offensive line. To the latter point, behind the same offensive line, Ryan Fitzpatrick was much, much better, and Jacoby Brissett was basically the same. So, the offensive line excuse doesn’t entirely work, but again, this has been an injured QB with barely a season’s worth of starts through his age 22 and 23 seasons. He was extremely productive in college, he deservedly stole Jalen Hurts’ starting job, who is now considered the better NFL QB, and was drafted fifth, which the consensus found far less controversial than Justin Herbert going right after him at six. I was lower on him than the consensus coming out, but it’s not like Josh Rosen or Zach Wilson, where it’s extremely clear immediately that the pick is unsalvageable. For one thing, the deep ball wasn’t really a problem in college. Granted, Devonta Smith was his 4^th receiver at one point, but there seemed to be more zip on the ball than there is now. The big-time throws downfield weren’t a glaring deficiency; he rated far better than Herbert in that category in his final season. He also had some more improvisation/rushing to his game in college. That’s basically been gone in the NFL (and when he tries, it doesn’t turn out well).

Tua’s game so far has been almost entirely short, safe throws. He sits in the pocket and throws very quickly. He is much, much more productive out of play action (not good, but he is *really* bad without it). When the play calls for a deep shot, he’s much better throwing to the boundary; he doesn’t throw deep middle.  His worst work is intermediate, and he’s completely averse to throwing to his right in that area. 5 for 15 in 2021 with 3 turnover-worth plays. Of his 57 throws to the center, he produced 1 BTT and 5 TWP. None of this speaks to confidence in his arm, and he probably shouldn’t have any. Even when we’re given examples of deep balls he threw in recent practices, or his one long completion in the preseason, the ball is clearly underthrown. He’s openly admitted to wanting to improve his arm strength. His health *should* be back to whatever it’s going to be, but he doesn’t seem to want to run, and the arm still doesn’t seem good enough. If this offense is going to be vertical, or if it wants to utilize the width of the field, this is a problem.

I don’t know what to make of Mike McDaniels. There’s very little one *could* know about him; the safe assumption is that he’s a Shanny guy. So, maybe the move would be to compare Tua to Jimmy Garoppolo. In 2021, Tua was far more productive on play action than Garoppolo, and a little worse without it. Garoppolo threw off play action 26% of the time, Tua 43%. In total, Tua had 2 TWP for every BTT, Garoppolo had 2.5. Garoppolo graded better throwing intermediately, with no alarming issues throwing to any one quadrant, but the TWP/BTT ratios are roughly the same. So, Jimmy has been a little better than Tua, and if Tua had gone without play-action with the same frequency as Garoppolo, it probably would have gone much worse. Fortunately, there is an (extremely limited) preseason sample that suggests McDaniels isn’t beholden to that same ratio; in the preseason, Tua completed 9 of 10 passes off PA and 3 of 5 with no PA (with a sack). He held the ball a bit longer, and even threw most of his passes intermediate. So, in a very limited sample, against backups, he showed improvement, but more importantly, it appears McDaniels is willing to lean into Tua’s strengths. Last bit on the preseason: again, the deep ball completion to Tyreek Hill was a bad throw. Most starting QBs throw a TD pass there.

I’ve said an insane amount about Tua but figuring out what Miami’s offense might look like is really the most important thing here. It seems like a PA heavy attack with lots of Chase Edmunds and Raheem Mostert. They will hit the occasional deep shot to Tyreek Hill because he is Tyreek Hill. I’ll even allow that Jaylen Waddle will turn those short crossing routes into….deeper crossing routes. Terron Armstead and Connor Williams will raise the OL’s floor quite a bit, the team will be more conscious of  providing some extra protection, and maybe Tua can unlearn some bad habits. But due to Tua’s limitations, this still doesn’t feel like an offense defenses need to respect at every level. No one is suddenly going to ramp up the 2 high because of Tyreek alone. Teams will still dare them to throw and I’m not betting on Tua making them pay often enough. My guess would be an improved, reasonably efficient offense that still ranks in the mid to low teens. Also, they should just trade Gesicki.

