Move The Line - Everything You NEED to Know About the AFC East

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Dive deep into the AFC East's dynamics as we explore the latest predictions, odds, and top betting tips for the season. How do rising stars Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa fit into the picture? Get all the insights you NEED to make informed decisions.Subscribe to 4for4's Betting Package 👉🏼  https://www.4for4.com/plansUse Promo Code YouTube 10 to save 10% off the purchase price!Follow 4for4 on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/4for4footballFollow 4for4 Bets on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/4for4betsFollow Move the Line on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/MoveTheLineNFLFollow Ryan on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/RyNoonanFollow Sharp on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/SharpClarkeNFLVisit our Website 👉🏼  https://www.4for4.com/Join our Discord 👉🏼  http://discord.gg/4for4Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3OupraJ4for4 Betting Strategy Hub 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3hm39cw4for4 Betting Picks 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3LUp0EaNFL Betting Odds & Predictions 👉🏼 https://4for4.co/3nsW9QU

Hello and welcome to Move the Line, Ryan Noonan joins here as always in this spot by my friend Sharp Clark, which is the two-man game today. Connor is traveling. I think he's going to the Fantasy Football Expo. You know, he shows himself as a better Clark, but he's really just an old-school, you know, fantasy football matrix lover at heart. But how are we doing today, buddy? Good, yeah. doing today buddy good yeah yeah he's i mean i think betting and fantasy has kind of overlapped so much in in the world of player props and like you know the way that draft kings and fanduel have kind of dominated the the public industry it makes sense that there'd be so much overlap so

yeah it's a little different than what i do but but i still i still respect it yeah no same mcconner just he's uh i was giving my time. He loves to get out there and press the flesh whenever he gets an opportunity to get out there, and I love that he can do that on behalf of myself. I just moved. It's a tough week. I was not going to be traveling to go and do that in Cannon, Ohio, but shout out to all the people that are out there and mingling and getting to know each other, putting some faces to names and all that stuff.

We'll be able to hold down the fort. I really think he's just dodging the Patriots discussion. He is absolutely just riding the Pats hard here, wants to fade them in any way possible. Least points, worst record, all those different things. So I think he didn't want to actually have the recordings. He just, you know, poke me in text messages and stuff like that. So I'm sure he'll chime in the comment section at some point here with his, uh, his anti-patriots thoughts, but

everyone can go over to the site right now, four for four.com, uh, and take a look at our divisional previews from a betting standpoint, both Clark and I have those up on the site. Uh, like I said, talking AFC East, we're getting the AFC started. We already have the entire NFC in the books. And look, we are getting into a very different conference here in terms of top level talent, seven playoff seeds. It's really hard to find some teams that are, they're going to be some really good football teams, some really good quarterbacks, good offense,

good defenses that are just sitting out when it comes to the AFC this year. And you can make a case that this AFC East is maybe one of the best divisions in football. The schedule is pretty challenging for them. And we'll get into all that here in a minute. We're going to continue to be here every week leading up to the season. You can subscribe if you're watching on YouTube, still available in podcast form as well. It goes a long way in helping support the free content that we do here. Also, the betting sub is a great way to take advantage of all the bets and all the content that we have over at four for four.

If you are a fantasy gamer, uh, if you do play best ball, if you get into the dynasty streets, anything like that, we have everything you need articles, tools, rankings, everything. Discord is where you want to be as well. That's where Clark and I and Connor push all of the best through as well. Great community. You talk ball with people in there anytime of day, no matter where you are to be as well. It's where Clark and I and Connor push all of the bets through as well. Great community. You talk ball with people in there any time of day, no matter where you are, all around the world. That chat is popping, especially during football season, all season long.

You can find cheap ways to do it in the show notes. If you have access to BetMGM and you haven't accessed that at all, you get a betting subscription for $10 for the entire season. Super cheap. Our partner at VividPix, it's a pickup site similar to some of the other platforms that you're probably familiar with out there as well. A $5 deposit and playthrough gets you a three-month betting subscription as well. Again, $5, $10, super cheap.

Or just go over to 444.com slash plans, jump in, join us, and get some of the bets. We've been pushing a lot of things through, and we probably have some more as we're, what, 28 days or so away from real football. Going to be a pretty loaded slate of preseason games here as we record on a Thursday. So excited. We're getting really close. So, all right, buddy.

AFC East looks like from a schedule standpoint, they're playing the NFC East and AFC West, and then they are rotating through from a unique three standpoint, the AFC South, AFC North, and NFC South. Again, I think the NFC North, or I'm sorry, AFC North is another one of probably the toughest divisions in football, but you can make the case that the AFC East is right out there as well. We'll get started with the Buffalo Bills,

the favorite still in the division. They are down to 10 to in comparison to some of the last couple of years to win the Super Bowl, to win the AFC. You can get plus 475 on Caesars to win this division. This is the longest number in a little bit here. Plus 130 out there on MGM, plus 125

on Caesars. And the win total, 10.5, juiced a little bit to the over. Clark, I'll kick it to you to get us started on the Bills. Yeah, I'm buying the metaphorical dip on the bills 10 to 1 is is generous um and yeah like a lot of that comes from how difficult their schedule projects to be like it's not going to be easy but whoever emerges from this division is one going to be proven to be a very good team and two will have played a lot of those really tough games that really force you to improve over the course of the season and I really think the Bills are head

and shoulders above every other team in this division so I think they're going to come come away with a home playoff game you know two or three seed maybe and and have a path in the playoffs where they have the most important pieces right the elite quarterback who can make plays a good defense anchored by a strong secondary and a front four that can actually get pressure on the quarterback for the most part. It's still a team that I think is built to win Super Bowls. They just haven't delivered in the playoffs

in the last few years. And I chalk that mostly up to variance, not some kind of fundamental flaw in the team's chemistry or they just can't win the big one. I don't think that applies, especially when you think about the greatest football game ever played, the game against the Chiefs a couple of years back, like they did everything they possibly could to win that game. And then the Chiefs pulled off a miracle of 13 seconds left. So, yeah, I think the Bills are in a good spot this year. And, you know, there's more I like about them. I can get into it, but I want to give you a chance to open up your thoughts too.

