You might have thought the Bills would be pretty good -- you may have even picked them to win the AFC East. After all, the Patriots were on the decline and the Dolphins still seemed like a year away at the beginning of the season -- and the Jets seemed like at least a head coach away. It was wide open for them to take it. But they didn't just back into winning a week division, they dominated from Week 1 through Week 17, proving they were the clear class of the division.
And that was true for Fantasy as well. Josh Allen's ascendency to the elite tier of the QB position propelled the offense and made the Bills the clear class of the division from a Fantasy perspective. In that case, though, it was sort of a "winning by default" scenario, because the AFC East was pretty thin when it came to Fantasy options. And, outside of the passing game, that was sort of true for Buffalo, too.
The Bills still have plenty to play for, of course, as they get set to face the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday, while the Packers host the Buccaneers on the NFC side, but I figure this was a good time to start my series recapping each division from the 2020 season. We'll have to get into free agency and draft prep shortly after the Super Bowl, so over the next few weeks, I'll be going division-by-division, breaking down each team's 2020 season, including a rundown of their key stats, what changed for them in 2020, what didn't and one thing you may not have noticed during the sprint of the NFL season.
Here's what the AFC East looked like in 2020:
Bills
Unless you've been thrown through a flaming table yourself, you probably didn't expect the kind of season the Bills just put together, so chalk one up for #BillsMafia. I'll admit, I expected the Bills to take a step back from their playoff run in 2019, mostly because I didn't believe in Josh Allen; whoops. He took a gigantic -- unprecedented? -- leap forward as a passer, and credit goes to Allen, of course, but also to the Bills front office for recognizing what he could be and going out to get him a true No. 1 WR.
2020 Stats
- Record: 13 - 3 (2)
- PPG: 31.3 (2)
- YPG: 396.4 (2)
- Pass YPG: 288.8 (3)
- Rush YPG: 107.7 (20
- PAPG: 37.3 (11)
- RAPG: 25.7 (18)
2020 Fantasy finishes
- QB - Josh Allen: QB2
- RB - Devin Singletary: RB37; Zack Moss: RB43
- WR - Stefon Diggs: WR3; Cole Beasley: WR33; Gabriel Davis: WR47; John Brown: WR75
- TE - Dawson Knox: TE33
What changed?
Pretty much everything about the offense changed. The Bills invested in the passing game with Stefon Diggs and that helped Josh Allen make a leap, and they smartly steered into that by becoming one of the pass-happiest teams in the league. The Bills went from 25th in the NFL in pass attempts per game to 11th, one of the more dramatic changes any team underwent on offense in 2020, especially among teams that didn't change their offensive scheme or quarterback. They'll be bringing Brian Daboll back, so we should expect more of the same in 2021. That's good news for everyone except the running backs.
What stayed the same?
Allen still took on a significant role near the goal line, scoring seven rushing touchdowns from inside the 10-yard line while matching Moss for the team lead with 15 such attempts. He's always been a drain on the value of the running backs because of this and because he doesn't throw to them much, and that was exacerbated by the fact that the Bills went with a true committee in the backfield. Buffalo's RBs accounted for the fifth-fewest PPR points in the league, and given that they split work, I see little reason to prioritize either Singletary or Moss. There just isn't much upside in this backfield even if one of them were to get the bulk of the opportunities.
One thing you might not have noticed
The raw increase in passing production truly reflects how much the Bills leaned on the pass, given how many games they won comfortably. In situations where the score was within 10 points either way, the Bills had the third-highest pass rate in the NFL, at 63%. I would expect some regression to the mean for the Bills offense overall -- they probably won't continue to be this efficient, and they'll probably have a few more competitive games playing a first-place schedule -- but given how often they passed when the score was close this season, that might not be a bad thing for Allen.
Dolphins
They might have fallen short of the playoffs, but that the Dolphins even got close is a testament to the kind of season they had. It wasn't necessarily a great season for them from a Fantasy perspective, however, largely because of the midseason shift from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback. That raised questions about the long-term ceiling of this offense, though it's also fair to say that whatever the long-term future of this offense is will have a lot more talent around Tagovailoa than he had as a rookie.
2020 numbers to know
- Record: 10 - 6
- PPG: 25.3 (14)
- YPG: 339.0 (22)
- Pass YPG: 233.5 (20)
- Rush YPG: 105.5 (22)
- PAPG: 34.9 (18)
- RAPG: 26.8 (16)
2020 Fantasy finishes
- QB - Ryan Fitzpatrick: QB28; Tua Tagovailoa: QB32
- RB - Myles Gaskin RB24
- WR - DeVante Parker WR40
- TE - Mike Gesicki TE7
What stayed the same?
The Dolphins remained pretty pass-heavy, though obviously they were able to take their foot off the pedal a bit because they were in the lead more often. They dropped back to pass 61.7% of the time, which was just 17th in the NFL overall, but they had the 10th-highest passing rate with the score within 10 points -- actually higher than in 2019. And it's worth noting, the change to Tagovailoa didn't really change that, as they had the 12th-highest pass rate in those situations from Week 8 on. This is who the Dolphins are going to be, so it's going to be incumbent on Tagovailoa to improve as a passer for them to improve his options.
What changed?
The Dolphins actually had a running back they could trust. After Ryan Fitzpatrick led them in rushing yards (with 243!) in 2019, Myles Gaskin rushed for 584 in just 10 games. When he was out, Salvon Ahmed rushed for 250 yards in three healthy starts, too. The Dolphins didn't lean on the running game much, but when either Gaskin or Ahmed was healthy, they used them as true every-down backs; between Gaskin's 10 games plus Ahmed's three healthy starts, they averaged 18.9 touches per game. Given the passing game work and the willingness to lean that heavily on one player when they had one healthy they trusted, this might be a pretty good situation for whoever the lead back is in 2020, whether it's Gaskin or if the Dolphins opt to bring someone in.