I’m sick of writing about Miami but, defense. Basically , same personnel as last year. They have a lot of corners; 2 of them are definitely very good, and Nik Needham taking all of Justin Coleman’s vacated snaps is a good thing. For all I know, Noah Igbinoghene is on the roster bubble but I kind of liked him as a developmental guy before his draft so, maybe he’ll develop. They also added Melvin Ingram as another pass rusher, and Jaelan Phillips will probably improve in his second season. Raekwon Davis should bounce back from a down 2021. They could use a better partner for Jevon Holland at safety and a better off ball LB would be a nice luxury, but there’s pretty solid depth across the board. Feels like a top 10 defense.

I basically said all I can possibly know about McDaniels. He seems like he understands offense. I have my doubts about a young guy that hasn’t been a real coordinator coming in and running the entire roster; a part of me fears that this could be a Nagy-ish type situation; lots of big fun ideas and window dressing to cover up a limited offense, but maybe not a ton of regard for the big picture. But again, I have no idea. The schedule is pretty neutral, so I’m confident the Dolphins won’t be bad. But there’s a hard ceiling.

DK Bet: no idea, maybe a couple bucks on an exact win total between 8-10.

New England Patriots

The second year post-Brady was basically what I expected. They made the playoffs because the AFC was a little soft in the middle, they went hard in FA, and Belichick is Belichick. The way it played out was a little surprising, though. Mac Jones, who I assumed would just be a run-of-the-mill caretaker, flashed a bit, and was pretty easily the best rookie QB. After starting 1-3, they barely beat the Texans, then barely lost to Dallas, and then won 7 in a row, culminating in an unwatchable Monday night win in Buffalo, after which, I was convinced Belichick was going to do it AGAIN (actually, I think it was week 10 when they beat Cleveland 45-7 that I became convinced). Luckily, they went 1-3 after their late bye, and got absolutely stomped by Buffalo in the wild card round, and that was the end of that.

Mac Jones was the highest graded rookie QB, and put together a season that, ahead of the draft, I would have assumed was his ~80^th percentile outcome for any year at any point in his career. He threw 13 picks but had only 15 turnover-worthy plays. There were plenty of bucket throws that shocked me. Regardless of what happens from here, I was wrong about him. That said – beginning in week 12, he was *bad*. His PFF pass grades before that point came with a low grade of 58.6, his second game, and a couple of 90+ games sprinkled in. Beginning in week 12, 4 of his 7 games fell below that, and a fifth came in at 61.5. His only good game was against Jacksonville, during which he was pressured 3 times total. There isn’t a clear trend in his stats that explain exactly what happened; he was pressured a bit more in those games, but he also played well in some other games against good defenses that pressured him early on. The biggest difference appears to be that he held the ball longer, and his big-time throws became as frequent as his turnover worthy plays. Overall, despite the Patriots always staying committed to the run, he was better without play action than with. He threw to the deep boundaries with success but struggled to the deep middle. I’d like to think Mac did well when coddled and was exposed against good defenses, but that feels like a stretch. It almost feels like a confidence thing.

New England had a really good offensive line despite giving 7 guys a good amount of playing time; they traded Shaq Mason to make room in their lineup for Michael Onwenu. Mason is probably a little better, but it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that Trent Brown is now moving to left tackle to supplant the perfectly fine Isaiah Wynn, and Wynn is apparently in danger of losing his job to Yodny Cajuste. It’s hard to question Bill Belichick sometimes, but that doesn’t make any sense. On top of that, Ted Karras is being replaced by Cole Strange who was a perfectly fine day 2 prospect that the Patriots drafted in the mid first round. The line is good either way, but it seems like they’ve chosen to make it worse. In terms of weaponry, the Patriots added Devante Parker, who feels like a nice fit with Jones as a boundary receiver, but are also apparently phasing out Kendrick Bourne, who has a nice rapport with Jones. They have a large stable of decent backs and they will run all of them out of the I formation often.

