Welcome back to the 30 Team Parlay. In the leadup to the NFL season, i’m going to be previewing every division to find the best betting options. If you think I hate your team, you are probably right. You are all whores, especially if you love a team in today’s division: The AFC East
Buffalo Bills
2017 Win Total: 9
2018 Under/Over: 6.5
Jesus, just as i’d begun forgetting that this butt-ass Bills team made the playoffs last year… For those that successfully blotted it out of their memory: the Buffalo Bills made the playoffs last year in spite of packing it in at one point, benching Tyrod Taylor, and letting some youth church ministry contest winner named Nathan Peterman live out his dream of having the worst quarterback performance in football history.
The Bills botched a rebuild. They should have nose -dived the season to acquire a better draft pick to spend on a wide receiver they’d misuse for a couple years before trading. Now THAT’S the Bills I know and love. Instead, they continued to run LeSean McCoy into the ground harder than if they were drilling into an asteroid to save earth. McCoy’s knees are basically made of Wheat Thins and Big League Chew at this point in his career.
On the free agent front:
They signed Vontae Davis hoping he isn’t finished(he is)
They signed Star Lotulelei for $50 million hoping he isn’t a system lineman(he is)
They signed AJ McCarron in the hopes that, in spite of the fact that he has never played consistently as a starting quarterback because he was stuck behind Andy Dalton(!!!) on the Bengals depth chart, that he can turn into a functioning starting quarterback(he won’t)
They also drafted Josh Allen, after becoming the last team at the top of the draft to realize that Allen has worse aim than a North Korean nuke, and has faced the California Penal League equivalent of competition in college. In 4 years, when Allen is competing for a third-string spot in Miami or some other quarterback Siberia, he’s gonna wonder where it all went wrong. Well, buddy, i’m here to tell you where it all wrong.
Buffalo was the only football team demure enough to listen to the advances of noted C.H.U.D. Donald Trump and has a winning culture in the same way that Subway has a high end food culture. Their best player ever is OJ Simpson. They chose the worst quarterback draft possibly ever to overdraft EJ Manuel over such football luminaries as Geno Smith, Mike Glennon, and Landry Jones. This is the only team the NFL was willing to give to Canada, and Canada politely gave it back.
It was the most Buffalo thing ever to break their asininely long playoff drought with a team as spectacularly dumpster firey as this team was, only to get beaten by the Jaguars in a game that set offensive football back 50 seasons.
2018 Strength of Schedule: 18th
My Pick: So. Fucking. Far. Under
Bills Mafia might be the best fans in football. They deserve a better team to root for. Since the NFL isn’t spending any of that concussion settlement money on the people who need it anyway, I’ve got a solution: we transplant the Bills Mafia away from the AFC East to a better franchise that deserves them. My nomination? The Green Bay Packers. The climate and general of level of alcohol intake is similar enough that this feels like a natural transition. Could you imagine some cocky opposing player(looking in your direction, Stefon Diggs) trying to make the Lambeau Leap only to have the newly minted Packers Mafia powerbomb him through a table? THAT’S the NFL I want to watch.
As for the Bills? They suck. And they are a LeSean Mccoy injury from a good, old fashioned epic suck. This team isn’t winning more than 6.5 games unless they play all of their games against the University of Montana.
Since this writing, LeSean McCoy has been implicated in the brutal beating of his estranged girlfriend. Even though it doesn’t appear that McCoy was directly involved, it sounds like he had some connection to the person who got into the woman’s house. Roger Goodell is going to bring the hammer of God down on McCoy if he gets implicated. This is gonna be some Ray Rice level shit. And you know who the backup running back is in Buffalo? Chris. Fucking. Ivory. Chris Ivory is barely an XFL starting running back at this point.
LeSean McCoy is barely able to stay healthy every season, and that doesn’t even count the inevitable suspension that he’s gonna get served, and the Bills were short-sighted enough to have him be backed up by a football playing scarecrow. Jesus. This team is gonna win 2 games all season without McCoy. We already got the buffalo wings. Just give Buffalo back to Canada so we don’t have to fucking deal with them ever again.
Miami Dolphins
2017 Win Total: 6
2018 Over/Under: 6.5
What was your favorite memory of the Jay Cutler era? Cutler is unquestionably the runaway star of his wife’s new reality TV show, where his ambivalence pops off the screen. He isn’t the TV star that America wants, but he is the TV star that America needs.
