2002 realignment was the worst thing to ever happen to the AFC East

[footbull3196]

8 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Since 2001, who was the best QB in the NFL not named Brady? Win % identical vs AFCE compared to field. 

That doesnt make the rest of the AFC East good, that just means that the Patriots dont play down to their level of competition and approach all teams equally.  That's to be expected from them, especially at this point in time

[dtait93]

3 hours ago, lancerman said:

The 2010 Jets were better than all those AFC South teams you mentioned even if they had one or two wins. That 09/10 Jets team was easily among the most deadly defenses in football and had an overall stacked roster. In 2010 their issues was they came against one of the better Patriots teams in recent memory

Not to derail the thread but... the 2008 Titans were easily better than the 2010 Jets.

Our defense only allowed 14.6 ppg compared to the Jets 19.

Our total defense was only slightly worse, allowing 4698 yards compared to the Jets 4664 yards.

Our pass defense allowed 3196 yards and 12 TD's compared to the Jets 3210 yards and 24 TD's.

Our rush defense was only slightly worse allowing 1502 yards on 3.7 ypc and 12 TD's compared to the Jets 1454 yards on 3.6 ypc and 11 TD's.

Our defense forced 31 turnovers compared to the Jets 30.

Our defense sacked the QB 44 times compared to the Jets 40.

Our scoring offense was slightly better, averaging 23.43 ppg compared to the Jets 22.93.

Our total offense was worse, only gaining 5018 yards compared to the Jets 5616.

Our passing attack was worse, throwing for 2819 yards and 13 TD's compared to the Jets 3242 yards and 20 TD's.

Our rushing attack ran for 2199 yards on 4.3 ypc and 24 TD's compared to the Jets 2374 yards on 4.4 ypc and 14 TD's.

Our offense turned the ball over 17 times compared to the Jets 21 times.

Our offense allowed 12 sacks compared to the Jets 28.

The 2008 Titans had a +14 turnover differential compared to the 2010 Jets +9.

The 2008 Titans had 8 Pro Bowlers and 4 1st Team All Pro's compared to the 2010 Jets 3 Pro Bowlers and 2 1st Team All Pro's.

The 2008 Titans boasted the better offensive playmaker in Chris Johnson who ran for 1228 yards on 4.9 ypc and 9 TD's along with 43 receptions for 260 yards and another TD.

And lost but not least, a prime and motivated Albert Haynesworth may have actually killed Mark Sanchez.

 

So to recap, we scored more points and gave up less points, forced more turnovers and gave up less turnovers, forced more sacks and gave up less sacks, easily had the better defense, had the better playmaker on offense, had more Pro Bowlers, had more 1st Team All Pro's, and even though we ran for 175 less yards and averaged 0.1 less ypc we scored 10 more TD's so I would give the edge to our rushing attack. The only phase of the game the 2010 Jets were clearly better than the 2008 Titans was in the passing attack and even then Sanchez was much more susceptible to interceptions than Collins (14 interceptions to Collins 9) and interceptions was where our defense feasted (of the 31 forced turnovers 20 were interceptions). Our defense against Sanchez would have been a blood bath.

[Malik]

13 minutes ago, PapaShogun said:

The Jets, Bills, and Dolphins could have just gotten their act together all these years.

This is true. It doesn't help that none of these teams really attempted a single rebuild in the Brady era. These are the QBs the teams have drafted in the first 3 rounds since 2002.

Bills - JP Loseman (2004), EJ Manuel (2013), Josh Allen (2018)

Dolphins - Josh Beck (2007), Chad Henne (2008), Ryan Tannehill (2012)

Jets - Kellen Clemens(2006), Mark Sanchez (2009), Geno Smith (2013), Christian Hackenberg (2016), Sam Darnold (2018)

Granted all of them have been more mediocre than outright awful to get the top pick. There's an argument that in 2006 the Jets should have gotten a QB with the 4th pick considering Pennington was constantly injured already at that point in his career but every QB in that draft was pretty bad and D'Brickashaw Ferguson was a good lifer who went to multiple pro bowls. 

The Dolphins missing out on Matt Ryan was probably their worst decision as an organization during this period considering they had the #1 pick 

[rich homie]

Tangential point - the 2007 AFC South, with the 13-3 Colts, 11-5 Jaguars, 10-6 Titans, and 8-8 Texans remains the best division ever since the realignment.

[SotanKing]

2 hours ago, Asciimo said:

Cherry picking there a bit. Favre and Rodgers have almost always won the division unless Rodgers has been hurt. Bears were good for like 2 years. Lions suck. Vikings have sucked until recently. Green Bay is has been just as fortunate as the Pats and the past colts.

LOL I literally selected last 10 years (basically almost ever since Rodgers has become starter)...how is that cherry picking? Minnesota even won the division when Rodgers wasn't hurt and they did do it thrice. 

