Ok so I just spent the last 15 minutes putting this together, and
@Rick Burlesons Yam Bag - this isn't going to be pretty for you. Like, at all.
I just went from 2002-2019. 2002 the starting point because that's when the NFL went to the current four-division format. I looked at the number of wins each team had in each division in each year. I did two quick studies.
First, the total number of wins for that division each year. Then second, I removed the Patriots and every other division's top team and just looked at the number of wins each division's bottom 3 teams had. Because it's not remotely fair to remove the Patriots and then look at other divisions INCLUDING the other division's top team. You can't take out the AFC East's top team and then compare that division's win total to other divisions if you keep THEIR top team in. We can all agree on that methodology, I hope. By the way, this works because even in the years NE didn't win the AFCE - 2002 and 2008 - they had the same number of wins as the division winner; they just lost on tiebreakers. So removing their record doesn't artificially alter this little study.
First methodology - total wins in the division. Here's where the AFC East ranked year by year:
2002: 3
2003: 1
2004: 1
2005: 8
2006: 1
2007: 5
2008: 2
2009: 5
2010: 1
2011: 4
2012: 5
2013: 3
2014: 4
2015: 1
2016: 3
2017: 4
2018: 8
2019: 2
TOTAL FROM 2002-2019: 1
That is to say, in this 18 year span, the AFC East had the most number of wins of ANY division in the entire NFL, at 605. The second best was the NFC South, with 587.
Second methodology - total wins in the division MINUS the top team in each division (which is always NE in the case of the AFC East):
2002: 1
2003: 1
2004: 1
2005: 2
2006: 1
2007: 8
2008: 2
2009: 4
2010: 2
2011: 5
2012: 6
2013: 3
2014: 4
2015: 1
2016: 3
2017: 4
2018: 7
2019: 2
TOTAL FROM 2002-2019: 1
That is, in this 18 year span, the AFC East had the most wins by teams 2-4 of ANY division in the entire NFL, at 384. The second best was the NFC East, with 382.
Using this second methodology, here's the number of times the AFCE had each ranking:
#1: 5 (27.8%)
#2: 4 (22.2%)
#3: 2 (11.1%)
#4: 3 (16.7%)
#5: 1 (5.6%)
#6: 1 (5.6%)
#7: 1 (5.6%)
#8: 1 (5.6%)
The AFCE ranked in the top 4 in wins (teams 2-4 in the division) 14 out of 18 seasons (77.8% of the time). They ranked #1 or #2 9 out of 18 times (50%). They ranked #7-8 just twice (11.1%).
Long story short, the claim that the AFC East was a weak division during the TB/BB era is demonstrably, laughably, objectively false. Never mind the ludicrous, absurd claim that it was "historically bad".
Maybe this post can be pinned or something because every now and then someone else regurgitates the nonsense claim that the Yam Bag is spouting here, and it's easily debunked.