Just weeks before the 2024 NFL regular season officially kicks off on September 5, which teams are expected to win the most games and compete for the Lombardi trophy this year?

According to Vegas, it’s the usual suspects: 49ers, Chiefs, Eagles, Ravens, Bills, Bengals, etc.

What about the New England Patriots? They’re under a new head coach in Jerod Mayo, who is taking over for Bill Belichick after he manned the sidelines for 24 mostly legendary seasons, seasons that included nine AFC titles and six Super Bowl championships.

Again, what is the over/under for Patriots victories in 2024? 4.5. That’s right, just 4.5, the lowest number of all 32 teams. In other words, New England is expected to have the worst record in the NFL. The Patriots finished 4-13 a year ago before parting ways with Belichick, but even that wasn’t good enough for the top pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Nope, but New England did select third and took quarterback Drake Maye from North Carolina.

If the Patriots do have the top pick in next year’s draft, who will they take? Will it be another quarterback? They better hope not. Will Mayo still be around to call and welcome the newest pick? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Times sure have changed in the NFL in only a short period. Just five years ago, New England was the gold standard for success.  The Patriots entered the 2019 season as world champions for the sixth time since 2001. They had just played in their third-straight Super Bowl and were favored to make it back there a fourth straight season. New England won the AFC East that year for the 17th time since 2001. But a 12-4 record wasn’t good enough for a bye, and the Patriots wound up losing in the wildcard round to a sixth-seeded Titans squad that barely scraped into the playoffs with a 9-7 record.

That defeat ended the Tom Brady era. Brady became a free agent that offseason and signed with the Buccaneers. The loss to Tennessee combined with the departure of Brady effectively ended New England’s Super Bowl reign. The Patriots have made the playoffs once in the 2020s–they were a wildcard team in 2021 after finishing the regular season at 10-7–and haven’t won a postseason game since defeating the Rams in Super Bowl LIII following the 2018 campaign.

The Patriots are expected to bring up the rear in the AFC East and the National Football League in 2024.

As for the rest of the AFC East? They’re all supposed to contend for something this season. That’s right, Vegas has set the over/under win total for the Bills, who have won the division every year this decade, at 10.5. The odds for the Dolphins and Jets are set at 9.5.

That’s quite the departure from where those three teams were during most of New England’s reign. I mentioned earlier that the Patriots won 17 division titles between 2001-2019. I don’t know if you’re good at math, but that’s way too many division titles for one team in less than 20 years. In other words, why didn’t the Patriots’ divisional rivals stand up and fight them?

That’s what happens in every other division in the NFL. I don’t care how good you are this season, at least one other team in your division will be gunning for you next year. It seems like the Bills, Dolphins and Jets were waiting for New England’s run to be over before they decided to transform themselves into championship contenders.

Buffalo, Miami and New York made the postseason a combined 13 times between 2001-2019–or four less than the Patriots did all by themselves. Only the ’02 Jets and ’08 Dolphins managed to win division titles during that time (and Brady had to suffer a season-ending knee injury in Week 1 of the ’08 season to make one of those happen). Yes, the Jets had a nice little run starting in the late-’00s. Rex Ryan became the head coach in 2009 and immediately made it known that he wasn’t there to kiss Belichick’s Super Bowl rings. Ryan did a good job at first, when he, his defense and quarterback Mark Sanchez led New York to back-to-back AFC title game appearances, even upsetting the Patriots at Gillette Stadium to make it to the second one. But the Jets lost both games and haven’t been back to the postseason since January of 2011.

The Jets have developed a fine roster in recent years; they thought so much of their chances heading into 2023 that they spent a boatload of draft picks and money to acquire Aaron Rodgers. True, Rodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles injury four plays into Week 1, but he’s expected to be healthy again this year, and people are anticipating good things from New York.

The Bills have Josh Allen, one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL, which may explain why they keep winning the AFC East.

The Dolphins just gave Tua Tagovailoa a huge chunk of change this summer, and they did that because they want to put up a fight in the AFC East. They drafted receiver Jaylen Waddle in 2021. They traded for superstar receiver, Tyreek Hill, two years ago. The Dolphins are serious people.

Three of the four teams in the AFC East are now serious about winning, while New England is seriously bad.

Where was that same fight from the division when the Patriots just assumed they owned it every year?

I think the Patriots’ run may have been a lot shorter if someone, anyone, in the AFC East had been more eager to end it. New England only played on Wildcard Weekend three times during its championship reign. The Patriots never once opened the postseason on the road–meaning, as a straightup wildcard entrant.

No wonder the Patriots enjoyed such a historic run. It’s much easier when you can dominate every team in your division for nearly two decades.

The Patriots are doormats now and may remain bottomfeeders for quite some time. That’s life in sports but especially the NFL. Parity exists for a reason and is meant to keep teams in check.

Nobody from the AFC East could really keep the Patriots in check for almost 20 years.

Comeuppance is inevitable for any sports dynasty, but it would have been much more fun to watch Belichick and Brady have to squirm a little more during their run, especially in their own division.

It’s not as satisfying watching the modern Patriots act as cellar dwellers. To steal a quote from Dennis Eckersley, the former Major League pitcher and color analyst for the Boston Red Sox, the Patriots’ current roster is a “Hodgepodge of nothingness.”

Brandon Aiyuk, a receiver who has spent months in a contract dispute with the 49ers, thought so little of New England’s current state that he reportedly turned down a trade to the Patriots even though they were willing to pay him the most money.

It may have been nice to watch Aiyuk go to New England and squirm a little, but there is nothing fun about seeing Jerod Mayo, Jacoby Brissett and the rest of the post-dynasty Patriots take it on the chin.

Life comes at you fast in the NFL, and while they may finally be paying for their partying years now, at least the Patriots made us all wait a long time before we got to watch them suffer through some harsh falls and winters.