The defense was excellent last year after a bad 2020; given Belichick’s history, 2020 is probably the outlier. But losing J.C. Jackson, an interception machine, hurts. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to assume the turnovers can’t continue and move on, it does seem like a bad idea to let him walk for nothing and to replace him with some slot corners. Elsewhere, the IDL is very strong, and there is something like 4-5 solid edge defenders. I would expect a step back for the defense, but the personnel will let Belichick be versatile, and I’m sure he’ll find the right mix of coverages to minimize the impact of the Jackson loss.

Coaching-wise, just assume Belichick will get the absolute most out of his team. If this weird Cajuste thing doesn’t work, or if Strange struggles, he’ll just throw Wynn back in there (unless he’s traded). He will make the defense work. The obvious issue is the offensive coaching staff. There is no offensive coordinator, and Matt Patricia and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Joe Judge, are abject failures. There is absolutely zero chance that they can run an offense. I’m not ruling out that the offense can work, but it’s in the totally plausible scenario that Belichick puts someone else in charge

All in all, I don’t think this is a very talented team, and the schedule is on the tougher end. If Mac Jones can match what he did last season in spite of Patricia and Judge, in spite of the fact that Mac Jones week 12 and on was exactly what I thought he was entering his draft, then *shrug*, I’m wrong about Mac Jones again.

Bets: Meyers + Parker over 1350.5 receiving yards +100, under 8.5 wins +100

New York Jets

First things first: I have zero confidence in Zach Wilson. I didn’t hate him as a prospect, but I was lower than most, and there was nothing in his rookie season that inspired any confidence. Like, as a prospect, you saw the fun Mahomesy type stuff (but those of us that bothered to look past that could see that his zip to the boundaries were often dead ducks). I don’t know what I expected, but it’s basically all the same backyard stuff with him and he is not talented enough to pull that off. And now he’s hurt. Slight hedging of my bets: He’s got a nice deep ball. He can run, and maybe he’ll find the same fairy godmother that turned Josh Allen into an accurate passer. If he would just calm the hell down and pick his spots, he might be okay. But right now, I don’t think he’s a talented QB.

So given that, it doesn’t really matter what my thoughts are on the remainder of the roster, so luckily, I can make this quick! They screwed up the draft, IMO. Sauce Gardner was fine; Garrett Wilson seemed fine at the time, but he seems like he occupies the same space as Elijah Moore, who I like a little more. I would have targeted an X later in the draft and passed on Wilson. Jeremiah Johnson is not one of their 3 best EDGE defenders and it’s not like he’s young. Breece Hall will probably be pretty good; I have no idea if he’s better than Michael Carter.  I love Braxton Berrios for what he is, I like Elijah Moore a lot, and Mekhi Becton’s injury might have improved a pretty solid O-line, given that it necessitated the Duane Brown signing. Honestly, Joe Flacco might be able to make this team move a bit if Wilson is hurt.

The defense was pure trash last season, but there was some talent already present, and some new talent brought in. DJ Reed and Sauce Gardner has a shot to be around league average. Jordan Whitehead plays his role well. FS is a question, but I like Ashtyn Davis; he should probably get the nod over Joyner. There are like 10 mildly interesting names along the DL, but Quinnen Williams needs to take a leap and anchor the whole thing. Carl Lawson returning and reportedly dominating in camp is a good sign. I don’t like their scheme, and I still don’t think the coverage unit is very good, but I can definitely see a path to competence.

Coaching, the jury is still out on Saleh. He seems like a thoughtful guy. The Jets were middle of the pack in penalties, and from what I can find, he’s positive EPA in fourth down decisions. It’s a problem for me that he seems to be committed to Pete Carroll-style D. Mike LaFleur does the whole Shanny thing which is fine; hard to judge him without competent QB play, but my man hung 45 on Cincinnati with Mike White so there might be something there. Schedule ranks as very tough; somehow the toughest in the division despite having come in last. If Wilson is anything at all, the rest of the roster is strong enough to surprise. I just don’t think he is.

Bets: Parlay Robert Saleh COY Breece Hall OROY +27450 (longshot just in case)