With Dolphins Surging, Do Patriots Finally Have a Challenger in the AFC East?

There are times when a team completely transforms for the better, from something not good into something great. And the reason is simple. That's what's happening in Miami.

There are times when a team is dominant, and it remains dominant, and it will for some time. And the reason is simple. That's what's happening in New England.

We are seeing the beginning of a potential transition in the AFC East. The Patriots aren't going anywhere. They will remain great, but chasing them are the Dolphins. The Dolphins won't catch them this season, or maybe even next, but they will eventually. Because what you see in Miami are the Patriots' successors.

Imagine a future in which Ryan Tannehill is among the most accurate throwers in football. He has a great running game and receivers. The defense is stout. Ndamukong Suh is the NFL's most dominant interior lineman. In this future, several years from now, Don Shula is saying how this Dolphins team is like his 1972 undefeated one. In this future, Larry Csonka says Lamar Miller reminds him of Mercury Morris.

That future isn't science fiction. It could happen. It probably will happen. Just not yet. Not now. Because Tom Brady is still playing like he's 28 years old.

What the Dolphins' atomization of Houston and the Patriots' beating of the best defense in football showed us, in a totally non-hot-taketh sort of way, is the present and future of the division.

No one is beating the Patriots in the AFC East this year. They will win it, and they won't lose a game in it. In fact, it's possible—as I've been saying for some time—that New England goes undefeated overall. The Patriots are fueled by greatness and Deflategate. This is a lethal combination. (It's totally possible we see a Super Bowl featuring an unbeaten Green Bay team facing off against an unbeaten Patriots team. But I digress.)

Brady continues to play at a level rarely seen in the sport's history. It's like if you took Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Warren Moon and Superman's Kryptonic-ness and cooked them in a genetic souffle. You'd get Brady.

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Brady after beating the Jets, 30-23, is now 22-6 as a starter against them. Please read the following statistic carefully, several times, to digest it properly: the Patriots are 107-18 at home with Brady as a starter.

The Patriots have won 77 straight home games, going back to 2000, when leading at the half. The Patriots beat a damn good Jets team even when playing with basically no running game. So what did Brady do? He became the team's leading rusher with four rushes for 15 yards and a score. Tom Vick.

What remains almost mythical about Brady is how he gets better as the game goes on. In the fourth quarter, as the Jets started to look like they might steal the game, Brady went 14 of 17 for 150 yards and two touchdowns.

No, no one is knocking these Patriots off any time soon, as long as Brady plays like this. No one. Not sure Jesus could beat Brady right now.

Yet I do think there's a divisional heir to the Patriots, and we are seeing it in Miami.

That heir isn't New York. Ryan Fitzpatrick is a good story, but a journeyman. He's only there because Geno Smith got punched in the face. Smith isn't the future, either.

Bills fans are seeing what many of us have been saying about Rex Ryan for years: He's mostly bluster and couldn't groom a quarterback if you handed him Johnny Unitas and a brush.

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What Dan Campbell has been able to do is get the Dolphins to finally live up to the potential we've always thought they had. This doesn't mean Miami will win all of its games this season. There will be bumps, but the Dolphins might be the most promising team in the NFL and they play in a division where there's no other quarterback not named Brady who can carry a franchise.

There are a lot of things Campbell will get credit for (and deservedly so). He's increased the physicality on both sides of the ball, gotten the players to buy into what he's cooking, gotten Suh to play harder and simplified the system Suh plays in.

Campbell's biggest accomplishment—and this is where the "simple" part mentioned earlier comes in—is much simpler. He's unleashed Lamar Miller. Seems easy enough, sure, but Joe Philbin didn't do it. If Philbin had Eric Dickerson, he'd make him into a fullback. Philbin just wasn't a bright coach.

Almost every time I spoke to a scout about the Dolphins, the first thing they'd say was: Why aren't they running Miller more? Against the Texans and J.J, Watt, he had 175 rushing yards, second only in his career to a 178-yard performance last December. Miller was always capable of this. Philbin, stubbornly, just refused to unleash him.

Tannehill is better because Miller has been unleashed and the offensive line has given Tannehill more time. But something has clicked in Tannehill. He looks like a different human being. His accuracy is suddenly Unitas-like. Wait. Check that. It's Brady-like.

He had four first-half touchdown passes, three for 50 yards or more.

Tannehill gives the Dolphins, finally, hope for taking over the division one day in a post-Brady universe. He hit his first 18 passes and didn't throw an incompletion until 7:51 left in the last quarter.

Dayum.

This is what some of you will say: It's the Texans. Calm down, dude.

No, this is bigger than that. We are finally seeing a team that can step into the vacuum of a division where the Patriots no longer dominate. That team might be Miami.

Just not yet. Because Brady is still there.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.