Columnist Dean Juipe: AFC East too good for own good

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

They're doing it again. Just as they did last season. Just as they have throughout the latter part of the 1990s.

The five teams in the AFC East need to come to an agreement and organize a truce. They've got to quit beating up on one another.

The top-to-bottom finest division in the National Football League is, once again, poised to provide a plethora of battle-tested playoff teams while making sure that each is bruised and weary before those playoffs can begin.

Sunday they were at it again, with four of the five going head to head in games that have repetitively stumped even the best of handicappers. The AFC East has its own type of parity: Every team is good, without any being better than the other.

As they stand today, Indianapolis and Miami are 8-2, Buffalo is 7-4, New England 6-4 and the New York Jets 4-6. Even in Las Vegas sports books, where opinion eventually gives way to fact, these teams are still seen as riddles 11 weeks into the season.

For instance, how do the Bills lose to the Jets a week after limiting the Dolphins to three points? For that matter, how is it that the Bills have beaten the Dolphins twice? How is it that the Dolphins have beaten the Patriots twice? And how is it that the Colts -- who opened the season as a 100-1 long, long, long shot to win the Super Bowl -- are now a mere 8-1 at the Imperial Palace?

Ten days ago they were 30-1.

The Colts (2-2 within the division) are turning some heads and have the benefit of the division's easiest schedule, but they were also 3-13 last year and were the odd team out as the other four reached the playoffs. But the AFC East has been sending multiple teams to the playoffs on a regular basis -- in addition to providing all three wild cards in 1998, the division had one wild card in '97, two in '96 and two in '95 -- without seeing any of its members go on to win a Super Bowl.

In another show of strength, the AFC East has the best record in football when it comes to teams winning 10 or more games a season since 1994. Nine A-Easters have done it within that time frame and a record four could do it this year.

But for all this statistical dominance, the grueling games within the division take their toll. As hardened as they are by slugging it out with each other, AFC East teams travel a tough road that typically runs into a detour come playoff time.

In five Super Bowl appearances this decade, the AFC East is 0-5 and hasn't had a representative in the big game since the Patriots in '96. Given the division's many positive credentials, the only explanation is that its teams wear each other out.

The young and developing Colts, who have won four straight on the road, are in the best position to buck the trend. They have one game remaining with each of their division rivals, plus games with Washington and Cleveland.

Whether they have the stamina or not is a separate question, but the Colts have suffered less physical abuse than their mates. They're healthy and also have avoided any scheduling oddities, such as the one that will require Buffalo and New England to face each other twice yet this season.

Indianapolis may have been a good bet at 100-1, but if recent history holds it will be ousted during the playoffs along with the rest of its AFC East companions. It's the price this division pays for being the best.

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