Here comes the last NFL Division preview for the year. The AFC East. We will see how all these predictions come out at the end of the year. But, for now I have tasked 3 AI Agents to give me their predictions for the season. ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini are scrambling to outdo each other in the data center combine for most accurate prediction.
Winter is coming, and the AFC East is ready to rumble. It’s between Buffalo leaning entirely on Josh Allen’s cape, the Patriots loading up with A.J. Brown, who knows what with the ‘Fins, and the Jets running a 2013 time-loop with Geno Smith. Depending on your team alliance, you’ll either remember Geno with a wired-shut jaw or the dude who ended Eli Manning’s starting streak.
The Bills remain the divisional standard and have constructed a brand new stadium that only mortgaged 1/4 of the state’s budget. Little Jimmy doesn’t need electricity! There’s a Bills game on.
A retooled New England squad is breathing down their necks while Miami hits the giant reset button. And they hit that button hard. Like Cleveland Browns hard. Somewhere in the fold are the Jets. Their goal for the year is no matter what, do better than the Dolphins. Four franchises, two playoff locks, and one massive South Beach teardown.
Here is how the AFC East shakes out this fall.
Follow along with the rest of the previews : Check out the NFC West Preview, AFC West Preview, NFC North Preview, AFC North Preview, NFC South Preview, AFC South Preview, and the NFC East Preview.
Claude
Montanimation Studios // The Sports Desk (Eight of Eight)
AFC East 2026: Buffalo Fired a Coach Who Won Twelve Games, and That Is the Whole Season in One Sentence
New England went 14-3 and reached the Super Bowl. Buffalo went 12-5 and fired Sean McDermott anyway. Miami is projected to be the worst team in football. And the season opens tonight in Seattle with a Super Bowl rematch. Last division. Full bracket at the bottom.
Filed September 9, 2026 · Half Art. Half Tech. All Shenanigans.
Eight previews ago I started with a haunted electrical substation in Santa Clara. Since then we have covered a coaching purge, a chop shop, a clogged toilet, a losing team winning a division, and a man who got fired in Cleveland on January 5 and had a five-year contract in Atlanta by January 17.
A theme emerged somewhere around division four, and I did not go looking for it. The 2026 offseason was the year the NFL fired people who were winning. Mike Tomlin quit the day after taking a division title. John Harbaugh got fired after eighteen seasons. Pete Carroll got fired and resurfaced coaching a high school all-star game in Hawaii.
And here in the AFC East, the theme reaches its purest form.
The Buffalo Bills went 12-5, lost in overtime in the divisional round, and fired Sean McDermott.
Twelve wins. Nine seasons. Six division titles. Fired on January 19 because his team lost a playoff game by three points in extra time. If you want one sentence that explains what this league became in 2026, that is the sentence.
Here is how the division finished last year:
New England 14-3. Buffalo 12-5. Miami 7-10. New York 3-14.
New England Patriots
Fourteen wins, an AFC title, and a Super Bowl loss that this division has to live inside
The Patriots went 14-3 in Mike Vrabel’s second season, ran through the AFC, and lost Super Bowl LX to Seattle 29-13 at Levi’s Stadium. If you read our very first preview, that is the game we opened this entire series with, because Seattle won a championship in the 49ers’ building next to the allegedly cursed substation.
Drake Maye threw for nearly 4,400 yards and turned a rebuild into a contender in roughly eighteen months. Vrabel, in two years, took a franchise that had become a punchline and put it in a Super Bowl. Eliot Wolf is in year three running personnel.
And then they went out and got him A.J. Brown.
Acquired from Philadelphia on June 1 for a 2027 fifth and a 2028 first. We covered that trade from the Eagles’ side yesterday and called it a genuine talent subtraction for Philadelphia. From New England’s side it is the move a team makes when it has decided the window is now. They also added safety Kevin Byard on a one-year deal out of Chicago, edge Dre’Mont Jones for three years and $36.5 million, receiver Romeo Doubs from Green Bay, and lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker. They released Stefon Diggs and traded Garrett Bradbury to the Bears. They drafted tackle Caleb Lomu 28th overall.
The Hangover Data
The market is not fully buying it, and the reason is historical. Teams that lost the Super Bowl are 12-14 straight up in the following Week 1, with a 7-19 mark against the spread. New England’s offensive line also allowed twenty-one sacks across four playoff games, which is why they spent a first-round pick on a tackle and signed Vera-Tucker. Drake Maye got hit constantly in January and still nearly won a championship. Fix that and this is the best team in the conference. Do not fix it and this is a nine-win season with a very expensive receiver.
