5 Burning Questions Facing The AFC East
Will Aaron Rodgers' Jets or Tyreek Hill's Dolphins Finally Slay Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills?
Training camp is here.
Veterans are checking into dorm rooms (in the case of the Kansas City Chiefs), and hotel rooms across the league, with their XBox, televisions, and College Football 25 in tow.
Just around the corner looms Week 1 and the 2024 regular season.
As football returns in earnest, we are kicking off a series examining each division and the five burning questions facing the teams that reside in it, beginning today with the AFC East!
Buffalo Bills: How Will Offense Make Up for Production Lost in Stefon Diggs Trade?
The Buffalo Bills’ offense is going to look much different in 2024.
While Josh Allen remains one of the premier quarterbacks in the league and an immensely gifted talent at the position, offensive coordinator Joe Brady and the Bills are going to need to find a way to cobble together the 1,343 receiving yards 9.2 touchdown grabs Diggs averaged across his four seasons in Orchard Park.
Rookie Keon Coleman has the ideal frame at 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds to create some favorable mismatches on the perimeter, and Khalil Shakir averaged a healthy 15.7 yards per reception in Diggs’ shadow in 2023, which creates some optimism that there may still be plenty of opportunities for Allen to stretch the field and Buffalo to remain an explosive vertical attack.
In all likelihood, emergent tight end Dalton Kincaid will climb Allen’s target hierarchy and could pick up a sizable share of the 150 targets vacated by Diggs’ departure.
But, this is an offense that is going to need to evolve. Buffalo needs playmakers to emerge who prove they can be consistently relied upon to be big-play threats in what has been one of the league’s most prolific offenses over the past half-decade.
Following a season where injuries decimated the defense, Allen and the Bills’ offense may need to be a bigger focal point than ever. Whether they have the pieces to pull it off at receiver is one of the biggest uncertainties facing any team across the league as 2024 looms.
New York Jets: Can Aaron Rodgers Stay Healthy Enough to Maximize Suddely Elite Weapons?
Aaron Rodgers’ much anticipated New York Jets debut last fall lasted all of four offensive snaps, before his left Achilles tendon buckled under the pressure of Buffalo Bills pass rusher Leonard Floyd and the loftiest expectations experienced for the woebegone franchise in well over a decade.
Rodgers’ injury cast a pall over the Jets’ season, transforming, in the season opener, head coach Robert Saleh’s team’s philosophy and how they hoped to compete for New York’s first division crown since 2002.
“Defensively we have shifted from thinking we would have a bunch of leads,” a high-ranking Jets source told me last October. “To now having to win games without an offense.”
Still, despite being one of the more on-dimensional rosters in the league, the Jets held opponents to just 292.3 yards and 20.9 points per game.
An elite defense died on the vine in 2023. Still, there is renewed optimism in the Swamps of Jersey that Rodgers can lead an offense not only capable of playing complementary football but leading a charge back to the postseason.
Rodgers walks back into an embarrassment of riches around him, thanks to the additions made over the past two offseasons by general manager Joe Douglas and Saleh.
Top-15 pick Olu Fashanu and All-Pro tackle Tyron Smith each have the potential to be significant upgrades along the offensive line to prevent another catastrophe. Likewise, Mike Williams arrives as a reliable second option opposite emerging star Garret Wilson, having caught 82 passes for 1,144 yards and five touchdowns across 16 games the past two seasons. Meanwhile, Breece Hall is an elite talent at running back who proved he’s one of the premier players in the position in 2023 by producing 1,585 yards from scrimmage and scoring nine touchdowns in his return from a torn ACL.
The Jets proved last season that their elite defense can keep them in games, but, for New York to leverage a young and talented roster into postseason success, Rodgers is going to need to not only stay healthy but return to the form that helped him win the MVP award in 2021.
New England Patriots: Is There Enough Talent Around Drake Maye For Him to Flourish?
It’s a new era in New England.
New head coach Jerod Mayo and the Patriots hope and believe that the franchise finally has its franchise quarterback finally capable of authoring the next chapter in the franchise’s post-Tom Brady Era, in No. 3 overall pick Drake Maye.
