The 10 most important players on every AFC East team

Take the quarterback out of the equation for a moment: Which AFC East players are the most vital to their teams' success?

A quality quarterback can carry a team a long way in the NFL, but teams carry 53 players for a reason—QBs can’t do it alone. So, with the draft and the heart of free agency in the rearview mirror, we’re asking the question: Who are the 10 most important non-quarterbacks on each NFL roster?

We polled writers from SI and The MMQB to find some answers. Each writer was assigned to a conference and asked to rank each roster’s most important players, 1 through 10. Those players then were given points consistent with their positioning—a first-place vote was worth 10 points, second-place was worth nine and so on. Then we circled back to hear the writers out when their ballots went against the grain.

The AFC East leads us off, with the following pollsters weighing in: Ben Baskin, Chris Burke, Robert Klemko, Bette Marston and Eric Single.