Verdict: 40 percent for the division, which feels low for a team that won fourteen games and added a Pro Bowl receiver. They open tonight at Seattle, in the Kickoff Game, in a Super Bowl rematch, with the Seahawks raising a banner in front of them.
Buffalo Bills
Twelve wins, a fired coach, a promoted coordinator, and a defense being rebuilt from scratch
Buffalo lost in overtime to Denver in the divisional round, 33-30. Denver, as we covered in the AFC West preview, went 14-3 and won that division. So the Bills’ season ended against one of the two best teams in football, in extra time, by a field goal.
Nine days later, Sean McDermott was fired.
On January 27, Buffalo promoted offensive coordinator Joe Brady to head coach on a five-year deal. Brady has been in the building since 2022, first as quarterbacks coach, then as interim coordinator, then as the guy who unlocked the offense. His reaction to the firing that created his promotion was unusually raw: he called it devastating and said “I was broken,” and that he was not thinking about becoming head coach. That is a real answer from a person who liked his boss, and it is more honest than most of what gets said at introductory press conferences.
The staff turnover underneath him is enormous. Defensive coordinator Bobby Babich left for Green Bay. Special teams coordinator Chris Tabor went to Miami. Offensive line coach Aaron Kromer retired. In came Pete Carmichael Jr. as offensive coordinator, Jim Leonhard as defensive coordinator, and John Fox as a senior assistant.
And Leonhard is changing the entire defensive front to a 3-4. So Buffalo is asking a first-time head coach to install a first-time coordinator’s brand new scheme, in the same season, with a roster that lost Matthew Judon, Larry Ogunjobi, Jordan Poyer, and Darnell Savage.
They did spend to cover it: Bradley Chubb, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and safety Geno Stone on defense, plus a trade with Chicago that sent a second-round pick for D.J. Moore. We wrote about that one from the Bears’ side and called it a vote of confidence in Ben Johnson. From Buffalo’s side it is the best receiver Josh Allen has had in years.
Verdict: The oddsmakers’ favorite at 55 percent, which is a bet on Josh Allen and nothing else. The early schedule is brutal: Houston, Detroit, the Chargers, New England, and the Rams inside three weeks of each other. They open at Houston.
New York Jets
3-14, and quietly the most reasonable operation in the bottom half of this division
The Jets went 3-14. That is the fact and there is no softening it.
But the underlying setup is more coherent than the record. Aaron Glenn is a defensive coach whose playcalling is genuinely well regarded, the front seven improved, and the offense is now run by Frank Reich with Geno Smith at quarterback. The market’s read is that Reich’s system is built around not asking Geno to do too much, with strong red zone efficiency, and that is exactly the right use of a 36-year-old veteran who has one very good season and several mediocre ones on his ledger.
They also signed Demario Davis away from New Orleans on a two-year, $22 million deal, which is a veteran leadership move for a locker room that badly needed one, and they hold an extra first-round pick acquired from Indianapolis.
The market has them at 56 percent to reach six or more wins, which for a three-win team is a real endorsement of the coaching. Four percent for the division, obviously, because Josh Allen and Drake Maye both play here.
Verdict: Doubling a three-win season is the entire goal and they will probably do it. They open at Tennessee, against Robert Saleh, the man who used to coach them. The schedule-makers are not subtle people.
Miami Dolphins
The full teardown, and a projection to be the worst team in football
Miami fired Mike McDaniel on January 8 after four seasons. He is now, as we covered in the AFC West preview, the offensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Chargers, working for Jim Harbaugh. A head coach took a demotion and by most accounts is happier for it.
Miami replaced him with Jeff Hafley, the Green Bay defensive coordinator, whose departure we noted in the NFC North preview when Jonathan Gannon took his job. Hafley is a legitimate defensive mind and a first-time NFL head coach walking into a demolition site.
Because the roster is gone. Tua Tagovailoa was released and is now, improbably, starting for Atlanta. Jaylen Waddle was traded to Denver for three picks. Jaylen Wright, Jonnu Smith, and most of the rest of the McDaniel-era skill group have scattered. The quarterback is Malik Willis.
The projections are, and I say this without any joy, brutal. Miami receives points in thirteen of seventeen games. The market gives them three percent to win the division and has them in genuine contention to finish with the worst record in the league. De’Von Achane is the one real asset, and as the analysis dryly puts it, a team cannot afford to run the ball when its defense will not stop anybody.
