Over the next week and a half, The Ringer will be going deep on each division as the start of the 2026 NFL season approaches. On Thursday, we covered the NFC East. Now we’re on to the AFC East. Are the Patriots true Super Bowl contenders again, or are they due for regression? Can the Bills finally get over the hump? Will the Jets and Dolphins be locked in on Arch Madness by Halloween? Let’s dive in!
Buffalo Bills
What’s at Stake for the Bills
Oh, not a whole lot. Just the collective hopes and dreams of generations of fans who think they’re going to die without ever seeing their favorite team win the Super Bowl. It’s hard to be as good as the Bills have been over the past five-plus regular seasons and not get to the Super Bowl. And yet, the Bills have managed to keep coming up short and are now counting on new head coach Joe Brady to be the man who gets them over the top.
Reasons for Optimism
The Bills can feel like a high-variance team throughout the course of any given regular season, but the truth is we pretty much always know where they’ll end up as long as Josh Allen is the quarterback: in the playoffs with 11 to 13 wins. They are a league-best 73-27 since 2020. They have won 11-plus games for six consecutive seasons. And they are 83-33—50 games over .500!—with Allen as their starter since 2019. There aren’t a whole lot of teams that know they’ll make the playoffs unless their quarterback gets injured or the world comes to an end. The Bills are one of them.
They’ve cycled through offensive coaches and supporting casts during Allen’s tenure, and the schemes have been different, but the results have been mostly the same. The Bills offense has finished anywhere from first to fourth in expected points added per drive in six consecutive seasons. And in each of those seasons, Allen has finished in the top five in EPA per pass play. Get what I’m saying here? Unless they get hit with horrible injury luck, the Bills will once again have one of the NFL’s most reliable offenses.
I know some of you are probably yelling at me right now about Allen not being able to get it done in the playoffs. I simply don’t believe that’s accurate. Has he been great in every playoff game? Of course not (see last year’s playoff loss to the Broncos, when his turnovers doomed the Bills). But he’s had incredible postseason performances that have still resulted in team losses. Since 2000, there have been 43 quarterbacks with at least 150 dropbacks in the postseason. Among that sample, Allen ranks 12th in EPA per pass play—right behind Tom Brady and Drew Brees and ahead of both Eli Manning and Peyton Manning.
In the offseason, the Bills traded for wide receiver DJ Moore. I didn’t love that they gave up a second-round pick and gave Moore guaranteed money extending into 2028. But Moore is not being asked to carry the passing game. He’s just someone who can bolster a group that was good enough to produce a top-five offense last year. Moore, Khalil Shakir, Dalton Kincaid, James Cook, and a top-five offensive line provide a nice infrastructure for Allen to once again be an MVP contender.
Reasons for Concern
In some ways, it’s probably a lot of fun to be a Bills fan. Your team is good every year. You have a great quarterback. And you’re pretty much guaranteed to be watching playoff games. In other ways, it sucks to be a Bills fan. Anything short of a Super Bowl feels like a failure. That’s why when it comes to areas of concern, the Bills’ context is important.
Sean McDermott was a very good head coach. He went 98-50 in nine seasons with the Bills. McDermott’s superpower was that in the regular season, he could find a way to extract a competent defense from whatever personnel was given to him—even when injuries took a huge toll on the roster. But his kryptonite was that he could never seem to figure out a way to slow down opposing offenses with matchup-specific game plans in the playoffs.
Enter Brady and new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard. We know that Brady can coach up the Bills offense, but we have no idea how he’ll perform in other areas of the job. As we’ve seen throughout NFL history, the head coach and coordinator jobs are different, and success at one doesn’t always mean success at the other.
Leonhard, meanwhile, has been on football hipsters’ radars for years. He played safety in the NFL for 10 seasons, was an intriguing defensive coordinator at Wisconsin, and spent the last two years on the Broncos staff. The hope is that Leonhard can implement a new scheme that will flummox opponents when the Bills need it to in the playoffs. But there could be growing pains in the regular season. The talent on this defensive depth chart is lacking. The Bills have some good players like edge defender Greg Rousseau, defensive tackle Ed Oliver, and cornerback Christian Benford. But the ceiling of this defense will be determined by Leonhard’s ability to get production out of young players like corner Maxwell Hairston and rookie edge defender TJ Parker.
