The New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles are undeniably in the northeast. I think most would include the Buffalo Bills are as well, although they do play in western New York. The state of Pennsylvania is commonly included in the northeast, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to include Pittsburgh, on the western border, in as a team in the northeast. The Baltimore Ravens are only 100 miles away from Philadelphia, but they are also only 40 miles from Washington, D.C., and no sensible definition of “Northeast” should include the nation’s capital.
So I’m going to stick with the NE-NYG-NYJ-PHI-BUF pairing as the definition of Northeast football. And only two years ago, it looked really bad: [continue reading…]