Brady or Bust for Patriots in AFC East
Brady or Bust for Patriots in AFC East
With Matt Cassel as their backup QB a year ago, New England managed to survive the early season-ending injury to starter Tom Brady. But Cassel is gone now, with the Patriots dealing him to Kansas City in February and the Chiefs inking the signal caller to a huge six-year deal earlier this week. Now the question is can Brady rebound after all of the knee trouble and lead the Pats to the top of the AFC East as the heavy, heavy favorites?
Turns out we didn’t miss Tom Brady nearly as much as we thought.
Well, the New England Patriots didn’t miss him. Sure, they didn’t make the playoffs last year, but backup QB Matt Cassel posted a Brady-like 89.4 passer rating (21 TDs , 11 INTs) and led New England to an 11-5 record at a profitable 9-7 ATS. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Of course, that’s exactly what’s happening now that Brady is back from four knee surgeries – two to repair torn ligaments and two more to address the infection that got into the wound. The Pats are 1-7 favorites to retake the AFC East with an over/under of 11.5 regular season victories. It’s a reasonable request from a team that won at least 12 games in four of its last five seasons with Brady at the helm. Except he had two good knees back then. Brady also had good cornerbacks on the other side of the ball; the Pats are relying on oft-injured Shawn Springs and Detroit Lions cast-off Leigh Bodden to plug some big holes this year.
The defending AFC East champions are the Miami Dolphins (11-5 SU, 8-8 ATS), who held the tiebreaker in the division and increased their win total from the previous year by 10. The betting odds suggest something in between for 2009. The over/under is set at eight wins and the Fish are priced at 11-2 to defend their AFC East crown.
Handicappers will have to decide how much of a fluke last year was for the Dolphins – they became the only one-win team in league history to win their division the following season. That 8-8 ATS result tells us the marketplace had no problem adjusting. Bill Parcells is a proven commodity and exactly the kind of person you’d pick to turn a team around in his first year running the football operations. But the rest of the league has also had time to adjust to the Wildcat offense that quarterbacks coach David Lee brought with him from Arkansas.
Both New England and Miami will have to fend off the aggressive Buffalo Bills (7-9 SU and ATS), who stole the spotlight by inking none other than Terrell Owens to a one-year, $6.5-million deal. Owens is at the same time one of the most loved and hated celebrities in North America, which obscures his real accomplishments on the field.
He caught at least 10 TD passes in each of his three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and owns the freakishly supreme conditioning to keep up the pace in his age 36 season. The bigger question is whether the Bills have done enough to improve an offensive line that allowed 38 sacks in 2008, while frequently coming up dry on short-yardage plays.
Whichever of these three teams wins the division will be thankful that Brett Favre “retired” again after one season with the New York Jets. Things were looking very good for both Favre and the Jets until they dropped four of five to end the year at 9-7 (7-9 ATS). So now he’s gone, and New York is 14-1 to win the division with either Kellen Clemens (59.3 lifetime passer rating) or Mark Sanchez at the controls for first-year head coach Rex Ryan. The futures market has seven wins up on the board for the Jets this year.
The mouthful of chalk you’ll have to eat on taking the Patriots to win the AFC East seems a bit much given the amount of talent there is surrounding them. If Brady proves to be as good as new, then New England can make the leap from the division title to the NFL title at 4-1 odds (down from 6-1 at the open). Although you won’t get quite the same improvement in betting value by taking the Dolphins to win the Super Bowl at 28-1, it’s certainly worth a look. Buffalo (30-1) and New York (35-1) are longshots for a reason, but at least they’ll be interesting to watch.
With Matt Cassel as their backup QB a year ago, New England managed to survive the early season-ending injury to starter Tom Brady. But Cassel is gone now, with the Patriots dealing him to Kansas City in February and the Chiefs inking the signal caller to a huge six-year deal earlier this week. Now the question is can Brady rebound after all of the knee trouble and lead the Pats to the top of the AFC East as the heavy, heavy favorites?
Turns out we didn’t miss Tom Brady nearly as much as we thought.
Well, the New England Patriots didn’t miss him. Sure, they didn’t make the playoffs last year, but backup QB Matt Cassel posted a Brady-like 89.4 passer rating (21 TDs , 11 INTs) and led New England to an 11-5 record at a profitable 9-7 ATS. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Of course, that’s exactly what’s happening now that Brady is back from four knee surgeries – two to repair torn ligaments and two more to address the infection that got into the wound. The Pats are 1-7 favorites to retake the AFC East with an over/under of 11.5 regular season victories. It’s a reasonable request from a team that won at least 12 games in four of its last five seasons with Brady at the helm. Except he had two good knees back then. Brady also had good cornerbacks on the other side of the ball; the Pats are relying on oft-injured Shawn Springs and Detroit Lions cast-off Leigh Bodden to plug some big holes this year.
The defending AFC East champions are the Miami Dolphins (11-5 SU, 8-8 ATS), who held the tiebreaker in the division and increased their win total from the previous year by 10. The betting odds suggest something in between for 2009. The over/under is set at eight wins and the Fish are priced at 11-2 to defend their AFC East crown.
Handicappers will have to decide how much of a fluke last year was for the Dolphins – they became the only one-win team in league history to win their division the following season. That 8-8 ATS result tells us the marketplace had no problem adjusting. Bill Parcells is a proven commodity and exactly the kind of person you’d pick to turn a team around in his first year running the football operations. But the rest of the league has also had time to adjust to the Wildcat offense that quarterbacks coach David Lee brought with him from Arkansas.
Both New England and Miami will have to fend off the aggressive Buffalo Bills (7-9 SU and ATS), who stole the spotlight by inking none other than Terrell Owens to a one-year, $6.5-million deal. Owens is at the same time one of the most loved and hated celebrities in North America, which obscures his real accomplishments on the field.
He caught at least 10 TD passes in each of his three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and owns the freakishly supreme conditioning to keep up the pace in his age 36 season. The bigger question is whether the Bills have done enough to improve an offensive line that allowed 38 sacks in 2008, while frequently coming up dry on short-yardage plays.
Whichever of these three teams wins the division will be thankful that Brett Favre “retired” again after one season with the New York Jets. Things were looking very good for both Favre and the Jets until they dropped four of five to end the year at 9-7 (7-9 ATS). So now he’s gone, and New York is 14-1 to win the division with either Kellen Clemens (59.3 lifetime passer rating) or Mark Sanchez at the controls for first-year head coach Rex Ryan. The futures market has seven wins up on the board for the Jets this year.
The mouthful of chalk you’ll have to eat on taking the Patriots to win the AFC East seems a bit much given the amount of talent there is surrounding them. If Brady proves to be as good as new, then New England can make the leap from the division title to the NFL title at 4-1 odds (down from 6-1 at the open). Although you won’t get quite the same improvement in betting value by taking the Dolphins to win the Super Bowl at 28-1, it’s certainly worth a look. Buffalo (30-1) and New York (35-1) are longshots for a reason, but at least they’ll be interesting to watch.
