Changing of the guard. No Brady. The AFC East is going to be contested between the Bills and Dolphins for the foreseeable future. Bills are ahead of us right now, but we're close. Jets should end up last this year, and hopefully for every year till eternity.
Old man Josh Allen, lol. We'll see how long the current batch all stick around. From 1986-1991, Marino, Kelly and O'Brien were all starters for their teams the whole era. It would be impressive in this era if we had six straight seasons like that.
We're going to see growing pains from all of them. Well, Allen has already had his and we see how fast and how much he's grown. We absolutely need to keep Tua upright for him to reach his potential. Some have already crowned Jones as the second-best QB in the division, which is as crazy as it is presumptive. We need to crash his party and let our guy do his thing next week.
I think it will be more competitive this season with the Bills, Pats, and Fins all in the conversation to win the division, then the Jets 3-4 games back. If I had to guess today- Bills 14-3 Dolphins 12-5 Pats 11-6 Jets 7-10 I also think in the coming years, this could be a really tough division from the top down. I still wish Miami was in the AFC South since we're the southern-most team!
I've wished that the Dolphins were in the AFC South - or something like it - since they started talking about realignment in the late 90s. At my most recent use of the system at playoffpredictor.com, I came up with this: Buffalo 13-4 Miami 10-6 New England 8-9 Jets 4-13 Interestingly, in that scenario, the Dolphins would have been the #6 seed in the AFC with 9, 10, or 11 wins, the way that it worked out. But I've also had ones where they not only missed the playoffs with 10 wins, but were the 10 seed.
To me, the Colts definitely aren't in the South, so just switch us with them and we'll play the Texans, Jags and Titans twice each per year. I think we'd be a virtual lock for the playoffs going that route, whether it's wild card or division winner.
The story goes that that's what the league wanted to do back in 2002, and Huizenga insisted that the Fins be in the East so that he could get Jets and Patriots fans flying down to the game every season. Incredibly short sighted. Imagine how different the past twenty years had we and the Colts swapped places.
I dislike divisional playoff systems in all sports. I want to see as level a playing field as possible. I'd either scrap it entirely, or have a shifting divisional system based on the previous year's performance, where each division includes a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier team. Travel isn't the hindrance it once was, so in the trade off between more potential travel vs. greater balance and competitiveness, I'll take the latter at the cost of the former.
I wouldn't go that far. I like stability and predictability. And not to send the thread in a different direction, but I think that a happy middle ground would be a system that uses four divisions, instead of eight, where the division winners are the top four seeds, and then the wild cards are all made up of the next ten teams. No more AFC/NFC, and not even an Eastern and Western conference (although I would arrange the divisions into Northeast/South/Central/West). Just the 14 best teams.
Peter King has us at least 3rd in the AFC E with New England being the team to make the playoffs this year, not Miami: "Here’s how I see the pennant races, with the wild cards asterisked and teams not in the playoffs last year marked with a # sign: AFC Seeds 1 Buffalo 2 Kansas City 3 Tennessee 4 Cleveland 5 New England*# 6 L.A. Chargers*# 7 Baltimore*" https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.c...diction-nfl-picks-fmia-peter-king/?cid=fmiatw What I will say about New England over Miami is that the OL and DL are expected to be solid, with great fundamentals. Miami still has big question marks in run D and OL play. If that proves to be a downfall for Miami this year it has to solved by next year or Grier needs to take a hike.
That and RB. Actually, everything surrounding the running game is the main source of question marks for the Dolphins this year. However, if that's the only thing that needs to be addressed next year we're really in good shape. I like how Flores + Grier are building this team. They understand it's a passing league first so they addressed QB, WR, etc. first and then worry about what's left. It's pretty clear though that the OL issues we've had are to a good deal due to bad coaching. It's not lack of investment draft-pick wise or through FA going back 20+ years. So if the OL specifically fails this year, they need a new coach in addition to new talent.
Define "new coach" here. Are you talking about replacing the line coach, or replacing Flores (or everyone/all coaches)?
Just the OL coach. Unless Flores bombs this year I think we have the most important piece of the puzzle in place for building a consistent contender. Ross may have finally gotten it right at the most important position: HC. Main remaining question is Tua. If we happen to have gotten both of those right... watch out!
I really think so too- on both accounts. The good news is that with the right coach and a great defense, the QB doesn't have to be all-world to make this a winning team. Even as the starter, I think Tua has a couple of years to continue developing before a switch there would come in question (worst case scenario, of course...I don't think it comes to that).
I would say all offensive coaches. But Flores can't afford to keep doing that year after year, so we're likely stuck with this batch for a while, and all we can do is hope for the best.
