The AFC East, actually good! A think piece

Andy B Sports

With the Pats on a much needed bye week and da Bills playing the Jets on TNF, there's a very good chance that going into week 10 we're going to be looking up at the 7-2 Bills in AFC East. When Buffalo traded away their best WR and their best CB to start the season, and saw the ghost of Anquan Boldin retire, it seemed they were playing for the future. I wrote about those trades earlier in the year and gave the Bills a ton of credit for loading up draft assets. They looked poised to make a run at us in a few years. I figured they would ride Shady into the ground this year until he literally imploded into a pile of dust on the field. Ride Shady they have, and they've played good D, but despite doing less than nothing in the air they somehow some way keep winning.

I thought their early success was cute, but I fully expected them to have fallen off by now. They traded away Dareus in a shock move, and then in an even bigger surprise they turned right around and traded for Kelvin Benjamin. If you had told me at the beginning of the year that the two Buffalo games in weeks 13 and 16 would be the most important games of the year I would have asked you where you get your weed. But it's not a joke anymore and I'm sick of it. Hey Buffalo...



Anyway, that was my long winded (who me?? never!) way of telling you that what started as a 'fuck off Buffalo' think piece led me down the rabbit hole of the AFC East. I wanted to complain that this year was weird. The Bills look playoff bound. The supposed to be winless Jets would be SECOND PLACE in the "stacked" AFC West, and the Dolphins are over .500.

Then I was like wait, the AFC East is always good. People always give us shit saying the Pats have cake walked to 14 of the past 16 AFC East crowns because the division sucks. Well I big to different good sir, I beg to differ. I hope you're into numbers, because I'm about to go all Charlies Eppes on you. (Jesus Christ, was that a Numb3rs reference?? The bad CBS show? Yea, it's America's most watched Network. Watch a promo for me one time)

I broke down the winning percentage per conference from 2001 until 2016. In 2001, the conferences were East, Central, and West. For that one season I counted Central stats for North calculations and South calculations going forward. Probably not the most scientific plan of attack, but last time I checked I traded my lab coat for my blogger glasses so give me a break.

Granted the Pats success has a big impact on the overall AFC East score, but they are just one team, so don't even bring that shit around me. Every division has a good team or a bad team affecting the scores. Let's take a look.

Drum roll please................................

Winning percentage over the last 16 years

AFC East .527
AFC North .504
AFC South .489
AFC West .498
NFC East .511
NFC North .489
NFC South .474
NFC West .463

Would you look at that, eh? Again, certainly the Pats being the winningest team in any sport ever over the last billion years boosts those numbers, but the three other teams in the division have to win games too. If the Pats went 16-0 every year and the three stooges went 0-16 we would consistently be the worst division in football.

And it doesn't stop there!

Number of times a division finished with the highest winning percentage in the league per year
(I gave ties a point to each division with the same score)

AFC East - 6
AFC North - 2
AFC South - 2
AFC West - 2
NFC East - 2
NFC North - 2
NFC South - 3
NFC West - 2

Number of times a division finished with a winning percentage under .500 per year

AFC East - 3
AFC North - 6
AFC South - 8
AFC West - 8
NFC East - 7
NFC North - 8
NFC South - 6
NFC West - 10

Average rank for each division in total winning percentage against the rest of the league
(low is good, like if you finished first every year your average rank would be 1, morons)

AFC East - 2.87
AFC North - 3.87
AFC South - 4.68
AFC West - 4.37
NFC East - 4.37
NFC North - 4.43
NFC South - 3.56
NFC West - 5

BLOODBATH CITY!!! Is this a joke?? The AFC East is the winningest division in football. It's the most consistent division in football. It's the most dominant division in football.

The AFC East has been a cake walk for the Pats? Wrong. More like the NFL is a cake walk for the Pats, despite facing the toughest competition. Sorry, I'm not sorry.

I admit I think it's Nutsville, USA that we might be in second place on Thanksgiving, but am I worried about Buffalo?? Let me answer your question with a question. Does Tom take days off? You tell me.