Back for the Dolphins is the baseline for mediocrity himself, Captain Vanilla Ice Cream, white Jason Campbell, Ryan Tannehill. And if(when) Tannehill gets injured, he is being backed up by…Brock Osweiler? Wait, that can’t be right. Nobody would sign Osweiler. He is the Anthony Scaramucci of quarterbacks. He is basically the Chocolate Rain of throwing passes. Popular for about a minute. Now a level of rage comes across you upon seeing/hearing him.
Brought in to help Tannehill? Jesus, they dug Frank Gore out of his tomb in Indianapolis for the pleasure of him averaging two-and-a-half yards per carry while announcers breathlessly hail his training regimen and ability to stay healthy, conveniently leaving out the fact that he hasn’t been able to get more than a 12 yard run since the George W. Bush administration.
Also brought in to “improve” the offense is “guy you probably had on your fantasy team for two weeks then cut the moment someone better came available“ Albert Wilson, and whatever is left of Danny Amendola’s limbs and brains.
Of course, the problem is, the offense is run by the last surviving member of the Lollipop Guild, Dowell Loggins. Loggins was so bad as offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears, finding out that he is the offensive coordinator of this team caused me to audibly laugh.
Ndamukong Suh is gone, saving the Dolphins from half a dozen unnecessary roughness penalties this season.
I shouldn’t like this team. There is nothing to enjoy about this team, at all. They have gotten worse in nearly every area, and got rid of the only entertaining players they had. One to reality TV, and one to turn the Rams defensive line into the football equivalent of the Death Star. But yet….
2018 Strength of Schedule: 15th
My Pick: Over, and I hate myself for it
Someone not named the Patriots has to win games in this AFC East division. They all play each other twice, and the Bills sure as shit aren’t winning any of them. The Dolphins are gonna win at least three of their four games against the Bills and Jets, meaning they only have to win four of their other twelve games. This team might be juuuuuuuuuuust competent enough to do that. This team has 7-9 written all over them, meaning they are gonna leave themselves out of contention to draft a good quarterback next season all the while playing to an ambivalent crowd of Dolphins fans who are actively wondering if it’s too hot to simply crawl into their freezers and die. They are like the Buccaneers, only less so, and without a pirate ship. Never forget, this team hasn’t been relevant since Ace Ventura, and haven’t won a playoff game since Dave Wannstedt and his walrus moustache were coaching the team.
Why the hell do I think this team can win 7 games? Oh yea, this is why…
New York Jets
2017 Win Total: 5
2018 Over/Under: 6
Yep, this team, that’s why. This team is gonna be quarterbacked by some combination of Josh McCown’s tired horseshit, Teddy Bridgewater’s possibly prosthetic leg, and college interception machine Sam Darnold. Darnold threw 13 interceptions last season in spite of getting to play in the Pac-12, a league that treats defense the way Incels treat women and actually makes the AFC East look competent. The Jets were so afraid of missing out on drafting Matt Barkely 2.0 that they traded three second round picks to the Colts to move up 3 spots to get him. You know how you really improve a team with depth issues? Three second round picks will do that.
As of writing, the Jets have 13(!!) Wide Receivers on their roster. If you can name more than three of them, then you are a better man than I. Lucky Whitehead is here, after being run out of Dallas with pitchforks. Terrelle Pryor is too, to try to prove that his season in Washington was the fluke, not the season in Cleveland where he tricked people into thinking he was good. Jermaine Kearse is there, too. Man, if he thought he didn’t get passed to enough when Russell Wilson was his quarterback…
The Jets have arguably one of the best secondaries in football, but there is a very realistic possibility that i’m currently on their linebacker depth chart.
Every Jets linebacker/lineman worth a damn over the past 5 seasons is gone, now. But hey, they have Hardy Nickerson’s son(I assume), and noted Titans bust Avery Williamson. Oh, and there’s Kevin Minter, still in the NFL. The Jets front seven is a veritable Where’s Waldo of guys you’ve heard of maybe once.
Todd Bowles turned a mediocre coaching career and perpetual flaming hot seat into a contract extension because, hey, anytime you can keep Todd Bowles and Josh McCown together, you’ve gotta pull the trigger on that.
