Dave Hyde: Want to feel better about Dolphins' offseason? Check out the AFC East.

The Jets are in their latest win-now year. Last year’s model went splat four plays into the season with quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ Achilles’ injury. What was their takeaway? They have even less time. So they rolled the dice on the old and injured. Thirteen-year tackle Tyron Smith. Receiver Mike Williams coming off his latest knee injury.

Jets general manager Joe Douglas also basically swapped 25-year-old edge rusher Bryce Huff (10 sacks for New York last year) for 30-year-old Haason Reddick (11 sacks for Philadelphia) and a third-round pick. Go figure.

There’s no figuring Buffalo. Sending Diggs to Houston evidently solves some locker-room problems. You can even say the loss of Diggs and receiver Gabe Davis (to Jacksonville in free agency) aren’t crucial when you break down their recent numbers. Buffalo’s real question is how it resupplies a defense that was gutted by free agency.

The answer: Josh Allen. The quarterback is the answer for everything Buffalo. It’s the best answer anyone has in the division. But he has limits with a limited roster, as recent Bills’ seasons have shown.

Add it all up and the AFC East is a chipped-up division. The way to rise in it, as the Dolphins’ offseason shows, is to go down the least. And the Dolphins win that idea. They’ve gone down by degrees. They only have a minimized draft and summer mop-up to complete an an offseason where more talent left than entered.

Oh, more bodies entered. More positions were filled. But talent?

Even some faithful think the free-agent loss of talent like Christian Wilkins and Robert Hunt signifies a pause from Super Bowl contention. As if they’ve been in contention. As if the NFL franchise on the longest cooler without a playoff win has been a threat to win anything big the past two decades.

Winning the AFC East is another matter. This offseason keeps showing that much.