The Buffalo Bills are eyeing their fourth-straight AFC East title in 2023.
Pro Football Focus does not think they will get there.
The football analytics outlet listed 12 bold predictions for every division in the NFL. Among those for the AFC East is a projection of the Bills falling short of the division crown.
Here’s PFF’s reasoning:
Buffalo has been one of the best teams in football in recent years, winning the AFC East for three straight seasons after the decline of the New England dynasty. But they’ve failed to take advantage of that dominance and have yet to appear in a Super Bowl, let alone win one over that time.
This season, the division figures to be as competitive as it has been for a long time, and it wouldn’t take much for the Bills to fail to retain their division crown, even if they still make the playoffs. There’s a solid chance that one of these AFC East teams can challenge Buffalo.
The most-noteworthy takeaways from PFF’s breakdown is… the lack of any fancy stats at all. Truthfully, their explanation is just one anyone could pull out.
But we can level with PFF a bit. The AFC East does look to be reloading:
- The Miami Dolphins are adding a lot of playmakers, it just remains to be seen what level of production Tua Tagovailoa brings.
- For all the shortcomings the New England Patriots have, they did not have an actual offensive coordinator last season. Bill O’Brien’s addition changes that.
- And the New York Jets? Defense and Aaron Rodgers–but nothing is guaranteed.
But the Bills… are still the same Bills. Just because you haven’t reached a Super Bowl doesn’t make you a bad team.
Especially when, even considering the loss of Tremaine Edmunds, Buffalo has done an outstanding job of keeping their blue chip players on their roster.
We’ll check back with PFF in January.
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