[Asciimo]

1 hour ago, upriser7 said:

LOL I literally selected last 10 years (basically almost ever since Rodgers has become starter)...how is that cherry picking? Minnesota even won the division when Rodgers wasn't hurt and they did do it thrice. 

why 10? OP brought up 18 years. packers have thrashed the division long over 10 years and picking 10 is not comparable.

[lancerman]

4 hours ago, rich homie said:

Tangential point - the 2007 AFC South, with the 13-3 Colts, 11-5 Jaguars, 10-6 Titans, and 8-8 Texans remains the best division ever since the realignment.

Haha they weren't even the best division that year. 

Cowboys 13-3 (number 1 seed in the NFC)

Giants 10-6 (Super Bowl champions)

Redskins 9-7 (wildcard playoffs)

Eagles 8-8. 

Don't let the 2 extra wins fool you, the NFC East was easily better that year and fielding far more competitive teams. The Jaguars were pretty good but they got worked by the Patriots in the playoffs and the best team in the divisions (the Colts) were slumping and couldn't get by an injured Phillip Rivers

[lancerman]

5 hours ago, PapaShogun said:

The Jets, Bills, and Dolphins could have just gotten their act together all these years.

They've all made the playoffs at one point or another, all had winning records over that course of time, they've all had stellar units. The only thing they really lacked was a QB. Which you could say about every team without an elite QB. Peyton/Brady/Rodgers won their division the majority of the time. Brees is the only one who didn't and that's a combination of 1. they were saddled with historically bad defenses, 2. Ryan/Cam were in the division and played at elite levels to top them. If you have a tier 1 elite QB it's going to take some combo of a bad team and the other teams having strength at QB to knock you off. Even in the AFC West Rivers was winning it until his team fell apart, then Cassell had that one great year and Tebow had that one year where he pulled wins out his butt, and then Peyton kept winning it until he retired. 

This league is centered around the QB position and it's difficult to compete with an elite QB in your division no matter what. It's not really a surprise that the ONE TIME since 2003 the Patriots lost the division was when they lost their QB but still arguably had their most stacked team. That's just what this league is. If you have an elite QB you really have to mess up to not constantly win the division and even then you probably still need an up year from an opponent. For instance the Patriots were trash in 2013 both the Jets and Dolphins were 8-8. Both took wins off the Patriots that year. The Patriots still went 12-4 because Brady was pulling off game ending drives and miracle wins out all year against some pretty decent teams. So it ended up not even being close. And it still left the Patriots at a point where they would have won 6 out of the 8 divisions in the league that year. And the two divisions they didn't were the two Super Bowl teams in Denver and Seattle which they were one win behind and they beat one of those teams. That's just the luxury having an elite QB gets you even when you have a disaster of a team. 

The Patriots average between 12-13 wins a season. There out of division record and divisional records are pretty much on par. That would win most divisions each year.

[TecmoSuperJoe]

2 hours ago, lancerman said:

They've all made the playoffs at one point or another, all had winning records over that course of time, they've all had stellar units. The only thing they really lacked was a QB. Which you could say about every team without an elite QB. Peyton/Brady/Rodgers won their division the majority of the time. Brees is the only one who didn't and that's a combination of 1. they were saddled with historically bad defenses, 2. Ryan/Cam were in the division and played at elite levels to top them. If you have a tier 1 elite QB it's going to take some combo of a bad team and the other teams having strength at QB to knock you off. Even in the AFC West Rivers was winning it until his team fell apart, then Cassell had that one great year and Tebow had that one year where he pulled wins out his butt, and then Peyton kept winning it until he retired. 

This league is centered around the QB position and it's difficult to compete with an elite QB in your division no matter what. It's not really a surprise that the ONE TIME since 2003 the Patriots lost the division was when they lost their QB but still arguably had their most stacked team. That's just what this league is. If you have an elite QB you really have to mess up to not constantly win the division and even then you probably still need an up year from an opponent. For instance the Patriots were trash in 2013 both the Jets and Dolphins were 8-8. Both took wins off the Patriots that year. The Patriots still went 12-4 because Brady was pulling off game ending drives and miracle wins out all year against some pretty decent teams. So it ended up not even being close. And it still left the Patriots at a point where they would have won 6 out of the 8 divisions in the league that year. And the two divisions they didn't were the two Super Bowl teams in Denver and Seattle which they were one win behind and they beat one of those teams. That's just the luxury having an elite QB gets you even when you have a disaster of a team. 

The Patriots average between 12-13 wins a season. There out of division record and divisional records are pretty much on par. That would win most divisions each year.

Fair, but three teams over the course of 15 plus years have had more than enough time through different regimes to find a quality starter. They could invested more priority every at the position, but chose to go elsewhere at times. The 2002 division realignment is irrelevant. 