Verdict: This is a two-year project in year one. Hafley will probably build something. It will not be this season. They open on the road.
The Predictions
Two contenders, two rebuilds, and a contrarian pick
| Finish | Team | Record | The One-Line Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New England Patriots | 12-5 | Drake Maye plus A.J. Brown, and Vrabel does not do hangovers |
| 2 | Buffalo Bills | 11-6 | Wild card, and a new scheme in a new coach’s first year costs them two games |
| 3 | New York Jets | 7-10 | Doubles the win total, ruins somebody’s December, gets Glenn another year |
| 4 | Miami Dolphins | 3-14 | Top-two draft pick, new quarterback in April, and that is the actual plan |
Division winner: New England Patriots, and yes, I am going against a 55 percent favorite. Here is why. Buffalo is installing a brand new defensive scheme under a brand new coordinator for a brand new head coach, all in one offseason, after losing four defensive starters. That is three simultaneous transitions on the side of the ball that has to carry them. Meanwhile New England won fourteen games, kept its coach, and added one of the ten best receivers in football to a quarterback who is ascending.
The Super Bowl hangover is real and I am betting against it anyway, because Vrabel’s whole professional identity is refusing to let a locker room feel sorry for itself.
The Whole Bracket
Eight divisions, eight picks, one prediction I will regret in February
I have been keeping score across every one of these, so here is the entire thing in one place.
| Division | Winner | Division | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFC West | Los Angeles Rams | AFC West | Denver Broncos |
| NFC North | Green Bay Packers | AFC North | Baltimore Ravens |
| NFC South | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | AFC South | Houston Texans |
| NFC East | Philadelphia Eagles | AFC East | New England Patriots |
NFC Championship: Seattle over the Rams, in Los Angeles, one year after winning a Super Bowl in San Francisco. The Seahawks continue their tour of winning enormous games in NFC West rivals’ buildings.
AFC Championship: Baltimore over Kansas City. Patrick Mahomes returns from a torn ACL, drags the Chiefs one round further than anyone expects, and runs out of road against a Ravens team with Trey Hendrickson and a first-year head coach.
Super Bowl LXI, at SoFi Stadium: Baltimore Ravens over Seattle Seahawks.
And that is the ending this season deserves. A franchise fires an eighteen-year head coach, replaces him with a 42-year-old who used to work for him, and wins a championship the very next February. Every owner in America watches it happen and reaches for the phone.
The Last Bit
Eight divisions. One electrical substation. Aaron Donald un-retiring, Kyler Murray on $1.3 million, a running back drafted third overall by a team with no quarterback, a 74-year-old coaching a high school all-star game in Hawaii, Tom Brady conducting job interviews, an 8-9 division champion, and a Super Bowl runner-up opening the season in the building where it lost. I have written roughly eighteen thousand words about this league in two weeks and my honest conclusion is that nobody is in charge of it and that is precisely why it works.
The season starts tonight, 8:20 Eastern, Lumen Field. Seattle raises a banner. New England watches them do it. Then they play.
Nothing about this is normal. All of it is football. Let’s go.
Sources
- 2025 AFC East final standings
- Covers: AFC East predictions, odds and best picks for 2026
- Sports Illustrated: AFC East division odds for the 2026 season
- 2026 New England Patriots season
- ESPN: Four reasons Drake Maye could put on another MVP-like season
- PFF: Patriots 2026 preview, Drake Maye and Mike Vrabel eye a Super Bowl return
- 2026 Buffalo Bills season
- CBS Sports: Bills promote Joe Brady to head coach, replacing Sean McDermott
- NFL.com: Joe Brady on McDermott’s firing, “I was broken”
- NFL.com: Dolphins fire head coach Mike McDaniel after four seasons
- NBC Sports: Dolphins announce Jeff Hafley as their new head coach
- 2026 Miami Dolphins season
- ESPN: Seahawks capture second Lombardi with a 29-13 win over the Patriots
- NFL.com: Week 1 2026 schedule
// Montanimation Studios // Half Art. Half Tech. All Shenanigans. //
Google Gemini
AFC East 2026 Preview: Folding Tables, Nostalgia Traps, and Florida Foreclosures
Welcome to the AFC East, an oceanic trench of football drama where winter lasts eight months and nobody has had a peaceful Sunday since 2001.