Yeah, I agree. I think there's some value in buying the dip with the, I think just the preconceived notion that maybe they've been bypassed by maybe even some other teams in the division. They don't have necessarily the layups within the division. I think they're like 15 and three over the last three years in the division, which is really nice. They've just kind of ascended to the top spot since Tom Brady left and went to Tampa Bay. I was, you know, vacated spot.

And again, like, you know, the jets have had quarterback issues and talent issues, Miami to turn over the head coaching position. They ascended a little bit last year and are a little bit more interesting. Obviously new England is, is heading in a different direction.

There was some strange things last year in terms of like, well, a couple of major health situations. I mean, first of all, underrated that they lost both of their anchors in the secondary with Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, like kind of underrated injuries. Like people don't like to give those that type of player credit, but that's an impactful injury. The Von Miller injury more impactful because it impacted what they were doing early in the season with such great success where they were able to just

rush forward and win that way and be able to sit back and be multiple in the back half. Couldn't really do that. Or that was, I think the problem. And I think that's why Leslie Frazier's out. Sean McDermott is, you know, head coach and defensive coordinator this year, because once they stopped being able to do that successfully they still tried to do that um and that didn't really work so there's a few different things too that i think from a variant standpoint that is going to work in their favor they were like wildly terrible on third and fourth downs last year defensively they really good on early downs but like i think like think like 28th, I have it somewhere here. Let me see. I, it was just incredible to see how bad that they were, especially being good on early downs.

They were 29th in DVOA on third and fourth down, uh, in mid to go. So that's between three and six yards. They were 26 on long to go seven plus they were fourth and defensive DVO DVOA overall. So really good early downs. And again, there's something to that, being a little bit more predictable. We know we do some work trying to chart some of the things teams do schematically. And the Bills kind of did their thing, where it's like, hey, we're going to do what we do,

and you need to beat us. And it worked for the first part of the year. And it stopped working, but they didn't really change. And I think that's maybe where they got into some off-season philosophical differences and why there's been a change there, even though Leslie Frazier has been successful in that role for a while. Also, some turnover stuff on Josh Allen's side.

And I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that that's a little bit more going to regress to what we've seen over the last few years and not the gunslinger Josh Allen that we saw at Wyoming, that we saw early because he turned the ball over a lot there was 14 uh interceptions last year i believe six of those were in the red zone um and then there was a bunch of fumbles too and he lost i think eight fumbles 13 fumbles five recovery he lost eight of them so they gotta get a little bit better with protecting the football be a little bit better um in having someone step up outside of stefan diggs and i think that's what they tried to do by adding um you know don kinkade in the draft

now you don't see a lot of rookie tight ends come in and just seamlessly hit the ground running but a lot of talk about him being you know a big slot a secondary receiver josh allen had an elbow injury i don't think that was a thing as well and gabe davis had a high ankle sprain so there's a lot of things here that didn't go really well. And yet they were still hosted a division round playoff game. Now they were able to get picked apart by a Bengals team that was, that knew kind of what they were going to be looking at. So I think Sean McDermott maybe allows them to be a little bit more

multiple defensively. And if we get some stuff here that kind of regresses to what we saw over the last three years prior, I think there's a opportunities to buy the dip. 10 and a half win total, plus 130 in the division, and 10 to 1, even almost 5 to 1 to represent the AFC. This is way different than what we've seen price-wise. And to your point, it's not an entirely different roster than what we've seen in the past. Yeah, I totally agree with pretty much all your points. Like the secondary, and Trey White missed most of the season too. Kyair Elam missed time.

DeMar Hamlin was only playing because of all these injuries. And then he got hurt, obviously. Their secondary was just a mess the entire year. No consistency, no chemistry. And that explains a lot of why they failed on those third and longs. Like the epitome of their season, right, was the Justin Jefferson catch on fourth and 17 that the difference between winning and losing that game,

you know, obviously there's some other things that happened, but like they just weren't able to win in those high leverage moments. And that to me tends to be not predictive. On the offensive side, I do think Kincaid can make a difference from day one. A lot of these like historical trends on how quickly tight ends acclimate,

like how many of them played with a quarterback that was as good as Josh Allen, right? In addition to that, I really like Kelo Shakiri, played well as a rookie, as sort of like a specific role player with a specific job. And then they added Deontay Hardy, who is another really good field stretcher. Like they've got weapons that I think are underrated

at doing specific things. And so it's going to come down to whether or not Ken Dorsey in this offense, right? Ken Dorsey, I think is the offense coordinator. stretcher like they've got weapons that i think are underrated at doing specific things and so it's going to come down to whether or not ken dorsey in this offense right ken dorsey i think is the offense coordinator uh can can put the pieces in the right place because with josh allen at the helm they can do it i think they're going to run into some more heavier sets with with two tight end sets now they have kincaid um and i think that will be good for for josh allen as well like kind of like what the chiefs did last year a little bit with maybe not going so much heavily into four or five wide receivers, but more so like let's build up some beef up front and kind of force defenses to play

honestly at the line of scrimmage. So yeah, I'm excited about what the Spills team can do. I think there's a lot of reason for optimism. Yeah, they only played 12 personnel, two tight end sets on 8% of the snaps last year. It's 31st in the league. They're, I think, more equipped to do that, both with the addition of Kincaid. And then same thing with the running back situation. You know, Damian Harris will be a different element, different layer for them in terms of short yardage backs. I think James Cook showed the ability to earn targets as a pass

