All of them? Their recent ones, sure, but for the 01, 03, & 04 seasons the AFC East wasn’t notably terrible. In 2001, Miami was tied with the Pats at 11-5 but wound up the wildcard, and the Jets at 10-6 were the other wildcard. In 2003, Miami was 10-6 and was eliminated from the wildcard by a tiebreaker. In 2004 the Jets were a wildcard team at 10-6 and the Bills went 9-7. Only the Colts stayed terrible over that 4 year period. Looking at the stats, the AFC East wasn’t much different from the other 5 divisions.
I don’t buy this argument at all, and I say that as someone who dislikes Brady, Bellichik, and the Patriots quite a lot. Sure, the other teams in the division have been pretty bad over the last decade, but the Patriots have been good against basically everyone they played.
Here’s their record against non-division opponents over the past ten years:
Basically, they tend to go 8-2 or 9-1 against non-division opponents. That sort of performance against non-division opponents will get most teams into the playoffs in most years.
They’ve had 3 mediocre years, where they went 6-4, and in two of those years the Patriots were eliminated in the playoffs before the Superbowl. The only time they’ve had a relatively bad year against non-division opposition and still made or won the Superbowl was last season.
You can only control your own performance, and you can only beat the teams that you actually face on the football field. It’s not the Patriots’ fault that the other teams in their division haven’t been any good, and New England has still been excellent against all opposition.
Exactly that - you can only control your own performance, not scheduling.
On the flip side, what if your division is both very strong and evenly matched top to bottom? You end up beating each other up and lesser teams can end up getting a playoff berth over them.
I understand the desire not to let division winners get an automatic playoff berth, but in that case, division scheduling cannot be allowed to stand either. If fans want to keep their rivalry games, inequity automatically gets built into the schedule for playoff qualification and it has to be accounted for somehow.
I’ve actually become a huge admirer of all that B.B. and T.B. have done over the last 20 years, a position that I’ve converted to over time. Your information is helpful. Thank you.
I like the idea that in wild card games, it’s a home game for whoever has a better record. So for example if a 12-4 49ers goes to play an 8-8 Cowboys, it takes place in Santa Clara, not Dallas. Just for wild card games though. So winning your division guarantees that you’re playing in the postseason regardless of how good your record was, but doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be playing at home in the postseason.