Bottom line: The changes on defense are massive—both from a personnel and scheme standpoint—and Leonhard is one of the most influential new coordinators on either side of the ball this year. If he’s legit, the offseason of change will look genius, and the Bills will compete for a Super Bowl. If he’s not, we could be talking about how McDermott’s coaching masked roster flaws, and the Bills could be looking at another “close but not quite” finish.
How I See It
The Bills are a reasonable pick to get to the Super Bowl every year, as long as Allen is healthy and in his prime. It’s likely that they’ll produce a top-five offense, and it’s possible that they’ll have the best one in the NFL.
But there’s just a lot of uncertainty with the coaching and the defense. Hiring Brady felt like a half measure, the result of the Bills wanting change but not too much change. Maybe he’ll be great. But I need to see how Brady handles things like game management before assuming he’ll be better than McDermott. I see a very good team that will win the division and be in the mix for the Super Bowl, but I’m not convinced that this is the year that the Bills will break through.
Projected record: 12-5
New England Patriots
What’s at Stake for the Patriots
Last year’s Super Bowl run could be viewed through one of two lenses: One, the Patriots locked in their coach and quarterback and set themselves up to be a force in the AFC for years to come. They’re on track for the sustained success that every organization seeks. Or two, they had a really good team, and it was a weird season, especially in the AFC, and things fell their way. But success in the NFL is not always linear, and this season could be a step back.
Reasons for Optimism
It’s really simple: Drake Maye was great last year. And he now gets to throw to A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs. In the 2025 regular season, Maye was first in EPA per pass play and success rate. He would have gotten my MVP vote because he was performing well under far from ideal circumstances. The pass catchers and offensive line were both below average. That’s the sign of a great quarterback: the ability to make players around you better.
Now he gets to funnel targets to Brown, who arrived in a June trade with Philadelphia. In a down year by his standards, Brown still had 78 catches for 1,003 yards and was in the 84th percentile among wide receivers in yards per route run last season. He should be motivated, and as long as he is healthy, he’ll be easily the best wide receiver that Maye has played with. Doubs, who signed as a free agent after four years in Green Bay, has shown that he can be a productive second option.
Defensively, New England beat up on a lot of bad quarterbacks in the 2025 season and looked like a dominant unit in the postseason. The Patriots are strong on the interior of the defensive line with Milton Williams and Christian Barmore. And they can cover on the back end with corners Christian Gonzalez and Carlton Davis. This group improved throughout the course of last season, and there’s a chance that it’ll emerge as a top-10 defense in 2026.
Even the most devoted Patriots homer would have to agree that they’re not likely to win as many games as they did last year (14). But even if they regress a bit and win 11, this team could be better set up for playoff success than last year’s Patriots against what will likely be a stronger AFC field.
Reasons for Concern
They check just about every box you could look at when trying to identify a team that is likely to regress. Shall we go through them all?
- They faced the easiest schedule in the NFL in 2025, and it wasn’t particularly close. According to DVOA, the difference between the Patriots and Bills (who had the second-easiest schedule) was the same as the difference between the Bills and Giants (who had the 13th-easiest schedule). According to the FTN Football Almanac, New England had the easiest schedule of any team this century and the fourth-easiest schedule of any team since 1977. The offense faced the easiest schedule of opposing defenses. The defense faced the easiest schedule of opposing offenses. The Patriots beat seven quarterbacks in the regular season who are not expected to be starters in the NFL this year: Dillon Gabriel, Brady Cook, Quinn Ewers, Spencer Rattler, Justin Fields, Tua Tagovailoa, and Joe Flacco (plus Denver backup Jarrett Stidham in the AFC championship game).
- The Patriots finished first in adjusted games lost, meaning they were the healthiest team in the NFL during the regular season.
- The Patriots were 7-3 in regular-season games that were decided by seven points or fewer.
OK, so what of this actually matters? One, the schedule. It doesn’t mean that the 2025 Patriots were frauds. You play the teams that are on your schedule. To their credit, they split with the Bills in the regular season and beat the Chargers, Texans, and Broncos in the playoffs. But the competition figures to be significantly harder this year, given that New England’s projected schedule strength ranks 15th. And for context, DVOA had their estimated regular-season wins last year at 9.8 when adjusting for the opponent.
