We are four weeks into the regular season and things are starting to become clearer in the AFC East. One thing that has been common among the four teams is the inconsistency at the wide receiver position. Each team ranks in the bottom half of the league when it comes to performance at the position. This week we will be looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly in the division when it comes to wide receivers.
The Ugly
The Buffalo Bills find themselves in the ugly category because they rank 30th in the league at this position. The unit as a whole has only racked up 690 yards and two touchdowns and leads the league in dropped passes. Having a rookie quarterback in Josh Allen could play a part in affecting the production of the receivers but the bottom line is they are not getting the separation required to make plays. To top it all off, their number one receiver in Kelvin Benjamin only has 69 yards receiving after four games which is a stat line for other top guys in one half.
The Bad
This is where we find the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins because they rank 25th and 24th respectively at the position in the league. For the Jets, one of the free agents they were looking forward to using was Terrelle Pryor, but he has only caught 8 balls for 158 yards which is not bad when you look at averages but he has yet to score and the team is expecting more production out of him. It is not all bad for the Jets because Quincy Enunwa has been a bright spot already with 21 receptions for 278 yards. It may be bad right now but expect the numbers to increase as rookie Sam Darnold gets more comfortable.
Meanwhile for the Dolphins, even though their receivers rank in the bottom half of the league, the team still has five players with at least ten catches on the year. The problem is that the catches are not going for a lot of yards as they are averaging just over 200 yards per game. For the receivers in Miami they will be looking at Kenyan Drake to get the running game going this year as he just has over 100 yards on the season when he can easily get that number in one game. If Drake can get it going expect the receivers to improve in the play-action game.
The Good
The Patriots receiving group may have the only thing going for them in the division. For one, they still have Rob Gronkowski and even though he is a tight end, he contributes more in the passing game as much as anyone else. The key here is that it has been four weeks which means one of Tom Brady’s favorite receivers, Julian Edelman will be returning from his suspension. This should open up the passing game greatly and improve the stats of all the receivers on the team because teams will have to focus even more on spreading out the defense when so far they have been focus on just stopping Gronk.