The Buffalo Bills’ win over the New York Jets wasn’t seen by many as a surprise but the fact that New York’s only pro football team is in first place by themselves in the AFC East is definitely something worth noting. FOX’s postgame coverage, in particular, thought it was so absurd it was laughable.
Today, SB Nation asked us to name the most surprising thing about the NFL season and our pick is the crazy AFC East.
Let’s start at the beginning, with the New England Patriots falling at home to the Kansas City Chiefs. A very close game was blown wide open in the fourth quarter. It’s how it always goes. Except it wasn’t the Patriots executing scoring drive after scoring drive, but the Chiefs. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick don’t normally fall apart down the stretch.
Then, Roger Goodell and the league found out they weren’t the most important thing in the history of the planet when they had to postpone the Miami Dolphins’ game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers due to Hurricane Irma.
With the Patriots at 0-1 and the Dolphins on a forced bye week sitting at 0-0, the winner of Sunday’s contest is now tops in the AFC East. If you had asked us if this was possible a month ago following Buffalo’s big trades, we would have laughed at you.