The injury luck, however, might be a bigger concern. Mike Vrabel recently noted that the Patriots don’t have a deep roster, and he’s right. If they get even league-average injury luck in 2026, that lack of depth could get exposed.
And then there’s Maye. We have to remind ourselves every year that quarterback development is not linear. When certain quarterbacks play poorly in the postseason, it defines them. When others play poorly, all we do is make excuses. Since 2000, there have been 43 quarterbacks with at least 150 postseason dropbacks. Among that sample, Maye ranks 42nd in EPA per pass play. Only Andy Dalton has a worse statistical résumé as a playoff QB than Maye earlier this year. Were there reasonable explanations for Maye’s struggles? Of course! He was injured. There was some bad weather. The supporting cast was lackluster. And offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels got pantsed by Mike Macdonald in the Super Bowl (why is nobody else acknowledging this one?). But if you want to make the argument that the Patriots offense beat up on a bad schedule in the regular season and then got exposed against good defenses in the playoffs, well, the evidence is right there for you.
How I See It
I find the Patriots to be one of the hardest teams to project this season. I’m not sure how much better their offensive line will really be, and O-line guru Brandon Thorn has that group 24th in his preseason rankings. I don’t think they’ll be able to run the ball effectively. I think their defense is likely to be solid but unspectacular. I’m concerned about the toll that playing 21 games last season (with a bunch of guys banged up at the end) took on them. And I haven’t even mentioned Vrabel’s tumultuous (choosing my words carefully!) offseason.
Could I be wrong about all of this? Of course! There’s a scenario where Maye and Brown go scorched earth, the defense is better than expected, the Patriots look like the best team in the AFC, and this article makes their Super Bowl hype video where they call out the haters. I know I’m on an island here, but I have the Patriots as a good team, not a great team, in 2026.
Projected record: 9-8
New York Jets
What’s at Stake for the Jets
Aaron Glenn’s job. We should all just acknowledge that, right? The Jets front office seems to have a very specific plan: stockpile draft picks, don’t get stuck with bad contracts, and draft a quarterback in 2027 and insert him into a team that has a solid infrastructure. The question is whether Glenn will be around to see that happen. Glenn was a disaster as a rookie head coach in 2025 and had a bizarre offseason in which he fired half his staff, took over play calling duties on defense, and hired Frank Reich as his offensive coordinator. I am not an LOL Jets guy. I feel for their fan base. But we all know how this works. Glenn will get about eight weeks to prove he can be good at the job, and if that doesn’t happen, he might be chilling at home by Thanksgiving.
Reasons for Optimism
Turnover regression! If those two words can’t get Jets fans fired up, I don’t know what will. The Jets defense famously did not have an interception last season. As a team, they finished 32nd in turnover EPA. Yes, I realize that it’s not great that I am starting the case for hope by telling you that they are at least unlikely to once again have historically bad turnover luck, but I’m trying here.
Offensively, this group could sniff mediocrity. Geno Smith was terrible last season for the Raiders (30th in EPA per pass play), but in 2024 in Seattle, he was competent (19th). The offensive line should at least be solid and could even be a strength. Wide receiver Garrett Wilson is good at football. Running back Breece Hall is also good at football. And the Jets have made bets that a bunch of young players could break out or at least improve from last season.
Defensively, reports on how no. 2 pick David Bailey has been performing in training camp have been overwhelmingly positive. Perhaps he can win Defensive Rookie of the Year and the vets that the Jets signed (like linebacker Demario Davis and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick) will take to Glenn’s coaching and scheme. Again, it pretty much can’t be worse than last year.
Reasons for Concern
Counting on the duo of Smith (who turns 36 in October) and Reich (who hasn’t coached in the NFL since he was fired as head coach of the Panthers after 11 games in 2023) is not really where you want to be in the year 2026. Smith was in a bad situation with the Raiders last year, but he was producing negative plays—sacks and turnovers—at a rate that makes it nearly impossible to have an efficient offense. The last time Reich coached a good offense was in 2018, with Andrew Luck in Indianapolis. The fact that Reich has been showing Jets players film clips from 2014 and 2015 is not encouraging if you’re worried about Reich being attuned to modern NFL trends.
