Free Agency Has Begun! (Under reactions)

 

Free agency began yesterday and what do you know, a few teams in the division got better and one got a whole lot worse, here’s your up to the minute standings:

In last place, with what is now easily the worst defense in the division, we present the New England Patriots. I guess Bob Kraft really needed that new ivory back-scratcher, because the Pats let the best defensive back of the generation walk for a number less than what we all thought it would take. It’s great that the Pats have spent the better part of a decade searching for an elite corner that can allow Bill and friends to run the type of defense that they like to run and once they found that corner they won the Super Bowl and now they are content to suck again. Along with the loss of Revis, the Pats horribly miscalculated Brandon Browner’s value and he is now going to play for someone else as well. If I were Tom Brady I’d just retire now, it’s not like your organization is going to give you the support you need to win another title. Just so Pats fans can be braced for what’s to come in the 2015 season, here’s a handy table showing the notable receivers that you will be facing and the corners that you have available to cover them:

 

Ok, let’s move on to happier teams. In third place we find the Buffalo Bills. The Bills ran out to an early lead in the title chase with their acquisitions of Rex and Shady, but the Whale-man’s delay in free agency drops them back a bit in a very close race. They got Jerry Hughes back, which is a major deal, but it looks like we are going to have to be patient to find out what the final standings will look like for the Bills.

In third place we’ll put the Fins. The Dolphins seriously upgraded their defensive front by adding arguably the best defensive tackle in all of football. Many “experts” think it’s a little overkill for the Fins, but hey at least they know that they’ll beat the Pats twice this year. Suh got a truckload of money from Mikey T and Co, and while he has proven in the past that he will work hard when he’s making a ton of money, now he has the lure of beachside cheese burgers to distract him…Now all they need to do is get Tanny locked up to his $150MM deal and Old Joe will be pleasantly surprised when he comes in off the porch swing for OTA’s.

And in first place leading the rival Pats by a score of 24-0 (thank you NY Post for that headline), we find the New York Jets. The Jets made a splash last night when they brought their prodigal son, Darrell Revis home to the swamps of New Jersey. They paid “a lot” of money for Revis, but not nearly as much as most of us thought it would take so for the first time in my life I will say well played Jets, well played indeed. By bringing Revis back (and by all accounts they will now get Cro back to reunite the band), the Jets pulled off one of the biggest coups in NFL history. They traded an injured Revis to the Bucs essentially for Sheldon Richardson, Revis played his rehab season for the Bucs who promptly lost him to the Pats, then the Jets got their generational player back and all it cost them was some money and seeing their rival win the SB in a year when they themselves were going nowhere anyway.

The tides are changing in the AFC East, while I don’t believe that anyone will take the regular season crown from the Pats this year, the end is far closer than most Pats fans will want to believe. The Pats won’t advance further than the AFC Title game this season, and I for one think that they deserve to lose the division.