The Myth of the Easy AFC East: The Definitive Guide

[Wheelman]

The Myth of the Easy AFC East, the Definitive Guide | Patriots Dynasty

 

[TennisBallHead]

None of the slappies in the AFC East have gone better than 11-5 (and that's only happened like three times total) during this entire 18 year run. I think almost all 28 other teams have at least one 12-4 season in that time span.

Their division stinks, and it helps them get home playoff games and byes. It's okay.

 

[TennisBallHead]

8-8 was good enough to win the division. Only the NFC South matches that.

 

[Adam Seward]

Their division stinks, and it helps them get home playoff games and byes. It's okay.

Who ya got in the playoffs troll? Hope to curb stomp your team if they’re still playing.

 

[TruthSeeker]

None of the slappies in the AFC East have gone better than 11-5 (and that's only happened like three times total) during this entire 18 year run. I think almost all 28 other teams have at least one 12-4 season in that time span.

Their division stinks, and it helps them get home playoff games and byes. It's okay.

Choosing one metric to classify how good a division is - particularly a metric that is impacted by having a dominant NFL team in the division, is poor analysis. How many divisions have two 12 win teams in them in any given year? It’s pretty rare (although it happened this year). The Patriots get 12 wins more often than not.

Just admit the obvious; the rest of the AFC East looks bad only because the Patriots have been so good. They are actually a little better than average compared with the other divisions. It’s not surprising, actually. They have to try harder than teams in other divisions in order to win their division.

 

[TennisBallHead]

I'm pretty sure the Jets, Dolphins, and Bills would still suck if the Pats weren't there.

It's an easy division, just deal with it.

 

[RobertWeathers]

We've been through this exercise before. Some years the afce has had winning records vs other divisions and some years not.

If the Pats sucked they'd be knocked out of the playoffs every year (like 05-10 and 2012 -2013)

 

[PatsWSB47]

I'm pretty sure the Jets, Dolphins, and Bills would still suck if the Pats weren't there.

It's an easy division, just deal with it.

They would but the only reason you trolls bring that up is to try and diminish the Pats success in the league. If you're right then once they played outside of the division you'd see a clear drop off...but you don't. Then especially in the playoffs you'd see an even bigger drop off. The Pat's are dominant. Just deal with it.

 

[PatsWSB47]

None of the slappies in the AFC East have gone better than 11-5 (and that's only happened like three times total) during this entire 18 year run. I think almost all 28 other teams have at least one 12-4 season in that time span.

Their division stinks, and it helps them get home playoff games and byes. It's okay.

Read the article and then try and make your case.

 

[Kontradiction]

The division does suck hard lately, but if you look back (starting in 2001) and research the years where the AFCE has fielded two playoff teams for the AFC, you would actually be surprised.

 

[italian pat patriot]

I N C R E D I B L E

 

[Urgent]

Interesting.
The author sets a thesis and performs a lot of analysis to support his thesis. But little of the analysis is relevant.
If you want to compare the Jets Bills and Dolphins to the rest of the league the simple comparison is to look at their record against teams outside their division. Is that group above or below .500 over the sample period?

 

[tasmlab]

Outside of maybe Pennington and Tannehill (both frequently injured), the other East teams really haven't found or had a long-term guy at QB for the past two decades. Am I forgetting someone? It seems like it would be hard to be good outside of some lucky seasons.

 

[40yrpatsfan]

There hasn't been a real threat from any of them to win the division, except briefly when Rex took over the Jets. But there's been many decent 8-8 or 9-7 teams that manage to beat us once or twice per year out of 6 games.

When we go 5-1 against the AFC East (.833), that's consistent with a 13-3 overall record, meaning we beat non-division opponents at the same rate. When we go 4-2 (.667), that's consistent with an 11-5 record. We almost always go either 5-1 or 4-2, so more or less at the same rate as we beat all other opponents. Overall we average a record of 12-4 (.750, the article says .740 to be exact), which is right in the middle of 5-1 and 4-2. So it's clear we beat non-division opponents at the same rate as everyone else.

 

[1960Pats]

We've been through this exercise before. Some years the afce has had winning records vs other divisions and some years not.

If the Pats sucked they'd be knocked out of the playoffs every year (like 05-10 and 2012 -2013)

This type of discussion is a direct result of the idiotic 4 team division setup and the huge variation in schedules that each team plays. It's especially stupid when a team get's a playoff spot with a worse record simply because they finished better than three of the other 15 teams, thus becoming a division "champion."

 

[TB_Helmet]

Interesting.
The author sets a thesis and performs a lot of analysis to support his thesis. But little of the analysis is relevant.
If you want to compare the Jets Bills and Dolphins to the rest of the league the simple comparison is to look at their record against teams outside their division. Is that group above or below .500 over the sample period?

The Jets and Dolphins are both right at .500 outside the division and the Bills are below. But if you rank the worst team in each division, the Bills have the best record outside of the division of those 8.

 

[maust]

The author's numbers include the Bledsoe year of 2000, the Brady/Belichick win %'s by division:
NFCE .813
NFCN .850
AFCN .806
AFCE .794
AFCS .788
NFCS .750
NFCW .667
AFCW .647
Considering where the franchise is located, what Northern or Eastern division do you think the "sh!tty division" whiners would rather see the Pats in? The correct answer, of course, is not whatever division their pathetic team plays in.

The .806 vs the creampuff AFCN is even more impressive when you realize in 2 of every 3 years NE only plays the division winner of that craptastic collection.

Teams are built first and foremost to win their divisions. The Pats are the reason the other teams in the division struggle achieving sustained success and why they hire/fire so many coaches & GM's. The Pats have swept the division twice in the Brady/Belichick era, in 2007 and 2012.

The reality is the AFCE has more right to complain about the rest of the league not carrying their share of the load against the Pats than the league does.


Numbers don't lie, trolls do.

 

[Nikolai]

The AFCE is crap hawt take is crap. Here's an analysis I did a year ago, so it doesn't reflect this year's stats:

Division Comps since 2002 (division realignment)

Winning percentages by division against teams outside the division:

• AFC East: 0.545
• NFC East: 0.523
• NFC South: 0.519
• AFC North: 0.505
• AFC West: 0.498
• NFC North: 0.488
• AFC South: 0.480
• NFC West: 0.447

Team winning percentages against teams from outside the division:

• New England: 0.769
• Pittsburgh: 0.616 (not even close)
• Indianapolis: 0.594
• Denver: 0.581
• Green Bay: 0.575 And so on...

Further, the Patriots only have 33.6% of their wins coming from inside the division. Here's how that ranks against the top 5 teams since 2002:

• Indianapolis: 40.6%
• Green Bay: 38.7%
• Pittsburgh: 35.9%
• Denver: 35.9%
• New England: 33.6%

 

[SHOWTIME15]

The Myth of the Easy AFC East, the Definitive Guide | Patriots Dynasty

I’d like to see Pittsburgh’s winning percentage against their own division as a comparison. Has their been a better team in the AFC other than NE and Pitt since 2000? Maybe Colts?

 

[TB_Helmet]

By the way the link in the OP is eerily similar to my post here:

Tough division games

Especially the whole “take the top team out to make it a fair comparison” point.