If the NFC East is toxic family dinner, the AFC East is an estate sale held in a blustery blizzard. The heirloom jewelry (Tom Brady’s six rings) was sold off years ago, Buffalo is jumping through lawn furniture to stave off hypothermia, the Jets are trying to re-run a sequel nobody asked for, and Miami just held a yard sale that emptied out their entire living room.
Grab your thermal parka and a bottle of blue cheese dressing. Here is the 2026 survival breakdown.
1. Buffalo Bills: Josh Allen’s One-Man Demolition Derby
In Orchard Park, the weather forecast is 34 degrees with sideways sleet, and Josh Allen is once again expected to jump over a 6-foot-3 linebacker on 3rd-and-4 just to keep the city’s emotional pulse beating.
The Bills retooled the pass-catching group by trading for DJ Moore to inject instant electricity alongside Khalil Shakir and Keon Coleman. But make no mistake: this offense runs on pure Allen caffeine. When Josh plays like an alien cyborg with a laser cannon attached to his right shoulder, Buffalo looks like the undisputed king of the conference.
- The Reality: The playoff trauma looms like lake-effect snow. Bills fans don’t get excited about 12–5 division titles; they wait for the inevitable postseason freeze where a defensive stop slips through their fingers. Sean McDermott’s defense has undergone turnover, meaning Josh will be asked to carry a 35-point scoring burden every week.
- The Outlook: Still the unquestioned bullies of the division. They will drop 40 points on their rivals, sacrifice thousands of plastic folding tables in the parking lot, and roll into January.
2. New England Patriots: Foxborough’s Mega-Upgrade
The post-Belichick rebuild skipped the slow lane and mashed the accelerator straight through the toll booth.
New England pulled off the heist of the offseason by acquiring A.J. Brown, handing Drake Maye a legitimate alpha receiver who bullies defensive backs like a WWE heavyweight. Pair that with a fortified offensive line and a defense that already ranked among the stingiest in football, and the grim hoodie era has officially been replaced by a shiny, explosive young contender.
- The Reality: The schedule is a murderer’s row of road tests, and Maye still has to prove he can out-duel Allen in December wind chills. But for the first time in five years, Gillette Stadium actually has juice again instead of quiet existential dread.
- The Outlook: A 10- or 11-win wild-card threat that will push Buffalo to the absolute limit for the divisional crown.
3. New York Jets: Back to the Future (The Geno Chapter)
The Jets spent the offseason looking into a mirror, screaming into the abyss, and hitting the ultimate nostalgia reset button.
Aaron Rodgers is gone, and in walks… Geno Smith. In a plot twist straight out of a daytime drama, the man drafted by Gang Green over a decade ago has returned to Florham Park to save the franchise that once broke his jaw. With Frank Reich calling plays and weapons like Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson running wild, the offense has actual functional competence. Meanwhile, GM Darren Mougey brought in Minkah Fitzpatrick and a fleet of veterans to fix a defense that shockingly generated zero interceptions last season.
- The Reality: It’s the New York Jets. Chaos is not an anomaly; it is an atmospheric condition. If the rebuilt defense gels and Geno manages the game, they will be scrappy. If the MetLife turf claims two starters by October, the local back pages will feast.
- The Outlook: 8–9 or 9–8 purgatory. Fun, occasionally explosive, but eternally haunted by the franchise’s karmic debt.
4. Miami Dolphins: The Great South Beach Estate Sale
If you went to sleep in 2024 and woke up now, you wouldn’t recognize a single soul in South Florida.
Mike McDaniel, Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, and Jaylen Waddle are all out the door. In their place stands head coach Jeff Hafley and new quarterback Malik Willis, commanding an offense where De’Von Achane is essentially expected to run for 180 yards a game while catching his own passes. The track-meet speed era has been foreclosed on, replaced by a gritty, ground-up rebuild.
- The Reality: When half your wide receiver room requires an NFL roster lookup just to identify jersey numbers, expectations have left the building. Achane is electric, but opposing safeties are going to crowd the box with ten guys until Willis proves he can punish them over the top.
- The Outlook: A developmental gap year. Lots of growing pains, plenty of sunshine, and fans already checking the odds for the No. 1 overall pick next spring.
