Grading the AFC East at the quarter mark of the NFL season: Dolphins have a shot

The AFC East was supposed to be a thrilling division this year. While it is still a three-team race for the division title, there doesn't appear to be a team that stands out as a likely wild-card seed.

There is a lot of football still to play, and teams will get better, suffer injuries, and lose games no one expects them to. Still, no one can be thrilled with the season so far, especially Miami Dolphins fans.

How do you grade teams that have highly visible flaws on the field? You start with the New England Patriots.

Grading every AFC East team after the first quarter of the season

New England Patriots: F

The Patriots are the cellar dwellers of the East this year, and no one really expected them to be anything but. However, no one expected them to be this terribly bad. First-time head coach Jerod Mayo looks lost most of the time, and Jacoby Brissett has been saddled with one of the worst offensive lines in the league. So naturally, the Patriots are going to bench him in favor of ruining Drake Maye.

Unlike Jayden Daniels in Washington or Caleb Williams in Chicago, the Patriots will be lucky if they get half of what Bo Nix has done in Denver with Maye at the helm. New England is going to throw its rookie quarterback to the wolves and hope it helps build him up rather than destroy his future.

The Patriots are so bad that even the defense, which was supposed to be incredibly good, looks average at best.

Miami Dolphins: D

The Dolphins didn't look good against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1. They didn't look prepared in Week 2 against the Buffalo Bills. Then, the injuries began to pile up. Miami lost Tua Tagovailoa and had no real backup plan. The Dolphins entered the season with four wide receivers when only two were fully healthy. They spent the offseason giving money to players currently under contract instead of building the roster with more than one-year deals for depth.

All of it came to a head in Week 3 when Miami looked completely lost against the Seattle Seahawks, only to wander further into the dark recesses of the woods against the hapless Tennessee Titans, who hadn't won a game since last year (when they beat the Dolphins).

Miami should be given an F grade, but the defense balances it out. This unit is holding things together for now, but after losing Jaelan Phillips for the year and Jevon Holland for what looks like a few weeks, this group may start to suffer as well.

New York Jets: D

Aaron Rodgers will stand at the front of the room and say he had nothing to do with Robert Saleh being fired, but his play on the field would 100% say otherwise. In five games, he has thrown for 1,093 yards, seven touchdowns, and four interceptions, with the Jets averaging just 18.6 points per game.

Outside of the Rodgers distraction, the entire team on both sides is a mess. The defense, which is supposed to be near the top of the NFL, is loaded with talent but playing like they don't care. The referees are starting to see that Sauce Gardner holds on every play and are calling it.

The Jets are spiraling out of control, and a coaching change may not be enough to turn them around.

Buffalo Bills: C

There are no plusses in this grading system and there is no curve. The Bills beat up on bad teams to get their three wins. They narrowly beat the Arizona Cardinals in Week 1, trounced the Dolphins in Week 2, and beat up the Jaguars in Week 3. When they played good teams, the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans, they lost.

The offseason moves the Bills made are starting to show against teams that can exploit them. Working in their favor is the fact that right now, no one else in the division is doing anything to stop them, or for that matter, putting up a fight.