One thing you might not have noticed
A lot of noise was made about how passive Miami's offensive play calling seemed to be with Tagovailoa, but the pass rate wasn't much different and his average intended air yards (distance the ball traveled from the line of scrimmage on passes) was 7.5 yards, just below Fitzpatrick's 7.8 yard mark. Tagovailoa actually had a slightly higher deep pass attempt rate (10% to 7.8%), too. The problem was more that Tagovailoa just wasn't as effective as Fitzpatrick, overall with a higher sack rate, lower touchdown rate and lower yards per attempt. This situation is set up pretty well for Tua, but he'll just have to play better in Year 2. I believe in him, for what it's worth.
Patriots
It turns out if you take out Tom Brady from an offense with no viable playmakers in the passing game, the passing game is going to struggle. Cam Newton proved he could hold up physically, but he just wasn't able to do anything in the passing game. Partially, that was on him, but the lack of weapons is the real issue here, and it's going to remain an issue for whoever is starting for the Patriots in 2021.
2020 numbers to know
- Record: 7 - 9
- PPG: 20.4 (27)
- YPG: 327.3 (27)
- Pass YPG: 1870.6 (30)
- Rush YPG: 146.6 (4)
- PAPG: 26.5 (31)
- RAPG: 31.4 (3)
2020 Fantasy finishes
- QB - Cam Newton: QB20
- RB - James White: RB42; Rex Burkhead: RB44
- WR - Jakobi Meyers: WR58
- TE - Ryan Izzo: TE60
What stayed the same?
Pretty much nothing, except that the talent level of the skill players here remained very low. They simply don't have playmakers at wide receiver and tight end, and their lead running backs, Sony Michel and Damien Harris, don't do much in the passing game either. That was an issue when Brady was doing everything he could to grind the team down the field in 2019, and it was an even bigger issue with the less accurate Newton. This might be the worst skill position group in the NFL.
What changed?
Uh … everything? It's hard to find a more different pair of quarterbacks than Brady and Newton, and the Patriots had to revamp their offense on the fly, to pretty ugly results. The Patriots dropped back to pass on just 53.5% of their offensive snaps, the second-lowest mark in the NFL, compared to 63.4% in 2019. And, for as conservative as Brady was, Newton's intended air yards was just 6.8 yards per attempt, down from 7.6 yards for Brady in 2019. They started 17 drives from inside opposing territory, nearly half of their 31 drives in 2019. This was an across-the-board regression for New England, which makes it hard to be optimistic about 2021 and beyond.
One thing you might not have noticed
It wasn't all on Newton and the offense. The Patriots average drive started at their own 28.5, compared to the 32.5 in 2019. The defense was still quite good -- seventh in points allowed -- but wasn't the dominant unit it was in 2019, when it routinely forced turnovers and found the end zone on its own to put the offense in better situations. That brings up a point I always like to hammer home: Always fade last year's best Fantasy DST. They just won't be worth the investment you'll have to make in them; just play the streaming game.
Jets
Do I really have to write about the Jets? We're three years into Sam Darnold's career, and I think you can reasonably argue we don't actually know who he is yet; that's how dysfunctional Adam Gase's offenses have been. In a year of record scoring, the Jets actually managed to drop from 17.3 to 15.2 points per game. When the nadir of your season comes when you actually managed to win back to back games, you know you had a really ugly season.
2020 numbers to know
- Record: 2 - 14
- PPG: 15.2 (32)
- YPG: 279.9 (32)
- Pass YPG: 174.8 (31)
- Rush YPG: 105.2 (23)
- PAPG: 31.2 (29)
- RAPG: 25.4 (24)
2020 Fantasy finishes
- QB - Sam Darnold: QB12
- RB - Frank Gore: RB46
- WR - Jamison Crowder: WR39
- TE - Chris Herndon: TE31
What I've tried to focus on here is how a team's approach changed, but it's hard to write about intent when talking about a team as bad as the Jets. Whatever the game plan might have been in any given week was almost inevitably blown up by an early turnover or some kind of massive defensive breakdown. The Jets were fighting just to keep their heads above water, and with an all new coaching staff coming in and potentially a new quarterback via the draft, what happened in 2019 may not mean much anyway. It's best to just close the book on this chapter of Jets history, so instead of trying to parse things, I figure I'll just try to find as many bright spots for the Jets from this season as possible:
- Denzel Mims showed some flashes -- Though the overall numbers are nothing to write home about, Mims managed to average 8.1 yards per attempt as a rookie on a team that averaged just 6.2 overall. Add in the weird offseason and a hamstring injury that kept him out for much of training camp plus the first six weeks of the season, and you can actually be pretty optimistic about his chances of being a solid contributor in 2021 assuming the situation around him improves.
- The wide receivers as a whole were pretty good -- Actually, I'll extend the praise to Jamison Crowder and Breshad Perriman, as well. This isn't exactly a terrifying receiving group, but in the context of this offense, they played quite well, and it's a group that fits pretty well together; Crowder is an ace slot receiver, Perriman stretches the field well and Mims could be a playmaker both in the deep and intermediate ranges. If the Jets get better quarterback play, this could be a pretty interesting group of sleepers for 2021.
And … that's it. I'm not falling for Chris Herndon's late-season play again, and injuries kept La'Mical Perine off the field just as he was about to get his opportunity to show what he could do.