[lancerman]

59 minutes ago, PapaShogun said:

Fair, but three teams over the course of 15 plus years have had more than enough time through different regimes to find a quality starter. They could invested more priority every at the position, but chose to go elsewhere at times. The 2002 division realignment is irrelevant. 

Okay let’s put this perspective, over that 15 year period the Jets had Pennington who was good but injury prone, Favre who was good but left after a season, Sanchez who liked he could be good at the beginning and then fell off a cliff after he lost all confidence. That isn’t for lack of trying. The Dolphins spent the better part of the past decade trying to make Tannehill work and let’s be real here a lot of people thought he showed promise, he’s just a classic trap QB whose good enough to give you hope and fearful that you won’t find better and bad enough that he’s probably not getting you over the hump. He is a poor man’s Andy Dalton. Most seasons he passes for around 4000 yards and has been getting a high 80’s to low 90’s passer rating with an average completion percentage. He’s not really a trash QB, he’s a lower tier franchise QB. Then the Bills got Bledsoe who was a bonafide franchise QB and one of the best of the 90’s. Then they floundered for awhile trying things out and then got fooled by the first year of Fitzmagic. And everyone thought he was a stud until he showed what he really was. Then they got Tyrod who people raved about in 2015 and who people in sports media and on here threw a tantrum over getting benched. Even this year the Jets suck but they got the guy everyone thought was the best in his QB class and the Bills suck and they got the guy everyone thought was the most physically talented of it. 

My point is, it’s easy to use hindsight to act like they’ve been dickinh around. They’ve all at multiple points had midrange guys that people thought could be the answer that didn’t pan out. They all had guys that people on here now call trash that we’re viewed as having strong potential when they started on the team. 

Im even looking at the drafts. The biggest miss they all had in that timeframe was Brees who went at the end of the first. They were all out of position to get Palmer, all three major QB’s of the 2004 draft (Ben was taken right before the Jets pick), Rodgers in 05 was before any of them, 

The biggest real misses were the Bills could have got Jay Cutler and the Dolphins Matt Ryan, they all could have got Andy Dalton and of course everyone missed on Russell Wilson. I mean I guess you could count Kaepernick but he’s not in the league right now soooo. My point is they really didn’t have great options and did the best they could with what they had. There were a few missteps but overall pretty understandable 

 

[jvmillion83]

Don't blame the Patriots.  

Besides the Jets '09-11 era,  the other three teams have failed miserably to assemble any kind of foundation to stay competitive for more than two years.  More importantly,  Chad Pennington is the best AFC East QB we've seen after Brady and speaks volumes how much of a failure these three other teams have been to a competent franchise QB.  If you're the Buffalo Bills there's no excuse for settling for the likes of Losman/Edwards/Fitzpatrick/EJManuel/Orton/Cassel/Tyrod Taylor over a 12 year period.  If I'm a Bills fan, I'm fuming that the organization's been blind for so long on putting capital on this, and no EJ Manuel was never one (He was an obvious overdraft at the time).  I'm pretty confident however that Darnold will stabilize the Jets into being a perennial threat to win the AFC East for the next decade.  

[lancerman]

15 minutes ago, jvmillion83 said:

Don't blame the Patriots.  

Besides the Jets '09-11 era,  the other three teams have failed miserably to assemble any kind of foundation to stay competitive for more than two years.  More importantly,  Chad Pennington is the best AFC East QB we've seen after Brady and speaks volumes how much of a failure these three other teams have been to a competent franchise QB.  If you're the Buffalo Bills there's no excuse for settling for the likes of Losman/Edwards/Fitzpatrick/EJManuel/Orton/Cassel/Tyrod Taylor over a 12 year period.  If I'm a Bills fan, I'm fuming that the organization's been blind for so long on putting capital on this, and no EJ Manuel was never one (He was an obvious overdraft at the time).  I'm pretty confident however that Darnold will stabilize the Jets into being a perennial threat to win the AFC East for the next decade.  

Yeah this is pretty revisionist.  

[rich homie]

5 hours ago, lancerman said:

Haha they weren't even the best division that year. 

Cowboys 13-3 (number 1 seed in the NFC)

Giants 10-6 (Super Bowl champions)

Redskins 9-7 (wildcard playoffs)

Eagles 8-8. 