catcher as a rookie with a scrambling quarterback it's not something that we always see typically right we typically it's a pretty good correlation between running quarterbacks not throwing the ball as often to their running backs and the fact that they did sprinkle in james cook and he did successfully with that role i'm encouraged through that so i think there's just more paths for them to be less predictable less relying on josh allen's legs where that could become a luxury again versus something that they really need to do to move the chains and you know steph diggs was was good but if again someone whether it's kate davis kincaid shakir like you said someone steps up to give them a little bit of a little bit more versatility i

think that adds things here too so defense yeah and i don't buy it yeah like a lot of people talking about well you know miami with a backup quarterback gave them a run for their money in the wild card round and like that's such a mischaracterization of that game like that wasn't how the game played out yeah i mean the the dolphins have 15 drives and average fewer than 20 yards per drive they average 3.8 yards per play there was again a couple high leverage moments i think alan threw a pick six or maybe like a fumble six um these things like if you watch the games it's the bills dominated that game for the most part and the score is misleading the last game against cincinnati

does bother me but again that was in the elements bad game plan those kinds of things like i'm not I'm not full-on like yeah the Bills like should be deemed Super Bowl favorites the Chiefs should be and and are accurately deemed Super Bowl favorites but I just think that quality of play wise on a play-to-play basis like the Bills are still you know at the top of the league near the top of the league and there's no reason to think that there's some kind of regression happening right now yeah I think you make a good point too because you come out of this division on top or even as a playoff team, you've somewhat already proven yourself and run the gauntlet. We're not going to run into a scenario that we had with the 49ers or Philadelphia last year, where we think that they're very good football teams.

They're in the conference championship game, but we don't really know how to grade them on a curve with the rest of the league because they just didn't play anybody they're going to have to play people including just their division games at all in general to be able to get on the other side of this too and you mentioned the schedule and we're going to have this pretty much throughout here this afce schedule is is really tough um they are uh let me see here i think what 28 29th in terms of strength of schedule, in terms of the win totals of the teams that they're playing. It's going to be a challenge. But again, these other teams have to play the Bills too, and that's not a great scenario too.

So, yeah, I mean, I think AFC East at plus 130, over in the win total, though it's juiced over. How are you looking to bet the Bills? Both the division and Super Bowl odds are good with me. Don't really love the win total like you said the schedule is really brutal so um when you have a when you have a win total that's juiced to the over like minus 140 minus 150 like it is you're basically saying like this bet only makes sense if they stay healthy and things go according to plan and that's just a silly thing to bet on

i'd rather take the plus money odds on them winning the division or the higher odds of them winning the Super Bowl. I'm saying they're capable, right? Yep. I agree. All right. We'll move on to the Jets. Let's see what the Jets prices are. 18 on FanDuel to win the Super Bowl is the best number. They are 10 to 1, basically across the board to win the AFC. To win the division is plus 270 on DraftKings and a nine and a half win total, pretty much juice to the over. I think it's really, I don't know, somewhat irrelevant to try to recap a lot of the 2022 season, seven and 10 strong defense quarterback issues. They rolled out three different guys. None of it was really good. They were among the bottom five offenses and basically anything that you would want to do yards per drive points per drive

success rate EPA per play. A lot of the heavy lifting was done by the defense but again now we have uh the hard noxification of this team a lot of aaron rogers here that we're going to have here in the preseason i'll let you get started with your thoughts on the jets my opinion on the jets defense really shifted over the course of the year last year. I remember thinking early on, like, this defense is kind of questionable. They've been taking advantage of, you know, guys that maybe back up quarterbacks. Like, they had a really favorable spot against Miami, you know, like Pittsburgh. But, you know, the Bengals played well against them. It was like, I just wasn't convinced.

And then by the end of the year, I was really impressed. I think that their depth on the defensive front really allows them to stay fresh throughout the game and the way the sauce gardener played obviously um and the rest of that secondary against some pretty good quarterbacks right like down the stretch they played against josh allen and the bills the lions when they were really clicking offensively the jags when they were really clicking with trevor lawrence and the seahawks who you know were pretty good with gino smith um that was kind of how they ended their season and I thought they really held their own against all those opponents and so I do have optimism about the quality of

this defense and you know I've been seeing some skepticism in terms of like well they stayed super healthy last year so how can you project that into this year and that doesn't really matter for week one right they are healthy so like sure if they get hurt i'll adjust my opinion on the defense but like as of right now this is an elite defense with talent and depth at every key position um and then on the other side of the ball like it's it's we don't know how it's all going to work out like anytime there's such a new element introduced aaron rogers is undoubtedly going to be better than Zach Wilson and Mike White and Joe Flacco were last year. How much better I think is the big question, right? Because

if he can be his MVP self in his age 39, age 40 season, then this team can make it to the Super Bowl, right? It has the defense, has the chops, has the wide receiver one, has the quarterback. But if what I'm a little worried about is if the offensive line isn't isn't as good as what he was experiencing in green bay how well does he stick to the plan let plays develop you know patiently kind of work with these guys as as some potential growing pains emerge in the first six weeks they have a brutal schedule it's a little bit of like a teeter-totter right where like you can kind of see things like they all they all look happy right now they're all super pumped like good vibes in in new york but

things start to go downhill with no no letting up in their schedule and aaron rogers like i don't know like he's an enigma and i could see this kind of becoming a well i'm gonna run out the clock type of thing um so i think that this team has a truly wide range of outcomes based on the difficulty of the schedule and based on how good they can be if things do click. So it's a team that I'm not looking to take a strong stance or opinion on in the preseason. It's a team that I'm going to be looking very closely at in the first few weeks because I really want to identify what their real range of outcomes is based on the play on the field. And so this is one of the teams you have to pay attention to. I agree that I think there's a lot of variance to the outcome of this team

for a number of reasons. Start defensively, as you mentioned, like I think they were good. And you listed some of the quarterbacks actually with football outsiders, strength of schedule, the defense played the toughest slate of anyone in the league last year fifth in DVOA sixth in the EPA per play I mean Sauce Gardner was everything and more and really like absolutely dominated he allowed just 45.9% of the targets against him to be completed opposing quarterbacks had a 53.9% passer rating when targeting him which is the second lowest in the league for a starter.

