One critique thrown out at New England's success semi-consistently is that they play in a terrible division. I think it's ultimately an inaccurate claim; if you take the combined records of the 2nd-4th place teams in the AFC East and compare them to the combined records of 2nd-4th placed teams of other divisions since 2010, the AFC East is pretty much right in the middle; not terrible, not great.
I will say, though, that the rest of the AFC East has a capacity for blowing golden opportunities like I have never seen before. It's like if the 2013 NFC North was every single year. 2012 Dolphins at a respectable 4-3, maybe better than their record indicates since two of their losses came in OT? Lose 5 of their next 6 and take themselves out of contention. 2013 Jets in the middle of the playoff race at 5-4 after upset wins over eventual playoff teams New England and New Orleans? Lose 3 straight games by double digits to teams with no shot at the playoffs. 2014 Bills at 8-6 after upsetting the R-E-L-A-X Packers, needing to beat a team in contention for the #1 draft pick to all but clinch a playoff spot? Entire team comes out flat and they lose to the 2-12 Raiders. 2015 Jets at 10-5 on the last week of the season, only needing a win over 7-8 Buffalo (or a Pittsburgh loss) to get into the playoffs after pulling off a gutsy overtime win over New England? You can guess what happened. Even last year's Dolphins, who did reach the playoffs, did their damndest to ensure they wouldn't but stayed in largely because the Broncos were even more inept.
Part of why I kept picking teams against Buffalo earlier in the season when they were 3-2 was because I was confident they would start choking. Then they got to 5-2, and I thought that maybe Sean McDermott managed to shake the standard AFC East curse. I should have known better.