AFC East Projected Finish
| Place | Team | Projected Record | Vibe Check |
| 1st | Buffalo Bills | 12–5 | Josh Allen’s hero ball smashes more tables |
| 2nd | New England Patriots | 11–6 | Drake Maye + A.J. Brown crash the playoff party |
| 3rd | New York Jets | 8–9 | The Geno nostalgia tour battles MetLife ghosts |
| 4th | Miami Dolphins | 4–13 | South Beach estate sale; tankathon underway |
Buffalo takes the crown on the back of Josh Allen’s sheer willpower, but New England’s sudden offensive glow-up ensures this race won’t be settled until late December.
ChatGPT
2026 AFC East Preview: Josh Allen, Drake Maye and Two Active Rebuilds
The AFC East has finally escaped the old arrangement where New England owned the building and everybody else paid rent. Unfortunately, the division replaced that simple hierarchy with something much stranger. Buffalo has the best quarterback but a first-time head coach. New England just reached the Super Bowl and somehow enters the season as the challenger. The Jets have brought Geno Smith back more than a decade after their first attempt. Miami removed nearly every recognizable piece of its offense and left De’Von Achane standing in the rubble with a forwarding address.
This division feels like two separate television shows sharing a time slot. Buffalo and New England are chasing January. New York and Miami are trying to prove their latest renovation will not end with exposed wiring and a tarp over the kitchen. NFL.com’s panel gave Buffalo 16 of 19 votes to win the division, but the Patriots are too talented to dismiss after going 14-3 and reaching Super Bowl LX. The bottom half is less a playoff race and more an extended audition for 2027.
My Predicted AFC East Standings
| Finish | Team | Record | Season in One Line |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buffalo Bills | 12-5 | Josh Allen carries the new coaching era over the finish line. |
| 2 | New England Patriots | 10-7 | Still dangerous, but the schedule stops behaving like a complimentary buffet. |
| 3 | New York Jets | 7-10 | Geno Smith raises the floor while Jets history quietly removes the ceiling. |
| 4 | Miami Dolphins | 5-12 | The rebuild produces answers, just not many wins. |
Buffalo Bills: The Superhero Gets a New Director
Buffalo went 12-5 in 2025 and reached the divisional round, then made the kind of change usually reserved for teams that went 5-12 and accidentally left the stadium lights on. Sean McDermott is gone. Joe Brady moves from offensive coordinator to first-time head coach with one uncomplicated assignment: take the Josh Allen era somewhere it has never been. Brady knows the offense, Allen knows how to rescue broken plays and the roster returns most of its starters. No team changing coaches enters 2026 with a stronger foundation.
The offense now adds DJ Moore, acquired to become the top receiver Buffalo has lacked since Stefon Diggs left. Moore joins Khalil Shakir, Keon Coleman, Dalton Kincaid and reigning rushing champion James Cook. If the partnership works, Allen will have fewer Sundays where he must play quarterback, running back, emergency electrician and regional weather system. It has some Spider-Man: Brand New Day energy. The star remains the same, but the studio has changed the supporting cast and would appreciate another two billion dollars.
The defense is the concern. New coordinator Jim Leonhard inherits a unit that needed more disruption up front, so Buffalo added Bradley Chubb and second-round pass rusher T.J. Parker. Chubb recorded 8.5 sacks for Miami last season, but the Bills need him healthy and consistently dangerous. Buffalo’s schedule is not gentle. Baltimore, Kansas City and the entire NFC North are waiting. Still, Allen is 16-4 against the Jets and Dolphins since 2021, and the division provides enough softer landing spots for Buffalo to survive the harder stretches.
Prediction: 12-5, AFC East champions and another January appointment with everyone’s blood pressure.
New England Patriots: The Sequel Has a Larger Budget
The Patriots were the surprise blockbuster of 2025. Mike Vrabel’s team jumped from four wins to 14, captured the division and reached Super Bowl LX before Seattle ended the story with a 29-13 loss. Drake Maye finished as the MVP runner-up and gave New England something it had spent years searching for: a young franchise quarterback who does not make every passing down feel like jury duty.
New England responded by trading for A.J. Brown, who immediately becomes Maye’s true No. 1 target. Romeo Doubs slides into a more natural supporting role, while DeMario Douglas, Mack Hollins and Kayshon Boutte deepen the group. Christian Gonzalez also received his long-term extension, keeping an elite corner at the center of the defense. This is not a fluke roster wearing a lucky sweatshirt. The Patriots have legitimate stars at the positions that decide games.