It was really good. And like Quinn Williams up front, they now have like four or five edge rushers that they can rotate in. They have other depth in the secondary. They did lose. They brought in Chuck Clark from Baltimore. He's already gone down, but Adrian Amos picked up from Green Bay. So they've had depth definitely on the defensive side.

I think they're going to be good. Again, defensively, we know that's not super sticky year to year. They did run a hot. They only lost 8.6 adjusted games due to injury on the defensive side of the ball, by far the fewest in the league. The other thing that's weird is as good as they were defensively getting pressure, you know, in the back half with Gardner and company, they had a really low turnover rate.

So I think that there's some like, yeah, the injury luck could be offset by a little bit more turnover variance. So those things kind of come out in the wash to me. So I still think this is a top 10 defense. Again, this is a division full of pretty good defenses, but you can make a case that this one is maybe the best in the league. Again, Robert Sala is a defensive minor head coach. I think it makes sense that they kind of turned on the second year get a little bit of the culture stuff through

add some talent around and all of a sudden everything kind of gets moving and uh becomes kind of turnkey for year three offense yeah i mean i think that there are enough bodies up front that are starting caliber offensive linemen but i think who those people are going to be are they going to live up to expectations are they they going to be healthy? There are question marks. Early in the season, the schedule is brutal. That's a time where you need to have that answered. And I think there's some unknowns there. Brees Hall, there's some unknowns there in terms of his health.

Are they going to add Delvin Cook? And is there chemistry early in the season? Like we know that can be a thing for any quarterback. I think it's kind of always been a thing that's talked about for Aaron Rodgers for some reason. You know, he likes his guys. They get open. He's going to find you and win. Obviously, if there's MVP style quarterback play still in that body, like as you mentioned, it's going to turn 40 in December. Yeah, they are very, very live. The hard knocks height that's going to continue to drive these prices north will probably be justified.

But I'm with you. I think there's way more variance in terms of what we saw last year. It's been very protective of the football for the last handful of years, even critically, where it was like he wouldn't take chances. He'd scramble out of pocket and throw the ball out of bounds to avoid any scenario where he would throw interceptions. But 12 picks last year like 15 last four years combined so you know that could be a little bit more of the what he had to deal

with in terms of talent and green bank but still a pretty young core of pass catchers there in in new york form as well so there's some questions there someone's got to miss the playoffs in this division in this conference and while it's a shoe-in that everyone thinks that this is a team that could do so i don't hate plus 120 for them to miss the playoffs just trying to embrace a little bit of that variance like that's a better price to me than you're going to get under nine and a half wins and i don't mind taking some like project stuff right like over ten and a half wins you know to win the division like i think that there are you know that kind of speaks to your point the range of outcomes here i think is a little bit vast you know, to win the division. Like I think that there are, you know, that kind of speaks to your point. The range of outcomes here, I think is a little bit vast in comparison

to some of the other teams. Yeah. The only problem is with, with the odds, the books understand that this is a high variance team, right? I mean, if you look at regular season win totals, which is how books measure median projected outcomes for the regular season, they're at 9.5, juice slightly to the over, right along with the Lions and Dolphins and Chargers and Jags. They're all kind of in that same range. But if you look at the Super Bowl odds, which are how likely is this team to actually win at all, the Jets are noticeably ahead of all of those teams, right?

Jets are 16 to 1, 13 to 1, 18 to 1, depending on where you look. Lions, Dolphins, Chargers, all 22 to 1, 25 to one, Jags, 25 to one to 30 to one. So these are Brooks recognizing that like, you know, due to the strength of schedule and due to how good this team can be, if it hits its upside, like the Superbowl path is already being priced as more likely relative to its median outcome. So there's no real value to me in betting the upside to the Jets. I think it's just something to be aware of when you're evaluating early. But I'm staying away from the futures markets for this team. Yeah, I mean, it becomes like a math problem.

And I know like doing this in early August is we just don't know how things are going to play out. Health is going to become an issue. It gets very easy if you have cluster injuries on the team or a quarterback injury but feel like the bills are in the playoffs um we can have discussions about the other teams here in the conference someone's got to win the afc south that gives you two teams i don't think that's a two playoff team division the afc north is loaded right like totally bangles browns ravens and we know the chiefs and then you still have like what's going on with the chargers all of a sudden you have like nine teams and seven spots it gets a little tricky the problem is like because i thought about this

too i like on the surface jets to miss playoffs plus 120 is the type of bet that i would like but i thought about kind of how the season plays out, right? And I think it's a really unique dynamic where you have probably nine teams that if they play to what we expect them to be, should be playoff teams. And there's only seven spots. But what that means to me is that the two teams that miss are probably gonna be

due to variants that we can't foresee, probably injury related. And so what that means is that if you're one of those nine teams, you're probably going to make the playoffs unless you're one of the teams that gets hit by the injury bug, right? I mean, there's, there's other variants that can happen. But to me, it's like, I don't know how to predict who those two teams are going to be. Maybe it's the bills, you know, like, we don't know. Obviously, the bills would have to suffer a little bit more in