Don't let the 2 extra wins fool you, the NFC East was easily better that year and fielding far more competitive teams. The Jaguars were pretty good but they got worked by the Patriots in the playoffs and the best team in the divisions (the Colts) were slumping and couldn't get by an injured Phillip Rivers

Just in terms of wins, the 2007 AFC South has more wins than any other division since the 2002 realignment. That's the whole point of the 2 extra wins

[TecmoSuperJoe]

1 hour ago, lancerman said:

Okay let’s put this perspective, over that 15 year period the Jets had Pennington who was good but injury prone, Favre who was good but left after a season, Sanchez who liked he could be good at the beginning and then fell off a cliff after he lost all confidence. That isn’t for lack of trying. The Dolphins spent the better part of the past decade trying to make Tannehill work and let’s be real here a lot of people thought he showed promise, he’s just a classic trap QB whose good enough to give you hope and fearful that you won’t find better and bad enough that he’s probably not getting you over the hump. He is a poor man’s Andy Dalton. Most seasons he passes for around 4000 yards and has been getting a high 80’s to low 90’s passer rating with an average completion percentage. He’s not really a trash QB, he’s a lower tier franchise QB. Then the Bills got Bledsoe who was a bonafide franchise QB and one of the best of the 90’s. Then they floundered for awhile trying things out and then got fooled by the first year of Fitzmagic. And everyone thought he was a stud until he showed what he really was. Then they got Tyrod who people raved about in 2015 and who people in sports media and on here threw a tantrum over getting benched. Even this year the Jets suck but they got the guy everyone thought was the best in his QB class and the Bills suck and they got the guy everyone thought was the most physically talented of it. 

My point is, it’s easy to use hindsight to act like they’ve been dickinh around. They’ve all at multiple points had midrange guys that people thought could be the answer that didn’t pan out. They all had guys that people on here now call trash that we’re viewed as having strong potential when they started on the team. 

Im even looking at the drafts. The biggest miss they all had in that timeframe was Brees who went at the end of the first. They were all out of position to get Palmer, all three major QB’s of the 2004 draft (Ben was taken right before the Jets pick), Rodgers in 05 was before any of them, 

The biggest real misses were the Bills could have got Jay Cutler and the Dolphins Matt Ryan, they all could have got Andy Dalton and of course everyone missed on Russell Wilson. I mean I guess you could count Kaepernick but he’s not in the league right now soooo. My point is they really didn’t have great options and did the best they could with what they had. There were a few missteps but overall pretty understandable 

 

Depends who you ask regarding hindsight. Bledsoe had a good career, but he wasn't so good he wasn't replaceable in his prime. Which is what happened when he got dealt to Buffalo, and then cut from Buffalo for JP Losman after 3 years (which was stupid on Buffalo's part as he wasn't as bad as Losman). I never thought Tyrod was good. Same with Tannehill. Dolphins should have already moved on. A "trap QB" isn't an excuse to be content with mediocrity. Move on. Tannehill has had his chances. At least draft someone high to compete. That's what these teams should be doing every three or four years. Or take two quarterbacks high in the same draft. It's not like their other approaches have worked. Three teams have had more than enough time to find one guy though. Miami didn't pull the trigger on Brees with his injury concerns, but then did so on 32 year old Pennington. Buffalo gave Fitzpatrick a fat contract before they really knew what they had in him. I don't believe the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins are all just victims of circumstance this entire time. 

[Soko]

23 hours ago, cddolphin said:

Back this up with stats or let this idea die; just a couple months ago the raw data showing the AFCE to be a top-3 division when it comes to inter-division play was posted in another thread, and that was AFTER removing the top performers from each division to make sure the Pats weren't propping the division up, statistically speaking.

That was me. 

I’ll post it for like, the 4th time since the myth never dies.

13 hours ago, footbull3196 said:

Ok, since he didnt provide any stats to back up his painfully obvious statement, I will.  Since 2002, the Jets are the 2nd best team in the AFC East record wise.  Theyve managed to compile a record of 118-138 between 2002 and 2017 with a grand total of 5 playoff berths in 16 seasons and 1 divisional title.  Keep in mind, this is the next closest competitor to the Patriots in the AFC East.  Meanwhile, the Dolphins have been 115-141 with 2 playoff berths in 16 seasons.  The Bills have been 110-146 with 1 playoff berth in 16 seasons

If that isnt the definition of sheer incompetence over a sustained period of time, then I have no idea what is

Except where it mattered most, at QB.  And at running back.  And at wide receiver.  And on offense in general.  Their roster wasnt stacked, their defense was.  Yes, they won a playoff game against the Patriots.  That was an isolated incident

Just when I thought I'd seen it all, I come across someone trying to make the argument that the rest of the AFC East has been strong at one point in time in order to give even more credit to the Patriots than they've already earned.  I mean is this a joke

You’re completely missing context. 

Jets go, 11-5 make the playoffs. Dolphins and Bills have bad records. Next year, Dolphins go 9-7, make playoffs, Jets and Bills have bad records. Next year, Bills make playoffs, Jets and Phins have bad records. So on the whole, all three teams will have losing records, but the division as a whole will have had playoff contenders every year (not that it always does, but that’s just a hypothetical). I’ll tag you in the following post with actual data.