Since the Houston Texans entered the league in 2002, the Patriots have been the best team in the NFL. By, well, a lot. You won’t be too surprised to see that New England scored the most points from ’02 to ’18, followed by the Saints, Packers, Chargers, and Colts. The other three AFC East teams ranked in the bottom 10 in points scored during this time:

When it comes to points allowed, the Patriots…. also rank 1st. But here, the other AFC East teams fare a bit better: the Jets rank 9th, the Dolphins 13th, and the Bills, well, they still rank just 21st.

What about points differential? Well, the Jets (19th), Dolphins (22nd), and Bills (24th) all have negative points differentials since 2002.

Over this time period, 6 of the 8 divisions have positive points differentials. The AFC East, thanks of course to New England, has been the “best” division in the NFL, with a +939 points differential. The AFC South (-897) is the second worst, while the NFC West (-1650) has been by far the league’s worst division. You might be surprised to see that even if you removed the top teams from each division, the AFC East still isn’t the league’s worst division. It ranks 6th (-1607), ahead of the AFC South (-1716) and the NFC West (-2505!).

All of this is to say that the AFC East has been pretty bad outside of New England for a long time, but it hasn’t been significantly bad. At least, according to this quick and dirty analysis.

What do you think — how would you study the performance of the AFC East since 2002?