order to knock them out of the playoffs. But it seems like not the kind of bet that i love to make in that it's not betting on my understanding of the teams it's betting on how variance will play out um and so that's kind of why i'm you know i understand why people would bet it but that's why i'm hands off yeah you probably want a better number if it just becomes a coin flip variance scenario than plus 120 i would i would go that way over the under on the win total, but I think you make a good point in terms of the way to suss it out. Now, here's the thing. If you wanted to, the only problem is it's probably going to get a little bit shorter because of the opening schedule. Because you mentioned the first six games are absolutely

brutal. It's why they got to hit the ground running a little bit to get a little bit answers because it does open up they are favored in nine currently favored in nine of the last 11 games of the season so again it gets a little bit softer as we move through it here but again like how they start is going to be really impactful anyway you can build on some of the things that are hard for us to quantify in terms of momentum and just getting confidence and all the things that can come along with that. It's still pretty much a young team on both sides of the football. But Buffalo at home to open. Then they go to Dallas, who I think we both think is going to be a good football team this year.

They get New England at home, probably a win opportunity. But then the Chiefs at Denver, again, Denver, regardless of your questions at Denver, it's always a tough place to play historically, especially early in the season. Then they get the Eagles. It's a very tough spot with multiple playoff teams, the two top teams in the NFC East and two of the top teams in the AFC in

general with the Chiefs and the Bills. Tough, tough slate for them. So much to see how it goes. I think there's a lot of variance. I understand why people are bullish. I do think, again, the hard knocks thing drives prices and eyeballs. And when we're watching the good vibes, we're watching some of those things happen. I think that typically happens every single year. It's not going to be any different here with the Jets this season. So it's going to be an interesting team to watch. We will move on here to the Miami Dolphins. They are 25 to 1 to win the Super Bowl on Caesars. AFC has also won Caesars 13 to 1. Caesars also the best division price for Miami at 3 to 1.

And the Wintoral pretty much flattened price out there at 9 a half. Mike McDaniel coming over from San Francisco, kind of hit the ground running. Tale of two seasons, basically. It was two healthy, two not healthy. They were absolutely on fire for the first 12 weeks of the season. Started out in three. Stumbled, obviously, without two there. Backed in the playoffs.

And a really nice offseason for Miami, and I understand why people are bullish. I'm there as well, but I'll let you get started why you like or don't like the Dolphins. Yeah, I'm not a believer in the Dolphins. I think that they're sort of the team that people are getting excited about based on, I think, the wrong things.

So let's talk about them a little bit. One is they're excited because the passing offense was so explosive last year, right? You know, Tua Tagovailoa had, you know, a very good EPA per play by the end of the year. But I think when you look a little closer at that, it's very misleading. And two things really concern me about it. One is through week 12, he was averaging 0.418 EPA per play, which is astronomical. It was significantly higher than even Patrick Mahomes. 54.2% success rate.

From week 13 on, which was only four games of Tua, he averaged negative 0.137 EPA per play, which ranked 28th out of 28 quarterbacks that played 120 snaps during that time, and a 39.3% success rate, which was second worst. This was worse than ritter this was worse than mike white this was worse than all these players that played towards the end of the season um and so when a team kind of pops up out of nowhere offensively and then tails off at the end of the year which when we look at the team we have to consider the team with tua right that was the dolphins relevant season they really tailed off with two at the end, we have to consider the team with Tua, right? That was the Dolphins' relevant season. They really tailed off with Tua at the end. And that concerns me because it's more likely that

it was kind of a flash in the pan than it was some kind of sustainable thing that they can do throughout the year. It's a little bit pick and choosing when you're only using a four-game sample size. And one of those games includes the second half against Green Bay, where Tua may have suffered a concussion. Obviously, that impacts things. But but the point is if it's so fragile that like you can manipulate the numbers and point out how badly it went down like you can't do that with guys like Patrick Mahomes Josh Allen like those guys don't have that four game stretch where they just look absolutely terrible Tua did and when you when you combine that with the fact that watching film, Tua makes a lot of really, really bad throws.

Even during the early part of the season where he was crushing an EPA per play, there were a lot of dropped interceptions. There were a lot of really bad plays that he got away with. There were a lot of close to being tackles, like eight to 10 yards that the receiver managed to elude the grasp and turn in an eight 80 yard touchdown like these types of things end up having a massive impact on the stats but they're not encouraging from when you watch the film and try to evaluate to his play so i think they're being

held back by the quality of quarterback um and i know that's you know controversial to anon's going to come after me whatever um the second thing is like people are assuming a massive jump for this defense because they got vic fangio but like I'm not necessarily convinced that Vic Fangio is the massive difference maker that people think that he is like I think that he deserves credit for uh sort of bringing new schemes and designs to what NFL defenses do it's like kind of a visionary in that sense, like historically. But that's different from like week to week. Like he's just coming up with, you know,

these crazy game plans that just shut down really good quarterbacks. Like I think he's still just a, you know, he's a defensive coordinator. And with Jalen Ramsey hurt and, you know, they do have talent on the defense, like don't get me wrong, but it's not like they have studs everywhere. Like these are guys that have to play to the highest level to live up to their expectations. So I just think it's like the Dolphins are a fine team and they've got good potential. And when things are clicking on offense, they are really, really explosive, which helps.

But I don't see them as the type of team that can like make a deep playoff run. They're not going to be the type of team that i favor against any of the top teams in the afc or even the top teams in the nfc they're going to be the type of team that has to really hit its best stride at the at the best moment kind of like they did against the bills last year and even then they're going to be underdogs in these games and it's just tough to to make a deep playoff run when that when that's uh the situation you're facing yeah i think a deep playoff run is going to have to come with some home field advantage probably. Those things probably go hand in hand.

