AFC East Roundtable - Who Has the More Dangerous Defensive Line/Secondary Combination...

AFC East Roundtable - Who Has the More Dangerous Defensive Line/Secondary Combination Heading into 2015?

Ian Logue

Looking at the rest of the AFC East, when it comes to the best defensive line and secondary combination, the Patriots have their work cut out for them.

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The best D-Line is probably the bills now after the Richardson suspension, all are very strong and the addition of Suh makes the fish more dangerous.

LBs us at 1 and the bills at 2, secondary is a toss-up, maybe the Jets, Bills are strong.

It's all about the defense playing as a unit. BB is far and away the best defensive coach in the division. He gives us the edge despite the other teams having more talent

Not to discount Rex Ryan as a good coach, but people are overrating Ryan's effect on the Bills defense and the complexion of the division overall.

Ryan's top defenses with the Jets were consistently loaded, and performed consistently as well as Mangini's defenses did before him. The only difference maker for Ryan was the emergence of Revis as an all pro. If you put 2009/2010 Darelle Revis on Mangini's 2006 or 2008 teams, they would play as well as Ryan's.

Also being ignored is the potential effect of Todd Bowles as new head coach. He turned a fairly mediocre looking roster into a force from 2012 - 2014 (remember how Arizona dismembered the Pats offense in 2012?). Bowles has better talent now in New York than he did in any year in Arizona.

The Jets will have the best defense in the AFCE this year. (too bad their offense will prevent them from finishing .500).

I love how Matt Barbato's lead-in to the discussion is this summation of recent D-line activities:
The AFC East is loaded on the defensive line. Leonard Williams fell to the Jets at the sixth pick of the draft, the Dolphins made a major splash by signing Ndamukong Suh, the Bills hired Rex Ryan to run an already excellent unit led by Mario Williams and Marcell Dareus while the Patriots said goodbye to iconic nose tackle Vince Wilfork.

Yeeeeeaaaaaah, so I'm sure the rest of this discussion isn't slanted by absurd bias at ALL.

Never mind that the Patriots get a healthy Dominique Easley this year, they also (just like the Jets) stumbled into a steal at their draft position, getting Malcom Brown to plug that Wilfork loss. Miami, Buffalo and NY all have fantastic D-lines, but the Patriots aren't just 'down Vince Wilfork', they should be much improved from an already-solid unit with the new arrivals (Brown/Easley/Grissom/Flowers)

Barbato can enjoy his teams fortieth consecutive off-season Super Bowl championship, we'll be laughing at the Jets by early-November as we do every year.

hambone1818 said:

I love how Matt Barbato's lead-in to the discussion is this summation of recent D-line activities:
The AFC East is loaded on the defensive line. Leonard Williams fell to the Jets at the sixth pick of the draft, the Dolphins made a major splash by signing Ndamukong Suh, the Bills hired Rex Ryan to run an already excellent unit led by Mario Williams and Marcell Dareus while the Patriots said goodbye to iconic nose tackle Vince Wilfork.

Yeeeeeaaaaaah, so I'm sure the rest of this discussion isn't slanted by absurd bias at ALL.

Never mind that the Patriots get a healthy Dominique Easley this year, they also (just like the Jets) stumbled into a steal at their draft position, getting Malcom Brown to plug that Wilfork loss. Miami, Buffalo and NY all have fantastic D-lines, but the Patriots aren't just 'down Vince Wilfork', they should be much improved from an already-solid unit with the new arrivals (Brown/Easley/Grissom/Flowers)

Barbato can enjoy his teams fortieth consecutive off-season Super Bowl championship, we'll be laughing at the Jets by early-November as we do every year.

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I tried to be fair and balanced, although I hate Suh and took a swipe at him but other than that I tried to be objective. But D-Line and secondary will be an issue for the Patriots early on to start the year and we'll probably have everyone complaining like they do every year about how this team has no shot at winning anything based on struggles in Sept/Oct, but by December when they figure things out everyone will be saying "they never doubted them". So goes a typical season every year here in New England

Ian said:

I tried to be fair and balanced, although I hate Suh and took a swipe at him but other than that I tried to be objective. But D-Line and secondary will be an issue for the Patriots early on to start the year and we'll probably have everyone complaining like they do every year about how this team has no shot at winning anything based on struggles in Sept/Oct, but by December when they figure things out everyone will be saying "they never doubted them". So goes a typical season every year here in New England

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No doubt...and good writeup Ian, always hard to be objective but I think it's fair to say the D-lines in this division are very, very strong, and a few of the secondaries should be above average to elite as well. I just found it incredibly slanted in Barbato's lead to say the Pats big move this offseason was to lose Wilfork, when Easley (basically a lost year in 2014) and Brown should really solidify this unit.

The Pats D-line may not be quite as strong as others in this division, but I think it's well above average and paired with a dominating LB corp their front 7 matches up with anyone in the NFL.

Define dangerous.

Best at keeping you from scoring - Buffalo.
Dangerous - 2 cheap shots per year from Suh?

When you ask the question like that you neglect the LBs. Every one of the other AFCE defenses have large question marks at LB. The Pats have probaly the the best set of LBs in the league.
So the LBs augment the good Pats DL.

The way I see it, the best units in the AFC East are as follows: DL - Bills, LB - Patriots, DB - Jets. Seems a little strange to combine only two of the three units of a D.