In Life, We're All Either Kings or Pawns: Looking at the AFC East

The AFC East is seemingly always in transition these days. But the more things change, the more they just seem to stay the same.

The Patriots are once again looking to dominate the division. The Bills are sounding hopeful about a few key acquisition and some positive showings last year. The Jets believe they've hired another defensive mastermind to take them to the top. The Dolphins are just taking it day by day, trying to improve any way they can.

It hasn't been the most tumultuous offseason for the division, but there are some very key additions and subtractions to each roster. The Patriots will again have the services of Tom Brady. The Bills get the full Owens Experience. The Jets have Rex Ryan calling the shots. The Dolphins are going to test the limits of the word "pesky" with their Wildcat formation.

Let's go team by team and highlight the challenges each team face.

Buffalo Bills

The major Bills acquisition is, of course, Terrell Owens. The all-time active leader in touchdowns scored, receiving yards, and media explosions, Owens is going to bring a big time spotlight to Buffalo reminiscent of the Andre Reed and Jim Kelly days, only sans-Jim Kelly's ability under center.

Can Owens match Reed's best season of 90 catches, 1300 yards and 8 TDs? We'll have to wait and see, but Owens has been nothing if not productive in his career and, on the field, he's one of the hardest working receivers in the game.

You can say what you want about his often distracting nature, but I've watched him get knocked down, get up and sprint 75 yards to tackle a defensive player after Romo threw an interception.

I've seen him make consecutive blocks to free Cowboy running backs, and a number of other hustle plays that were never going to boost his stats or his contract dollars.

This is a guy who is just one hell of a football player, whatever else you want to say about him. Is he getting too old? too slow? dropping too many balls?

That's going to be the real question, but between those white lines he's going to play football and I wouldn't bet against him. Outside of that? I don't think anyone has any idea what's in store.

The rest of the squad has shown promise, though. It's a young defense that was second in the division in total yards per game defense (14th league-wide) and will only improve with the addition of Aaron Maybin, a physical specimen with versatility, and another year of experience across the depth chart.

The key to this team, though, will be if they can manage without Marshawn Lynch for the first three games he's likely to be suspended for (at Patriots, vs Buccaneers, vs Saints) and if Trent Edwards can continue the solid progress he's made so far behind a line that hasn't exactly been spectacular (38 sacks last year, just 26 the year before).

LT Jason Peters is now with the Eagles after a season well below his talent level, but the Bills will have to rework their line in order to give their potent skill position players (Lee Evans, Owens, Lynch, etc.) time to perform.

Without Lynch, and facing (if healthy) two of the best offenses in the league in the first three weeks the Bills might, at best, bookend a solid home win over the rebuilding Buccaneers with blowouts to both New Orleans and New England.

If they can pull off an upset in one of those two games, we might be talking about a different Bills team by the end of September.

What's on the horizon for the Bills? Well it's tough to know. The team went 7-9 last year and they've shown spurts of building a stout defense and a decent offense, but off-field problems and injuries have hindered the development of guys like Lynch, CB Donte Whitner, and LB Paul Posluszny.

Ultimately this is a team still in transition, but one that desperately needs a positive step in the right direction this season.

New York Jets

The Jets are the wild card in this division, for sure.

They boast a head coach in Rex Ryan who is the son of the famed Buddy Ryan who once helped make an honest man out of Joe Namath by shutting down the Baltimore Colts' storied offense in the third AFL-NFL title game. He also ran arguably the best defense of all time, the 1985 bears with their 46 defensive package.

Rex Ryan himself also comes from one of the modern game's best defenses in Baltimore, where he has been coaching since 1999.

But while Rex Ryan brings coaching pedigree, he is going to have to deal with a squad that has yet to find a true identity in the past few years. It seems the Jets have been living directly in the shadow of the Patriots, especially under the guidance of Eric Mangini, and have never had a solid footing to build from.

Ryan has already separated himself from Mangini and managed one key acquisition, linebacker Bart Scott from Baltimore. During the draft his front office added one more in Mark Sanchez.

While Mangini came to New York from New England heralded as a defensive mastermind, Ryan may finally bring the ability to back up the hype. Ryan, in his time in Baltimore, never seemed to worry about the exotic packages that Mangini and even Belichick love to throw at offenses, but in building a cohesive, physical and talented defense that likes to have fun.

He does have a rookie quarterback, but one that should have a decent amount of talent around him to go with a line that managed a 4.7 YPC mark, 20 TDs, and over 2,000 yards on the ground while giving up just 30 sacks.

On defense, Ryan has a number of toys to play with, but the key will arguably be getting a group of players brought in by other people for other coaches to buy into his system while getting half-decent production out of Sanchez.

Ryan is a fun coach to play for in camp, but if the team drops a few games in a row, that'll be when we really see what kind of head coaching chops Ryan has, especially given the division's overall improvement.

Miami Dolphins

Where the Jets bring the wild card, the Dolphins bring the at-times hokey Wildcat.

The Dolphins sprung the formation on the Patriots and used it to embarrass them last year en route to a 38-13 win that ended up being the difference between the Patriots making and missing the playoffs.

The Dolphins employed the formation sparingly going forward, as the threat of it seemed to be as dangerous at times as its actual utility, but went 11-5 and made the playoffs in the Patriots' stead.

With the addition of the new "Slash," WVU star Pat White at QB/WR/RB, they're going to keep Ambien in business, because there's a lot of defensive coordinators losing sleep over their versatility.

Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams give this team considerable talent in the backfield to complement a line that has shown the ability to effectively run and pass block, although truly excelling at neither as of yet. They're young though, and should improve on last year's mark of 40 sacks given up as several likely starters recover from injuries.

The Wildcat, especially, should help them keep QB Chad Pennington on his feet where he is the most accurate quarterback around (if not ever). Despite the leaky line he still threw only seven interceptions (1.5 percent of attempts) while managing a decent 19 TDs.

Pennington isn't going to go and win you a ton of games by the strength of his arm, but he may not lose you a single one with a truly awful decision. Beyond that, if Ted Ginn Jr. can continue to develop (56 receptions, 790 yards, 2 TDs), this team could be a real threat on offense.

Compared with the Jets, who released Pennington in search of strong-arm QB Brett Favre, the Dolphins are in a much better situation at QB for 2009 than their northern friends.

On defense, it may be another story, though. The Dolphins have resigned LB Jason Taylor to be a backup, making it very clear that he's not on some career victory lap, but is there to play football.

Otherwise, it's more of the same. While quality has been brought in overall, there's nobody new who looks to be a lock to start during week one. But while the defense was middle of the pack last year in most statistical categories, it was very good on 3rd and 4th down and should be competent overall once again.

The question is really was their performance on 3rd and 4th down a fluke or the sign that they have the defensive mentality needed to be a top unit in the league?

Will Tony Fasano and Bill Parcells continue their epic rebuilding project? Only time will tell, but either way this is a team that simply can't be overlooked anymore.

Just ask the Patriots.

New England Patriots

Obviously, with the return of Tom Brady, fans up and down Route 95 and Route 1 are thinking division title once again. If the league has any real sway over the results, their schedule makers certainly agree.

The Patriots will play no less than four prime-time games, including two Monday night games against the explosive Saints (Week 12) and the Buffalo Bills (Week 1) and two on NBC. Clearly, this is a team that the networks think will be exciting to watch.

Brady has been cleared to practice with no limitations for some time now and seems to be progressing well in his return to form.

While other QBs have suffered coming back from knee surgery, and Brady's surgery was hardly free from complication, by getting injured in Week One last year, Brady had an extra five months to heal, have surgery, and then rehab from his procedure, so he should be on pace to start this year.

Although, if you know anything about the Patriots, he could be in a wheelchair right now and they'd say he's doing fine. The former Iraqi Information Minister is more forthcoming than the Patriots about injuries (that's right, jokes right out of 2003! Don't pretend you don't love it).

The fact that Matt Cassel was traded, though, does indicate Brady will be back and be fine.

Still, other questions do remain. With the departure of Mike Vrabel to the Broncos, the Patriots look very thin (and very old) at LB.

Also, while the addition of Leigh Bodden, Shawn Springs, Darius Butler, Patrick Chung, and the re-signing of Terrence Wheatley should bolster a defensive backfield that lost Ellis Hobbs and Asante Samuel in the last two years, there is no sure thing among that group.

On the defensive line the questions seem to be more about whether this group will be together much longer than if they can succeed, but I'm a big believer in contract years as one of the best motivators.

With both RDE Richard Seymour and NT Vince Wilfork find themselves with capable backups behind them and an unrestricted free agent year not far ahead of them, the D-line should pick up a lot of the slack the linebackers might leave.

Overall, though, the defense needs to improve. The Patriots were middle of the pack in overall defense last year, despite all their injuries, but were downright bad on 3rd down. (They were, however, among the best on fourth down, but only 10 times did a team try them in the regular season, so it's too small a sample size to truly judge.)

Bottom line: you just don't really win titles, division or otherwise, when you give up a first down 44 percent of the time on third down.

On offense, it all depends on Brady. Moss looked more than fine with the less-talented Cassel throwing to him, Wes Welker is back for more, and a host of running backs should be able to get it done again.

The Patriots enter camp with no less than seven running backs on the roster, including Lawrence Maroney, Kevin Faulk, BenJarvus "Law Firm" Green-Ellis, Fred Taylor and Sammy Morris, all of whom should reasonably expect a spot on the 53-man roster (even if all five won't get one, more on that later).

But, as I've said before, the offensive line is the crucial, overlooked cog to this and any offense. Last year the line was able to run block effectively despite injuries, even if they could've been far better in pass protection.

Whether that is a result of playing more toward their individual ability level or if it was because of the reduced speed of delivery of Cassel vs Brady isn't known, but where this line goes, Brady goes. And where Brady goes, the Patriots go. 

Even with Belichick's gameplanning on defense, this is a team that will depend heavily on its ability to put up points to win games.

In the end, the Patriots will look at 2009 and see an aging squad that was asked one question: Can they play as more than the sum of their parts, rely on their explosive, deep pool of offensive talent and their versatile, experienced defense to come up big at key moments to win games?

Whether they look back at 2009 as division champs, a fading dynasty, or another team that didn't live up to expectations depends entirely on how they answer that question.

And there's only one place to do it.

Verdict

So how will the division shake out? There is a lot of time between now and Week 17 and a lot of football to be played (namely, well, all of it), but I think it's safe to say the AFC East will be a competitive division.

Then again, there's really no telling with this division.

Just a year after the division was home to the 1-15 Miami Dolphins and 4-12 New York Jets, it was home to the 11-5 Dolphins and the 9-7 Jets and has shown signs of improvement overall.

The Bills stayed pat at 7-9, but they did it with solid football and should be better overall, even if their record doesn't reflect it with the division getting so much better.

The world of the NFL really is all about kings and pawns, but this division seems to have, potentially, more of the former than the latter heading into the 2009 season.