Having to not go and play in weather in late December, early January is probably going to be beneficial to them. I think some of the Tua stuff is fair, but the numbers are the numbers. We saw that with our eyes. It was different in the second half when he came back but i think that's part of it too i think the guy we obviously shouldn't come back when he did i think there was like a little bit of reluctancy where the team knew hey we probably made a mistake we shouldn't put this guy back out there and i think he's probably playing to not get hurt

a little bit down the stretch too when he was playing so yeah i mean i'm very bullish on not just what we saw with tyreek hill and jaylen wattle i think they did a good job at adding because really that was it last year they dominated the target share they did a good job i think adding some ancillary pieces i think braxton barrios is a nice piece for them adds a little bit of a different layer in terms of working out underneath that's kind of where tua does most of his best work they really really didn't utilize Mike Gusecki. So put Braxton Berrios, who is a really good job of getting open and creating separation in short areas.

Robbie Chosen, I think, is his name now. We've gone to Robbie with a Y, Robbie with IE, and now I think it's Robbie Chosen, IE. Yes, Chosen, yeah, I don't know what it is. So again, just another element to, there was just no depth there, Trent Shurfield and some of the guys that were there last year. So I think they've done a good job at adding some talent around them. They, again, couldn't really sustain a two injury. They really can't sustain an injury to any, either wall or

hill. That would be a problem. I think the running back room is better they ran it back basically with uh mostard and jeff wilson but devon a chain adds a new element too in terms of just his ability as a pass catcher um you know his third downs even they want to mix them in i think that is another speed element that fits there too so again like talking injuries and the what-ifs if someone were to go down we could do with every team and poke holes in it. So as of now, they're all healthy. I'm pretty optimistic that we could see more of, maybe not the high end of what we saw early in the season with Tua, but somewhere closer to that than what we saw in the tail end of the season. I believe in Mike McDaniel and what he's been able to do as a play caller

and him being able to continue to scheme wins. Like we just, we trust Kyle Shanahan to scheme wins for his, his team. I want to see him maybe for a second year with Mike, with Daniel, but don't give him the benefit of the doubt because it went pretty damn well last year. Big Fangio has been a guy. I think part of it too,

is not just Fangio. I think it's, it's a little bit of a change from Josh Boyer. I remember this. I talked about it last year, the team, there were reports of the team was not happy that Josh Boyer stayed on when Brian Flores left.

I don't think players in the locker room liked him very much. He was pretty arrogant with what they did, running it back, without really the horses to do it. I think Flores is going to do that again in Minnesota this year. It's like, this is what we do. We're going to blitz a third of the time. And they would use Bradley Chubb and Jalen Phillips and drop them in coverage to disguise blitzes instead of sending your big dogs to go out and

go get the quarterback. So Bradley Chubb was kind of a disappointment from a raw output standpoint. I think even Jalen Phillips was a little bit too, but I think those guys are going to be doing what they do best this year through his scheme. Now the Jalen Ramsey injury hurts because part of it was the depth that allowed him to move into the slot and it will allow some of the other guys to kind of be in their position. That hurts a little bit, but I think they have really good talent at all levels. Christian Wilkins is a dominator really outside of Aaronald in terms of interior defensive lineman who pressured the quarterback wilkins is the man um i love the addition like they've just had bad linebackers i think david long for as long as he can stay healthy is going to be a really good impactful

player for them um i like what they have in the safety room we've just seen it year in year out where fangio comes in it's just change. They're going to be a lot more cover too. He's one, a lot of quarterbacks talk about who do you not like to play against offensive quarter names to the same thing. They have trouble with Fangio's defense. So I'm a believer in the talent. It does take a little bit of hit undoubtedly, even if Jalen Ramsey is kind of on the back nine of his career, what he allows them to do, I think that loss is impactful. So I'm a little less bullish on them, but in general, I like betting on some of the upside scenarios here.

We talked about it in terms of like, hey, maybe you want to go after coach of the year. Maybe you want to go after AFC. Maybe you want to go after number one seed in the AFC versus some of the binary win total division prices and stuff like that. But I don't know, three to one in the division? I don't hate that either. So I'm a little bit more bullish on Miami.

I know Conor is as well. He and I think Daigle got down on some pretty early stuff. But those numbers are still out there in terms of divisional prices as well on Miami. Yeah, and it's hard for me to bet on or against Miami because while I don't believe in them as a, like, you know, top tier AFC team on a week to week basis, they're capable of, of the best offensive performances in the league.

Like that speed is real. And like to, you know, for all his flaws, like can process very quickly. And so when the offense sets up an open pass, like within a couple of seconds of the snap, like he's usually able to hit it with accuracy.

And when you've got both Hill and Waddle on the outside, like the options are just, you know, like they are explosive. So they're the most bipolar offense in terms of like my game ratings game to game. And it's just really hard to predict, you know, like when they're going to struggle when they're going to exceed expectations. So it's a team that I'm excited to watch, but I don't see myself getting heavily involved in, especially early until I really have a strong grasp of who they are in year two of my McDaniel. Yeah, I think that's totally fair. Again, another tough, tough schedule in terms of what we're looking at here towards the tail end of the season. They have obviously the six games in the division. After the bye, they go to Germany to face the Chiefs,

which that's a Chiefs home game. So I don't know. I feel like it's a neutral win for them in terms of home field advantage, having to go over there and not play in Arrowhead or whatever they're calling it nowadays and having to play that game in Germany. That's probably a benefit for them. Yeah, no, it probably doesn't matter.

I'll be honest. Five of the last eight and four of the last five are at home, which is really nice for them. And all the road games are on the East Coast. They basically just fly to like Washington and Baltimore. So they don't have a lot of travel in the back half of the season, which I think is really nice for them as well. So yeah, I'm in on Miami at minus 105 to make the playoffs.

