The NFL 2014 1: The AFC

AFC East: 1. NE 2. MIA 3. NYJ 4. BUF Personnel Person Bill Belichick has finally given Coach Bill Belichick some talent to work with in the secondary, and if Revis stays healthy this will be the best Patriots defense in many a moon. The supporting cast of a declining Brady has been improved as well, although it remains second-rate for the 13 games Gronkowski isn’t on the field. So they’re clearly the class of the division. A lot of analytical types seem to like the Dolphins for the wildcard. I still see team that needed to beat one of two pretty bad teams with nothing to play for and were outscored 39-7, so I’ll believe it when I see it. One of those were the Jets, who weren’t as good as their 8-8 record. Their offense should be improved. Eric Decker is like the Mariners getting Austin Jackson; freed in the Cato sense from Peyton Manning he’s not going to be great, but he’s a massive upgrade on Stephen Hill. But the Jets, with plenty of cap space to work with and plenty of good corners available, because of the injury to Millner are starting the year with a secondary consisting of “some guys Rex Ryan just met at a Hooters,” all of whom are better than Kyle Wilson. Their front 7 is good and Ryan is good, but not that good.  The Bills might not be the worst team in the league, but they may well have had the worst offseason. One of the best players from their excellent 2013 defense left, another is out from the year. They lost one of the league’s best defensive coordinators and replaced him with a guy whose team gave up 478 yards to a team in a massive blizzard. And the Sammy Watkins trade might actually be worse than the Browns’ Trent Richardson debacle. Sure, Watkins is a more valuable prospect ex ante than Richardson, and has to have more after-the-fact value virtually by definition. But two first rounders, when the second is likely to be a top 5? For a wideout on a team that probably doesn’t have an NFL QB? That’s crazy. It’s a sad situation.

AFC North: 1. CIN 2. BAL(*) 3. PIT 4. CLE Any of the top 3 could win the division. I think there is, to be frank, a hint of racism in the amount of credit the Bengals’ coordinators have gotten for the team’s success. Lewis was, after all, the most important coach on a Super Bowl champion that won with Trent Dilfer (the head coach was an offensive coach who never got another head coaching job,) and his record with the Bengals has been good. Their defense is still the best in the division, and while you can’t win a Super Bowl with Andy Dalton we know you can win a division with him. The Ravens are due for some bounceback. The Steelers still have the best QB in the division and you have to respect that. But the defense is in steep decline, and while it’s possible that Legendary Coordinator Dick LeBeau still has his fastball at 76, I note again in the second last game Tim Tebow started as an NFL QB he torched the Steelers for 316 yards and no picks. The next week, we went 9-26 against the league’s 28th-ranked pass defense, and although he was 24 and healthy now has a job getting Woody Paige’s coffee or something. The Browns have a better long-term prognosis than the Bills, and I like the Pettine hire, but with Gordon out the future won’t be this year.

AFC South: 1. HOU 2. IND 3. TEN 4. JAX A little contrarian. I like everything about the Texans except the QB, admittedly a major problem. The Colts are the opposite; the QB is going to the Hall of Fame if he stays healthy, but his supporting cast is what you’d expect from a team run by numbnuts who would trade a #1 pick for a replacement-level player at a position where a good player wouldn’t merit one. They could win again anyway, of course, but I think this year they’ll regress a bit and if the hits start catching up with Luck….I don’t see either the Titans or Jaguars having any real chance of competing in a weak division.

AFC West: 1. DEN 2. SD (*) 3. KC 4. OAK What can you say about the Broncos? The best team in the conference got better. The star is 38 and two years removed from a season-cancelling neck surgery that caused some numbnuts to wonder what his value would be going forward, but that’s the only real question. I’d pick the Chargers to win the Central South without hesitation. I’ll say more about Rivers when I get to the Giants, but I think his performance last year is for real, and the defense should be better. Everyone thinks the Chiefs will regress and I don’t disagree, but they’re certainly not bad. The Raiders are likely to have the worst record in the conference.