Loading ...
Most Overrated Team
The Miami Dolphins
Last year was magical yes, but like most things magical, last year was more of a deceptive illusion than anything else. A trick that with close examination might be uncovered for what it really is underneath all of the dust and extraordinary spectacles, disappointingly ordinary.
This is the same team that squeaked by many bad opponents and were often the beneficiaries of maddeningly poor play by opposing offenses. Here are some of those games and score lines to name a few:
SEA 19 @ MIA 21
OAK 15 @ MIA 17
MIA 16 @ STL 12
MIA 16 @ BUF 3
SF 9 @ MIA 14
MIA 38 @ KC 31
This is 6 wins alone in games where the Dolphins were lucky to come away with a victory and were the beneficiaries of extremely poor play by opposing teams or favorable late game mistakes to squeak out wins over bad teams. These are wins, scenarios, and match-ups that the Dolphins will not have the fortune to work in their favor again.
My prediction for the Dolphins is a 6-10 year.
Most Underrated Team
The New York Jets
This was a close call between the Bills and the Jets but there are some key reasons that the Jets are the choice here.
For starters, while the Dolphins appeared much better than they were, the Jets made themselves constantly look worse but you could see that at times, when they put it all together, they could be a dominant team.
Success starts in the trenches and the Jets are strong at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the line. The Jets had some key off season pickups defensively with Lito Sheppard, Bart Scott, and Jim Leonard to name a few, not to mention that while the Bills are being forced to endure another year of Dick Jauron at the healm, the Jets did the smart thing and got rid of Eric Mantarded and brought in defensive mastermind, Rex Ryan.
This is more than enough to name the Jets the best defense in the division, and possibly one of the best in the NFL. If you want to debate this argument, feel free to comment, and I’ll give you many reasons why.
The key question marks the Jets have are at quarterback and wide receiver. They have the running backs, they have the offensive line, and they have an above average set of tight ends despite giving up Baker.
I’ll begin with wide receiver. The Jets lost Lavernius Coles to free agency who was considered their #1. The fact of the matter however is that Lavernius Coles is no #1 wide receiver and his play has declined significantly over the last 2 years so the loss of Coles is no great loss at all. Many at the Jets organization are extremely confident that the loss of Coles can be completely negated in house with the emergence of Chancey Stuckey and David Clowney who is a burner who got injured in the preseason last year after two straight team leading performances including a 163 yard multi-touchdown day on limited playing time. So I say, “Coles who?”
As far as quarterback goes, it is my opinion that Brett Favre did absolutely nothing to help this team, in fact his demise was the team’s downfall last year. If rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez struggles and throws a bunch of interceptions…well…there won’t be much of a difference from last year since Favre led the league in interceptions, especially over the 2nd half of the year. The Jets also have a strong defense and a strong running game to help protect the rookie and not force him to do anything more than manage games.
My prediction for the Jets is 8-8 give or take 2 wins depending on quarterback play and close late game low scoring finishes which there should be a lot of for this team this year.
Most Overrated Player
A few names come to mind like Wes Welker and Chad “duck tosser” Pennington, but I am going to go with Thomas Jones, the starting tail back of the New York Jets.
I’ve watched a lot of Jets games and have seen a whole lot of Thomas Jones and despite the statistics I am not impressed. This is a guy who often lacks burst, benefits from huge holes created by a very good offensive line, and is often outperformed by his backup in Leon Washington. There was a game last year where Leon Washington was given a carry, broke it for about a 60 yard TD, and then never touched the ball again in the second half.
With the early drafting of Shonn Greene, the popularity of Leon Washington, and the contract holdout, Thomas Jones might begin to see his carries go down a bit this year.
This is a guy that went to the pro bowl to represent the AFC and he probably isn’t even the best back on his own team. To satisfy the Bills fans on this board I must also include that I’d take Lynch or Jackson over Jones any day of the week.
Most Underrated Player
Names that come to mind are Lee Evans, Fred Jackson and Leon Washington but once again I’m going to go with somebody that many might not put in this category and throw out the name Darelle Revis, CB, New York Jets.
Outside of Nnamdi Asomugha, Darrell Revis might just be the best corner in the NFL. Just ask Terrell Owens what he thinks of Revis. In his rookie season, Revis was beaten for touchdowns only twice all year, both on fade routes, one was caught by Terrell Owens and the other by Braylon Edwards.
AFC East - Rankings
Quarterbacks
1. New England Patriots*
2. Miami Dolphins
3. Buffalo Bills
4. New York Jets
Running Backs
1. Buffalo Bills
2. Miami Dolphins
3. New York Jets
4. New England Patriots*
Wide Receivers
1. Buffalo Bills
2. New England Patriots*
3. Miami Dolphins
4. New York Jets
Offensive Line
1. New York Jets
2. New England Patriots*
3. Miami Dolphins
4. Buffalo Bills (until proven otherwise)
Defensive Line
1. New York Jets
2. New England Patriots*
3. Miami Dolphins
4. Buffalo Bills
Linebackers
1. New York Jets
2. New England Patriots*
3. Miami Dolphins
4. Buffalo Bills
Defensive Backs
1. New York Jets
2. Buffalo Bills
3. New England Patriots*
4. Miami Dolphins
Special Teams
1. Buffalo Bills
2. New York Jets
3. New England Patriots*
4. Miami Dolphins
2009-2010 Predictions
1. New England Patriots* (11-5)
2. Buffalo Bills (10-6) WC
3. New York Jets (8-8)
4. Miami Dolphins (6-10)
The results were pretty interesting:
Jets – 17/8 = 2.12
Patriots – 19/8 = 2.38
Bills - 20/8 = 2.5
Dolphins = 24/8 = 3
As you can see, the Jets had the best (lowest) overall rating which really shows you exactly how good of an all around team the Jets have managed to put together. Where the Jets downfall lies is in the weighting or importance of their largest weakness, which is at the quarterback position. If the Jets strike gold with Sanchez they could easily overtake the AFC East next year by drafting a top WR in the 1st round to help their other weak point. This is a big “if” though.
Also, you can see that my assessment of the Dolphins holds true. I tried to be as fair and impartial as possible and the dolphins still ended up way behind the rest of the division. There is one flaw though that I’ll point out at the end of this post.
As far as the Bills are concerned this assessment shows that the Bills are closing the gap a bit between themselves and the Patriots but a gap still does exist, but a lot of the pieces to the Patriot puzzle are getting older, whereas a lot of the Bills pieces (especially on the offensive line) are young and untested and could easily vault up those rankings.
The main flaw in this assessment though I’ve just realized is that I left out an important category, and that category is coaching, and when I say coaching I mean how the organization is run as a whole, on game days, in practice, all the way up to the top and this part of the assessment hurts us:
Coaching/Organization
1. New England Patriots
2. Miami Dolphins
3. New York Jets
4. Buffalo Bills
Now here is what the new analysis looks like for overall rankings:
Overall Rankings
1. New England Patriots - 20/8 = 2.5
2. New York Jets - 20/8 = 2.5
3. Buffalo Bills - 24/8 = 3.0
4. Miami Dolphins - 26/8 =3.25
ticketgenie.com – Your Source to buy Concert Tickets, Sports Tickets and Theater Tickets…
The Nokia- branded chargers manufactured by a third party supplier and the company have determined that the plastic covers of the affected chargers could come loose and separate, exposing the charger’ s internal components and potentially posing an e…