That's available on FanDuel. I like that number. I think this is a team that is, again, I'm going to buy into some of the early other market stuff too. I got into McDaniel Coach of the Year north of 20. Yeah, I think they're going to be exciting. And, again, I have to pretend right now they're healthy. So I think last year too, you blitz the quarterback that much

and don't get home because they were like 20th in pressure rate, I think 22nd in like just raw sacks. That's tough, man. Like you got to get home if you're coming that often. And so I think that there is a lot of reasons to be optimistic that the Fangio change alone, even without Jalen Ramsey, is going to lead to some pretty good things, especially with some of the other talent too.

I mean, I don't know. I like Cam Smith coming out. He's a cornerback from South Carolina. He's a nice addition there. If they can do some more stuff, if Zayvon Howard can stay healthy, there's some other guys there in the back half that I'm bullish on. So, yeah, I'm in on them. A little bit ahead of the Jets.

I think that they're a team that I'm a little bit more interested in. That's not really how the market has it currently. All right, we'll move on to the last team here. We've gotland patriots uh they are 66 to 1 to win the super bowl 40 to 1 on fanduel to win the afc division price is 8 to 1 and seven and a half wins juiced to the under we haven't had new england in the last spot in the afc since 2000 it's belichick's first year in new england last year, I mean, look, it was not good, but the reality was they somehow had a chance to make the playoffs in the last game of the season, which they had no business being in, and it was not pretty. There was an insane amount of hubris to be able to just say, Mattricia here are the keys we're gonna let you run the offense

i mean just insane um a lot of talk about bill o'brien being the answer here and coming in and being the offensive coordinator and look bill o'brien had the keys in houston to run the whole ship he's probably another one of these guys we talked about a lot this offseason just these guys that are just better coordinators than they are head coaches definitely better uh coordinators than they are general managers and i think bill o'brien fits that mold but it's just not enough because they didn't add any talent there's still no one that separates it's a bunch of contested catch guys that don't really have any top end speed they've done a good job of adding speed on the defensive side of the ball. Clark, I'm just not bullish enough on what they have here. Even if Mac Jones plays like he did as a rookie,

the new England has really a chance at all to really sniff the playoffs. What are your thoughts on New England? I think they're fine. The problem is, okay. So last year, I think most people have heard by now kind of their splits of wins and losses against good and bad quarterbacks,

right there. Their wins came against a bunch of backups i think the only legitimate starter they beat was jared goff um so you know to the extent he's a legitimate starter he also was missing players they shut him out they shut him out too it was a good win they shut him out but the best one that game true yeah um but they lost to every good quarterback they played right and the problem with that is it's not i mean yes like a team is going to play better against bad teams that's always true but the patriots are specifically structured in a way that that gap is bigger than for most teams and and it comes on both sides of the ball right mac jones is limited in what he can

do as a quarterback he is very accurate when he's got a clean pocket. He can, when, when he's got a guy in single coverage, even if the guy doesn't get a ton of separation, like he can put it where the receiver can get it. It's very, very good skill that he has, but he doesn't have a ton of arm talent. And when defenses have safeties on the back end to kind of cover up those single coverage opportunities, he's just not as effective. And so when they can run the ball and bring those safeties down, because they're running the ball successfully play after play, it creates the passing opportunities in which Mac Jones succeeds. When you're playing from behind against good teams, like they're not as worried about you running, you run for five yards, the clock starts, you know, keeps winding. And you're just that's

just not how you get back in games that you're losing. So that's, that's one thing that is a problem. The second thing is on defense, they're so much better at coverage than they are at winning up front. And so, you know, when they're in positions where they're kind of like pinning their ears back and putting the quarterback in a position where they know you're passing, they can really, you know, put quarterbacks in bad positions. But when the other team has the lead and can run the ball you know the ground game set up short passes like really kill the clock they just don't have

the difference maker on the interior defensive line you know Matthew Judon's good on the edge Uche is good you know part-time player but they're not just dominating the defensive line like like maybe some prior New England defenses have so they're kind of vulnerable to playing you know when they're playing from behind on defense. And so it kind of like feeds into itself, and that's just why they just don't perform in those situations. That's a problem because this year's schedule is absolutely brutal. Like we've been talking about brutal schedules throughout this, you know,

throughout this preview because they all do face brutal schedules. But Dolphins twice, Jets twice, Bills twice, Eagles, Cowboys, Chiefs, Chargers, Broncos, like it does not let up for this team. So if they're a team that you expect to perform worse against good teams and good quarterbacks, it's not looking like a very optimistic season. Now, they'll probably catch some breaks. You know, things happen during the season. Some of those teams are going to be injured when they play them, et cetera, but not enough breaks to, to put them in a position where I think they can make the playoffs. I think this is a non-playoff team due to schedule that would be maybe fighting for the playoffs if they were facing a schedule, like what the NFC South faces, for example. So a better team than last year with

the worst record, I think is a reasonable expectation. Yeah. So I don't think they're going to be bad. I think they're going to be bad i think they're going to be fine i think they'll win some games they probably shouldn't um but to your point like they this has been a couple years now too that we they've had this trend of not just like dominating like bad quarterbacks um like best in the league the defense and then just really below average in terms of how they play against the top level of talent here. The schedule, it's not just, it's throughout. Even when they get a little bit of a break in the schedule, they face running quarterbacks, which has also been a bugaboo of Bill Belichick defenses for his entire career. Sam Howell can run. I think we see Sam Howell move a little bit

this year. They play overseas against Anthony Richardson. Anthony Richardson is going to give them nightmares. Justin Fields gave them nightmares last year. It's always been a problem for some reason for the Patriots. They play Daniel Jones. These are some of the best matchups that they have all season long. These are the easiest games in the middle of the schedule because the start of the schedule is brutal. The end of the schedule, it gets really hard to talk in August about games that are going to happen in December because we don't know the makeup of those teams.