Defensively, Glenn has said that play calling is his superpower, and we know he wants to play an aggressive style that leans on man coverage. The problem is the Jets personnel probably doesn’t lend itself to that style, and Glenn has not proved that he has a second pitch. Not to mention that his game management was a disaster at times last year, and he now appears to be taking on more responsibility.
How I See It
If I’m being blunt here, it feels like the Jets front office is essentially in tank mode, but Glenn might not realize it (or if he does, he doesn’t care). There’s a chance that he’ll keep the job all season even if the team is terrible because the organization wants to prioritize draft position. This is not a fun place to be for fans, because they’ve seen this plan before, and it’s never seemed to work out. You wait all summer for football and just want to have a good time on Sundays without being the butt of everyone’s jokes.
But as an objective observer, I’d say that at least there seems to be a plan. There are no promises that it will work, but the Jets have three first-round picks in what is supposed to be a loaded 2027 draft (Arch Manning, New York Jet?). They have young talent at offensive tackle, wide receiver, tight end, and pass rusher. The roster is far from perfect, but the cupboard is not bare. The most likely scenario is that 2027 will be the start of a new era with a new coach and a young quarterback, and maybe, just maybe, the Jets will finally get it right then.
Projected record: 6-11
Miami Dolphins
What’s at Stake for the Dolphins
I don’t think there’s a team in the NFL that has less at stake in 2026. They already have a new head coach and a new GM. They have a quarterback with six career starts in Malik Willis. The roster is horrible. They are carrying a league-record $179.2 million in dead money. And their over/under for wins is 3.5. If the Dolphins come out of 2026 with the worst record in the NFL, nobody will think they underachieved. I can’t tell if this description is depressing, hopeful, or somewhere in between.
Reasons for Optimism
What if Malik Willis is good??? This is the beauty of the unknown. After two seasons with the Titans, Willis seemed like he might be on his way out of the NFL. But the Packers traded for him and adjusted their offense to his strengths when he had to play in relief of Jordan Love, and he was both dynamic and efficient. Let’s have some fun with small sample sizes. Over the past two seasons, 62 quarterbacks have had at least 100 dropbacks. Among that sample, Willis ranks first in both EPA per pass play and success rate! He completed 78.7 percent of his passes, averaged 10.9 yards per attempt, and threw six touchdowns with no interceptions over that span. But maybe more importantly, it didn’t look or feel fluky. Willis legitimately played well. I’m not saying he’ll definitely be good as a full-time starter, but there’s at least a chance. And the simplest path for a team to exceed expectations is for it to get surprisingly good quarterback play.
The one area where I think the Dolphins legitimately have a chance to surprise is in their run game. Willis has looked like a truly dynamic runner. A run game that is schemed around him and De’Von Achane could be exciting and hard to defend.
Other than that, I really don’t have much for you.
Reasons for Concern
Pause from reading here for a second. Call up the person in your life who knows the most about the NFL. Ask them to name as many current Dolphins as they can. I will set the over/under at 7.5 players. They’ll get Willis and Achane, and maybe they like O-line play and nail center Aaron Brewer and left tackle Patrick Paul (maybe!). On defense, they could probably get linebacker Jordyn Brooks, edge defender Chop Robinson, and defensive lineman Zach Sieler. Beyond that, you look at the Dolphins depth chart and wonder if some of the names are made up—specifically when you get to wide receiver and cornerback. On paper, this looks like the worst roster in the league.
When a team has roster shortcomings, the coaching staff has to do more with less. I’m not sure I trust that new head coach Jeff Hafley is up for the challenge. He has good PR, but did anyone watch the Packers last year and think that the defensive coordinator was cooking? I certainly did not. And offensively, it’s tough to come up with a reason to have faith in new coordinator Bobby Slowik. Especially considering that the line projects to be a below-average unit.
How I See It
Again, if Willis is good, that changes everything. But the Dolphins’ financial commitment to him only goes through 2027, so this was a pretty low-risk signing. Really, this season is about Hafley looking at the Dolphins’ young players and deciding which ones he wants to be a part of the organization’s future. This will not be a quick rebuild. After years of mistakes, Miami’s roster needs a lot of work. The most likely scenario is that this will be one of the worst teams in the NFL.
Projected record: 4-13
