2021 Week 12 AFCE Overreactions

 
Woo hoo!!! We did it. I didn’t think it was going to be possible this season, but the AFC East actually was able to post an undefeated, 4-0 record this week! The division is shaping up to look kind of like what we thought it would look like at the beginning of the season, two very good teams battling for first, one team middling and looking to mess things up for everyone else, and the Jets.
 
Let’s get right after it. Since we’re all winners, 4th place this week will go to the Jets. Young Zack Wilson made his triumphant return to the playing field this week and continued his habit of being extra terrible in the first half, and
pretty OK in the second. He opened the afternoon by doing his best to one up Mark Sanchez in the dumbest plays of time category. He failed, I mean his effort was nice, but as asinine of a play as it was, it didn’t nearly rise to Butt-Fumble levels. The Jets’ defense is improving, the front seven had a nice little day and even the secondary looked as if they belonged on an NFL field for once. All in all, nice little day for the Jets.
 
And third place is gonna have to go to the Fins. Would you look at this? The once-maligned Dolphins seem to have woken up and are actually playing with some heart. It’s almost like once the pressure of making the playoffs was all but taken away, the team was able to just loosen up and start to play fancy free. Yes, their opponent was led by the formerly unemployed Cam Newton, who proceeded to suck so terribly that he was benched for a former XFL player, but a win is a win and the Fins have now strung together a nice little winning streak. This streak really won’t have much of an effect on this season, but it is sure to save a few jobs on the coaching staff and will no doubt trigger an offseason spending spree that makes Bill Belichick’s drunken bender from this past offseason look like pocket change.
 

Now, we’ll move on to the two teams that actually matter.

 
Second place goes to the Bills. For two reasons, first they beat up on a terrible team, and second they are still in second place in the real standings. But the Bills got the medicine that they desperately needed after being embarrassed last week. They went on the road to a comfortable dome and thoroughly dispatched a bad opponent. True, Josh Allen was pretty awful in the first half, but the two studs from my fantasy team, Diggs and Knox were able to bail him out again and again. Those two have really turned out to be excellent players. The running game still leaves something to be desired, with the running backs averaging a robust 2.9 yds per carry, and the defense lost their best player but all in all the Bills appear to be back on track. This week marks what is arguably the biggest regular season game the Bills have played in over two decades, let see what they are made of.
 
And first place goes to a familiar team, in their familiar place. The Pats. The Patriots welcomed the AFC’s #1 seed to Foxborough on Sunday. Yes, they were without their top three offensive weapons, but the Pats kicked the shit out of them. There were a lot of things that weren’t great, Mac Jones missed some big throws and even slid two yards short of a first down, pop up and vehemently signal “first down”, only to realize that he wasn’t even close. The run defense looked a bit like the Swiss variant that we’d seen in the early part of the season, but all that said, they came up with turnovers when they needed them and allowed the Titans to pee down their legs when they had to go. Now, this is the biggest regular season game the Pat have seen since Mr. Brady left town. JC Jackson, who is currently working on getting a massive payday from the Dolphins next spring has to prove that last year’s torching at the hands of Stefon Diggs was an anomaly and young Mac has to prove that he is capable of going into a hostile environment and taking down a quality opponent. There are no more moral victories.