But on paper, based off of who we're expecting these teams to be, they finish week 15 through 18, Kansas City at Denver. We've already talked about going to Denver is not easy. It's not going to be easy in December at Buffalo, and then the home against the Jets. That is a brutal finish to the season on top of a start that includes first four games, Philly, Miami, the Jets, and the Cowboys. Best case scenario, one and three, probably own four. New England media has been pretty spoiled with the Patriots, but that's not a great place to be

when things aren't going very well. And i think that's going to be a problem early this year they play right now on the schedule they have 13 of their 17 games 13 of those teams that have a win total of eight and a half or more that's those are good football teams that they're playing and we just talked about some of the teams that don't fit that mold have russian quarterbacks which is just absolutely a nuisance for them. So I think it's a better football team. Like you said, if they're in the AFC South, I think we're talking about them like competing for the division.

Like they are definitely giving the Jags a run for their money in that division, but that is not their lot in life. They are comfortably the worst team in this division, even if they're okay. And that's going to be a problem. So again, like some of the prices on them are, it's just built in. worst team in this division even if they're okay uh and that's gonna be a problem so again like some of the prices on them are it's just built in there's just not a lot of ways that i like to bet it uh like you gotta lay minus 165 for them to miss or finish fourth in division like it's like minus 300 to miss the playoffs like it just doesn't make any sense even though i feel pretty

good about them not making the playoffs just on a bet or a bet style that I like to make. Do you have any interest in betting new England in any way? Yeah, not, I mean, I'm not laying 300 on a, on a season long bet like that, just cause juice isn't really worth the squeeze. I,

I loved the under seven and a half when it was plus money earlier in the off season, but obviously everyone agrees with me because now it's like heavily juicy under, I think, I don't know what the best price out there is available. Like, I think if you get minus 120 on the under seven and a half, that's still a good bet. Anything steeper than that.

And it's, you know, I don't have an exact number of how likely I think it is they go under seven and a half. But it's definitely a bet that I'm happy to have in my pocket. Yeah, let's see what their best price. I think it's like still like minus 130, I think. Still not something that we typically want to get involved in very much. Yeah, this is why you got to bet futures early. Like they move a lot over the course of the season. And it doesn't take that much.

Just have a sense of who these teams are and what their schedule looks like pretty early in the offseason. And you can identify these opportunities that you know they're eventually going to get bet and if you bet early you could even play back the other side now and guarantee a profit if you wanted to but um but yeah it's it's steep i mean i do i think minus 300 is a plus ev bet technically to make the playoffs yeah i do actually i think they have a you know to make the playoffs it's got to be like 10 to 15 percent in my opinion um but again laying 300 on a season-long bet just i don't know they have the appetite for that yeah yeah minus 135 on caesars is the best price uh under seven

and a half for new england so unprecedented territory but uh a, not a great place at this, considering it's like 50, 60 points off of where it was. Yeah. Yeah. Minus one 30 is probably fair. 35 is too steep. Yeah. He just, again, like Bill O'Brien is going to be better, like undoubtedly better. But like, again, it's, we're talking about Devante Parker, Kendrick Bourne, Juju Smith Schuster, like not guys that thrive in – none of those are wide receiver ones. Those are not big separators. You know, Mike Gusecki in the slot, you're going to run a lot of two-side end.

I think you see more of that from them this year. Like they, I think, backed into having to give Ramondre Stevenson a massive role. I think they like him, but I don't think that they wanted him being like the leading target share guy for like a stretch of the season because none of the running backs are healthy and no one else can get open it's just kind of a messy situation so i think there's a lot that's going to be better i like the depth defensively they have a lot of they've had like i said speed there's a lot of versatility that's significantly better but they got to do it against a brutal slate and they have to show that they could do it against some of the better quarterbacks.

So yeah, tough road for doing that. I also just, I don't think that the Belichick Mac Jones relationship has ever been particularly good. Like I think about, you know, rookie year when Mac Jones was actually playing pretty well and he, he had him throw three times against Buffalo and on the road,

it was like, basically just, I just do not trust you to, to throw the ball. And then last year, benching him for Bailey Zappi. And then I think I saw a news report recently where it was like, him and Zappi are going to miss the preseason game.

That might have just been a rumor. I don't bet preseason, so I'm not as on top of it. But it's like treating it basically like maybe Zappi is a potential starter. I just, it just doesn't seem like a good situation. I think it's make or break for Mac Jones. And I don't believe in Mac Jones enough to think that he can overcome those circumstances. Whatever that leash is, it's probably a little shorter if they start 0-4. And that seems very much in the range of outcomes here.

So yeah, tough, tough slate for the Patriots and for the AFC East. I think you made a great point at the start. Whoever comes out of this is going to have shown a little bit of metal that they are a real team to contend and mess with the Chiefs when we get to whatever happens here in the AFC. Again, just assuming that we get a healthy Patrick Mahomes, there's no scenario where the Chiefs aren't very, very much in play at the tail end of the season. So if you've been able to come out of the AFC East, you've probably proven that you belong or at least should be in the discussion for that. So head over to the site. You can read Clark's preview. Mine's there as well. If you want a little bit more detail on what we think of this division,

we will be back next week with Connor to unpack another division here. Yeah. We really appreciate hanging out with us again, subscribe, rate, review, jump in another division here. Yeah, we really appreciate you hanging out with us. Again, subscribe, rate, review. Jump in the comments here if you want to let us know what your favorite look is in the AFC East. And get the betting subscription. You can get that in the show notes here as well, 444.com slash plans. Join us for the year. Jump in the Discord, chat with us every week.

We love that. Excited to unpack balls. We're getting close here. So, 4 o'clock. I'm Ryan. We'll see you all next time. Thanks, everybody.