Maye became one of the most highly touted quarterback prospects in this spring’s draft after completing 63.3 percent of his passes for 3,608 yards with 24 touchdowns to just nine interceptions for the Tar Heels last season.
With Maye in tow, the biggest question in Foxboro as training camp gets underway is, who exactly is the 21-year-old going to throw to?
Kendrick Bourne currently sits atop the depth chart at receiver, but he has only surpassed 800 receiving yards once (in 2021) and has never caught more than five touchdowns. Meanwhile, K.J. Osborn will push rookie Ja’Lynn Polk for a starting job, but the Patriots seem to be lacking a key ingredient to a young quarterback’s development; a reliable receiver who can be a security blanket.
Bourne did not drop a pass in 2023, which could quickly lead to him becoming Maye’s favorite target. It’s just hard to imagine this being the receiving corps New England takes into Week 1. Perhaps a blockbuster trade could be in the cards, which could change everything; both for the trajectory of the Patriots’ 2024 season and the early days of Maye’s career.
Miami Dolphins: Can Pass-Rush Be Disruptive Enough to Power Deep Postseason Run?
The Miami Dolphins have a bit of a toughness problem.
Last season, few offenses were more electrifying than the dynamic weapons around Tua Tagovailoa. Tyreek Hill was a legitimate MVP candidate for a stretch, when healthy D’Von Achane was one of the most explosive running backs in the league, and Jaylen Waddle accounted for 1,014 yards in just 14 games.
For much of last season, the Dolphins’ defense was more than up to the challenge as a buttress to Tagovailoa and the high-flying offense, allowing more than 30 points in only three contests while posting 56 sacks.
Then, disaster struck.
Pass rusher Jaelan Phillips tore his Achilles Tendon last November and Bradly Chubb’s season came to a careening halt when he tore his ACL in his right knee on New Year’s Eve.
Phillips and Chubb combined for 17.5 sacks and 97 quarterback pressures.
It could be a Herculean lift for either to return to form in time for Week 1.
In a league where success on defense is predicated on tormenting opposing quarterbacks, the Dolphins may need Calais Campbell to build on his 6.5 sack campaign last season with the Atlanta Falcons, in his age 38-season in 2024, and rookie Chop Robinson to prove that his explosiveness and off the charts measurables can yield significantly more production than he offered Penn State during his career in Happy Valley. At least until Phillips and Chubb are healthy and able to return to form.
Have the Buffalo Bills Peaked?
I made some frienemies in Buffalo last summer when I predicted that the Bills would regress and miss the playoffs. For about 11 weeks, it looked like I was going to have the last laugh.
Then Allen, James Cook, and the Bills circled the wagons around suddenly embattled head coach Sean McDermott and rattled off five straight wins to close out the regular season before succumbing to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round.
The reality for the Bills this season is that the AFC East is more competitive than it has ever been, and it wouldn’t be surprising or see the Jets, Dolphins or even Buffalo take home the division crown.
But, the Bills are working in the aforementioned brand-new receiver corps as well as a new-look safety duo while hoping that veteran pass-rusher Von Miller returns to form as a dominant pass-rush presence, defensively.
There is a very real possibility that the Bills have entered a phase where they are trying to win while rebuilding, which is certainly possible with a talent like Allen behind center, but it’s just difficult to believe Buffalo remains a prohibitive favorite in this division or to even make the postseason in a conference that has become a gauntlet in recent years.
An Announcement … And an Announcement About an Announcement
Between The Hashmarks is going to be home to much of my exclusive content and reporting throughout the 2024 season, and I’m beyond thrilled to have you a part of the action.
Four Downs will officially make its return on July 29, and run each Monday, where I’ll be breaking down the biggest stories of the week with sourced insight and reporting that you can’t get anywhere else, from contacts across the NFL.
Beginning on August 5, though, Four Downs will become an exclusive feature for paid subscribers only. If you’re a fan of my work, if you enjoy my reporting, and want to read Four Downs each Monday during the NFL season, I’d truly appreciate if you’d consider a paid subscription.
Also, stay tuned in the weeks ahead for a *major* announcement for *all* readers of Between The Hashmarks!