The 2025-26 NFL season ended this past Sunday with the Seattle Seahawks defeating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Now, everyone around the league is already looking toward next season as if
the game never happened. Seattle’s offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak literally went from hoisting the Lombardi trophy on Sunday to being the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders Monday. With the end of the season, let us recap the season that was for the AFC East.
New England Patriots
Starting off with the AFC Champion Patriots, who by far exceeded expectations coming into the season.
They knew that Mike Vrabel would be able to turn this four-win team around but a Super Bowl appearance in his first season was a welcome surprise. The accomplishment earned him Coach of the Year at the NFL Honors while offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was voted the Assistant Coach of the Year. When it came to the players, quarterback Drake Maye took a giant step in year two being the runner up to the MVP. Cornerback Christian Gonzalez made numerous plays all postseason, letting the league know that he may be the best defensive back in the league. The most dangerous part of this team? Heading into the offseason, they are operating with 42 million dollars in cap space currently and can go big game hunting after showing players that they are a preferred destination yet again in the NFL.
Buffalo Bills
It was another year of pain and suffering for the Buffalo Bills after getting bounced in the AFC Divisional Round against the Denver Broncos. The knee-jerk emotional reaction from that game was owner Terry Pegula deciding to fire Sean McDermott. A decision Pegula said was made once he saw the faces of the players in the locker room including a tear-filled Josh Allen who ignored Pegula when spoken to. After a coaching search led by general manager Brandon Beane and company, the team decided to promote then offensive coordinator Joe Brady to lead the charge. Brady has promised to bring a different energy and more importantly love to this football team but it is yet to be seen how he plans on getting this team over the hump. Buffalo is already behind the eight ball sitting nine million dollars over the cap. They have two starting offensive lineman hitting free agency in Connor McGovern and David Edwards while also trying to decide what to do with big contracts such as Dawson Knox and Curtis Samuel. The front office as used specific wording after the season ended pointing a lot of the blame at McDermott but next season we will see if that had any merit.
New York Jets
Switching gears to the New York Jets and it was an extremely disappointing season for first-year head coach Aaron Glenn. It was so disappointing that many thought it was possible for Glenn to be a one and done coach. Instead, he survived but opted to fire eight assistant coaches including his offensive and defensive coordinators. During the season, the team elected to trade cornerback Sauce Gardner to the Indianapolis Colts for two first-round picks and Adonai Mitchell and need to make the most out of those assets. They still have a giant question mark at the quarterback position where it appears the team will move on from Justin Fields. Will they look at finding someone in the draft? Perhaps they will look at the trade market for someone like Kyler Murray or look at the veteran free agent options like Kirk Cousins who reports indicate will be released from his contract with the Atlanta Falcons.
Miami Dolphins
Speaking of being in no-man’s land at the quarterback position, we turn to the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins need to figure out what to do with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa who just could not get it going this season. It got so bad at the end of the season that the Dolphins decided to bench him. To make matters worse, Mike McDaniel got fired at the end of the season. Add in a new general manager and it appears that Tua’s time in Miami will be over. It will be Jeff Hafley taking over the reigns as head coach and he needs to figure out what direction to take this team in. Trading or cutting Tua will leave a hefty dead cap number but teams have shown to be able to recover from it. Look at the Denver Broncos who were paying Russel Wilson 32 million dollars to not play for them this season and had Super Bowl aspirations before Bo Nix broke his ankle.
The 2026 AFC East
2026 is shaping up to be an interesting battle in the AFC East with the Patriots trying to repeat as
division champions while the Bills are trying to regain their top spot. They may be looked down upon
currently but do not count out the Jets and Dolphins depending on how their offseason go. We see
teams in the NFL all the time go from worst in the division to a legit playoff contender.