The Jets suck. Their owner sucks. Their coach sucks. Their players suck. Their fans suck. They would single-handedly make the AFC East suck, if there weren’t two other horrible teams in there. These are the people that embraced a loud, shouty firefighter as their human mascot and avatar for their feelings towards the team. This team should be forced to play in Costa Rica until they figure their shit out. This is what you get when you take a team that hasn’t had the balls to fully rebuild while also being too dumb to realize that Tom Brady isn’t a human being and is gonna keep ruining them, and the entire AFC East, forever.
2018 Strength of Schedule: 25th
My Pick: Under. I’m not getting tricked by their shit schedule
Who is supposed to quarterback this team? And what Goodwill sale of wide receivers will emerge for them to throw to? I genuinely think this team might break a 40-year-old record for most rushing yards given up in a single season. The record is 3228 yards by the 1978 Buffalo Bills. This team might break that with games to spare. At this point, i’d be pretty psyched to see the Jets bring Vinny Testaverde back. Let the ghost of Mark Gastineau coach the defense. Yes, I know he’s physically alive, but he’s dead on the inside.
The Jets are an uncontrollable dumpster fire flying down the Brooklyn Bridge, hellbent on ruining football in the northeast. Watching the Jets is like the first 20 minutes of every episode of Intervention. A self destructive mess hellbent on finding the bottom while being loved by increasingly despondent codependents.
New England Patriots
2017 Win Total: 13
2018 Over/Under: 11
I’ve already come to terms with the fact that Tom Brady is gonna play in the AFC East forever and keep eating his creepy diet with his creepy, lifeless-looking family. I’ve learned to appreciate Bill Belichick and his awful know-it-all-isms and complete lack of being a human fucking being. I accept that Rob Gronkowski has already birthed enough illegitimate children to field the entire 2029 Patriots roster.
But goddammit, can’t the rest of this AFC East division be good enough to at least compete with these assholes? If the Patriots played in the AFC North, Tom Brady would be dead. Ray Lewis, Lamar Woodley, Vonteze Burfict. Someone would have flat-out murdered Brady on the field. But no. The Patriots get to play in the dipshit underachiever consortium that is the AFC East.
Remember back in 2009 and 2010, when everyone thought Rex Ryan was a genius and the Jets were gonna be the team to unseat the Patriots from their throne atop football?
Who the hell even knows what Rex Ryan is up to these days when he isn’t deep-throating chicken wings and furiously abusing his dong to foot porn, and the Jets have been a Frankenstein’s Monster, made of mediocrity and shitty quarterback draft picks.
No team has seriously threatened the Patriots, leaving the rest of the country to deal with the smug New England/Boston fans who think they’ve earned this because they stuck it out during the Drew Bledsoe days, or whatever other tired horseshit justification they use to fancy themselves better than everyone else. Boston fans suck. I see more Boston fans reference sports teams with we, as in, “we won a helluva game last week.” There is no we. The Patriots won a game. Your fatass was sitting around at a bar that closes way too early, eating food that wouldn’t pass for edible in most major cities, and contemplating your casual racist ways. You didn’t help the team win. So shut the fuck up. And guess what, everyone else has Dunkin’ Donuts, too. You aren’t special.
This is an entire fandom that ferociously jacks it to pictures of Teddy Bruschi. They make the band Boston more awful by sharing a geographical similarity. Every person in Boston as contemplated getting a Larry Bird tattoo and reference Bill Russell as “one of the good ones.” Boston should get sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Then the entire ocean should be set on fire.
2018 Strength of Schedule: 22nd
My Pick: Over. Who the fuck is gonna beat them?
Seriously, though. Who the fuck is gonna beat this team in the AFC East as long as Brady is around? The Jets are the Monet of botching draft picks. The Bills collapse every year worse than your dumbass nephew’s sandcastle. YOU ARE BUILDING IT TOO FUCKING CLOSE TO THE OCEAN, MARK! THE WAVES ARE GONNA KNOCK IT OVER. GODDAMMIT, YOU ARE DUMBER THAN YOUR PARENTS.
And the Dolphins don’t even merit an analogy, they are so fuckng predestined mediocre.
Tom Brady is the human embodiment of the Death Star. He will destroy us all. Fuck him. Fuck Belichick. Fuck the fans. Fuck the AFC East. Fuck it all. Football is so so so so so so so stupid sometimes.
To check out more content from Brandon, find him on Twitter @theBman. You can view him on the geeksandgamers.com Sports Wars Youtube page bringing baseball content every week by clicking Here. You can check out his standup comedy podcast by clicking Here. You can also check out his professional wrestling podcast by clicking Here
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