The problem is that 2026 has reviewed last year’s evidence and adjusted the difficulty. NFL.com notes that New England went from the easiest regular-season schedule any team had faced since the turn of the millennium to the sixth-toughest slate this season. The opener is an immediate Super Bowl rematch in Seattle. The middle of the schedule contains few games where New England will be an obvious favorite. This is Toy Story 5 territory: the characters are beloved and the operation knows how to print money, but recreating the exact emotional miracle is a dangerous expectation.
The Patriots will remain good because Maye is real, Brown changes coverages and Vrabel gives the team an identity. They will not win 14 games again because football schedules occasionally stop handing out gift baskets. Ten wins and a wild card would represent confirmation, not regression.
Prediction: 10-7, second place and a wild-card berth.
New York Jets: Geno Smith and the Temple of Recurring Hope
The Jets went 3-14 last season and produced zero interceptions. Not zero in one month. Zero during the entire 17-game schedule. Opposing quarterbacks threw the football around New York’s defense with the confidence of someone using a library book they knew would never be checked. General manager Darren Mougey responded by replacing most of the unit. Minkah Fitzpatrick, Demario Davis, T’Vondre Sweat, David Onyemata and Joseph Ossai arrive alongside rookies David Bailey and D’Angelo Ponds. As many as eight new defenders could start.
Then there is Geno Smith, returning to the franchise that drafted him in 2013. The reunion is either a lovely redemption story or the Jets discovering that the streaming service has automatically restarted an old series. Smith is 35, but he has Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, Adonai Mitchell and a line returning four starters. Frank Reich replaces Tanner Engstrand as offensive coordinator. That is a much healthier environment than the one that greeted Geno during his first New York residency.
The offense should become functional, which qualifies as a parade-worthy development around Florham Park. The rebuilt defense should eventually intercept a pass, possibly before Halloween. But New York opens with three road games in four weeks and then encounters the NFC North and AFC West. The Jets are improved, yet the path is littered with teams that are already what New York hopes to become. Seven wins would be genuine progress, even if it does not end the league’s longest active playoff drought.
Prediction: 7-10, third place and at least four weeks of dangerous optimism.
Miami Dolphins: Everyone Has Left the Group Chat
Miami finished 7-10 in 2025 and then pressed the large red reset button. Tua Tagovailoa was released and is now starting for Atlanta. Tyreek Hill is gone. Jaylen Waddle was traded to Denver. Mike McDaniel is out. Jeff Hafley arrives from Green Bay as a first-time head coach, while former Packers executive Jon-Eric Sullivan takes over the front office. The Dolphins have not remodeled the offense. They removed it from the property and placed a small sign near the road.
Malik Willis signed a three-year, $67.5 million deal to become the starting quarterback after showing flashes as Jordan Love’s backup. He is athletic, intriguing and finally receiving a real opportunity. He is also inheriting a receiving group led by Malik Washington, Tutu Atwell, Jalen Tolbert and several players seeking the first major breakout of their careers. Achane remains the offense’s most dangerous weapon and wisely secured a long-term deal before everyone else vanished.
This could become an enjoyable developmental season if Willis proves he belongs and Hafley establishes a durable culture. It could also become The Odyssey with fewer ships and more third-and-long situations. Miami faces a punishing schedule, including six straight games against 2025 playoff teams to close the season. Even meaningful improvement may not show up in the standings. The Dolphins need information more than they need a December wild-card calculator.
Prediction: 5-12, fourth place and a much clearer idea of what must come next.
Final Verdict: Buffalo Reclaims the Division
The Bills have the division’s best quarterback, deepest established core and clearest path to 12 wins. New England is closer than the casual preseason conversation suggests, but a significantly harder schedule will drag last year’s 14-win total back toward Earth. The Jets should become annoying and occasionally competent. Miami is beginning a necessary rebuild that will require patience, draft capital and possibly several inspirational beach montages.
Buffalo wins the AFC East at 12-5. New England reaches the postseason at 10-7. The Jets improve without escaping the division basement’s general neighborhood. Miami spends the year discovering which pieces belong in the next version. Then January arrives, Josh Allen attempts to carry western New York through another mythological trial and every Bills fan discovers that folding tables were the emotionally healthy outlet all along.
Sources
- NFL.com, AFC East Training Camp 2026 Preview.
- NFL.com, 2026 NFL Playoff Predictions.
- NFL.com, Predicting Every Game and Final Record for Each AFC Team.
- Pats Pulpit, Patriots Prepare for Super Bowl Rematch with Seattle.
- Reuters, Tua Tagovailoa Named Atlanta’s Week 1 Starter.
- ESPN, 2026 NFL Depth Charts.