The Chase for the Offseason Championship Overreactions

 

What a week. Free agency opened up last week and we’ve seen some of the most exciting action out of AFC East teams that we’ve seen in years. (it’s certainly been more exciting than the regular season for three of the four teams) The race for the offseason title is as hot as ever and the Dolphins can’t just sit and rest on their laurels this year.

Here’s your up to date standings:

In last place we have the New England Patriots. It’s kind of funny, just this morning I picked up a couple of special “Super Bowl Champion” posters that I had made by a local artist and a colleague and I were looking at the players featured on it. Half of the guys on there are now employed by other teams (but one is still the highest paid corner on the Pats). We’ve seen a lot of players come through Foxboro over the past few days and have heard that just about all of them are “great fits for the Pats” or even that they are discussing contracts. Most have signed elsewhere (probably because they want to be paid in American dollars). The Pats did bring in one good player (who this humble reporter said they should have signed last year) in Scott Chandler. Chandler will provide some nice insurance against the inevitable Gronkowski injury, but many have speculated that this signing falls under the “Julio Lugo” category; where a player kills your team and only your team so you sign him and he turns out to suck.

Next up we have the Buffalo Bills. The Bills have made some interesting moves over the past week. They acquired arguably the worst starting QB in the NFL, who is at least familiar with the other teams in the division. At least they don’t necessarily want him to start and he will have to compete for the job with the incumbent back-up EJ “Where’s the” Manuel and ex-Baltimore back up Tyrod Taylor. They also brought in a real winner of a human being in Percy Harvin; a player that has all the talent in the world but is a world class A-Hole; so much so that he wore out his welcome in Seattle, a team that consists solely of world class A-Holes. Rex and company are biding their time, putting a lot of eggs in a basket made of Clay. The Bills are actually a pretty good team, if they can find someone capable of throwing the ball, things could get interesting.

I think the top spot is too close to call, so I’m going to list the Jets first in our two way tie for first only because it’s been longer since they made a real “significant” move.   Bringing back Cro could be considered significant, but seeing as he was going to the Jets no matter what once the signed Revis, I don’t really count it. Adding Brandon Marshall could be interesting; Marshall is a very talented player who could really help the Jets’ passing game, if they can find someone to throw him the ball. What is really keeping the Jets out of sole possession of the top spot though is the fact that reports are surfacing that Jets’ brass was “impressed” by Josh Freeman. Anyone who could be impressed by that pig of a QB would scare the bejezous out of me as a fan. The Jets have improved their team vastly in the past week; so much that it’s entirely possible that they draft outside the top 10 next year.

And next we find the Miami Dolphins. The Fins added a big large personality to their team last week (we covered that last week though), but what’s impressed me more is that they cut bait with his partner in that beachside burger joint. Exiling Mike Wallace to that joke of a franchise in the Twin Cities is hilarious on multiple levels. The first, while it does improve their standing in this year’s race for the offseason title, it also puts an asterisk on their 2012 title (how can you have the title when the centerpiece of that championship was a fraud?). The second is the fact that MN was the only other team in the Wallace sweepstakes the first time around and he chose Miami mainly because the weather in Minnesota blows and no human would ever willingly choose to live there. The Fins’ replacement for Mikey Cheeseburger is a suitable one and in my eyes a huge upgrade; Kenny Stills. Stills is a dynamic young player and he only cost the Fins an over-paid and under-performing LB in Ellerbe. Taking advantage of the Saints fire sale was a savvy move that I wasn’t sure the Fins front office triumvirate was capable of pulling off.

The race is sure to only get hotter from here, so stay tuned to see what will come next. (Will the Pats continue to do nothing but let guys go? Will Rex get his man? Can the Jets finally overtake the Fins for offseason dominance?)