A Reason To Love and Hate Every NFL Team This Season: AFC East

Greetings, fair, patient and mostly non-existent readerbase!  Like Pavlov's dogs I'm starting to get more juiced about the upcoming 2012 NFL season as we approach the no man's land of just golf, tennis and baseball for the next two and a half months.  Uggh.  No worries, I'm going to start parsing out some posts bit by bit to help weather the storm.  In the first of 8 installations, here is a reason to love and hate every NFL team this season, AFC East edition.

Buffalo Bills

Love - A Rising Defensive Powerhouse

The talent seems to have come together for this team in a lot of ways, especially with the addition of Mario Williams who should add some ferocity to a defense that still has to face Brady & co. twice a year.  A healthy Stevie Johnson may also make Ryan Fitzpatrick look good again.

Hate - Thinking of All the Starving Children That Could Have Been Fed in Lieu of Ryan Fitzpatrick's Contract
Hoo boy.  Admit it, there might have been a moment last year when you too thought the Fitz had truly earned his meal ticket by leading the Bills to an unexpected 5 - 2 start.  Then reality [and $59 million in QB financial security] brought this team waaaay own to Earth--to Death Valley really--where the Bills closed out the year with a 1 - 8 slump.  The Bills may well start this year right where they left off.

Miami Dolphins
Love - Potential for New Offensive Sparks
In Reggie Bush's mind at least, this is going to be a banner year for his ego... and maybe the Dolphins too as a side note.  All things considered, Matt Moore played decent football under the radar last year, and some shakeups in the coaching staff can help this team start fresh.

Hate - Mediocrity At Its Meh-est

Still, the Dolphins aren't exactly ready for prime time.  Cheering for Miami at this point is most suitable for people who still subject themselves to M. Night Shyamalan movies.  There may be a few intriguing glimmers here and there, but you will ultimately be disappointed by how this one ends.

New York Jets

Love - Loving to Hate Tebowmania

Get your eyes a -rollin' as we gear up  for another year of unwarranted media obsession with a certain holy second-stringer whose completion percentage is roughly the same as Billy Graham's.  Nevertheless, who doesn't ultimately love to hate the Tebowmania phenomenon that, like Jesus and zombies, just won't die?

Hate - The Blind Leading the Blind at Quaterback

If ever the Tebowmania dust settles in New York, we'll still have to deal with the fact that either Mark Sanchez or Tim Tebow will have to pick up and throw a football several times for more money than you or I can fathom... until Vinny Testaverde or Brett Favre come back out of the woodwork or something.  This plane's going down, in other words.

New England Patriots

Love - A Surefire Winner

With three rings and five total Super Bowl appearances over the past decade, a stacked draft class and a Brady/Belichick tandem that shows no signs of slowing, the Patriots still look to be the stuff of legends rivaled only by the Walsh/Montana era of the 1980s.  Cheering for this team is pretty much guaranteed to grant you smug, winning satisfaction this year.

Hate - A Near Total Lack of Interesting Competition

With the exception of contests against the 49ers, Texans and [maybe] Ravens/Broncos, do not operate heavy machinery while watching the Patriots this season.  They look to have some seriously lop-sided routs going up against the rest of the AFC East, AFC South and NFC West this year that could rival watching paint dry.