He would have preferred for his Buffalo Bills to capture the division with the enemy comprised as it has been for the last two decades.

“Man, I wish [Tom] Brady was still in the AFC East,” Bills safety Dean Marlowe, a James Madison alum, told the Daily News-Record on Tuesday, “so we could face the greatest quarterback to play the game and take over the AFC East.”

But earlier this offseason Brady departed the New England Patriots, who he spent the last 20 years with and helped bring six Super Bowl titles to, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That decision leaves behind a perceived void in the division for the Bills to fill as, perhaps, the favorite.

Buffalo finished 10-6 last season, its second winning campaign in the last three, before falling to the Houston Texans in the AFC Wild Card Round.

“But [Brady] not being there, I don’t think that just gives us the open door,” Marlowe said. “The Jets are a good team. The Dolphins are a good team. And the Patriots still have Bill Belichick. He’s a great coach and you never know what he has up his sleeve. So just like every NFL game every year, it’s going to be a fight.”

That’s not new for Marlowe, though.

The four-time All-Colonial Athletic Association selection with the Dukes wasn’t drafted out of JMU and had to prove he deserved a roster spot with Buffalo on the heels of a stint with the Carolina Panthers that was cut short due to a series of devastating hamstring injuries which forced the team to release him.

“Being an undrafted free agent, the only thing that’s guaranteed is that you show up to every meeting like it’s your last,” Marlowe said. “And you better keep working and you better do something, and that’s whether it’s in the meeting room or on the field to separate yourself from the others. That’s the only thing that’s guaranteed. It’s what you do with your opportunity.

“But I’ve said I always had that chip on my shoulder even when I was at JMU and I kept that into the league. I knew I had the ability. I knew I had the smarts and I knew I was capable of doing everything that I’m doing now and that I did at JMU. So what I did was maintain that composure, consistency and that strong work ethic. And now, I’m going into Year 6.”

Marlowe said it wasn’t until later during his redshirt freshman year in Harrisonburg that he realized he could be one of the more dominating players at the FCS level.

He had 71 tackles and tallied a team-best four interceptions for the 2011 Dukes who reached the second round of FCS playoffs before being eliminated by North Dakota State.

“And then my sophomore year, I came back and was like, ‘I can do this,’” Marlowe said. “I was going to sacrifice everything I had in me to make the NFL because I knew I could do it. And so did Mickey [Matthews]. Mickey is my guy and he told me, ‘You can do big things. You just got to keep going, and don’t take your foot off the gas pedal.’”

Matthews, the former longtime JMU coach, said he believed Marlowe had a shot to reach the NFL.

“He was a high school quarterback,” Matthews said of Marlowe, a Queens, N.Y. native, who was a two-star recruit by Rivals.com from Holy Cross High School. “But we weren’t sure if he’d play receiver or safety, but we knew he was a good football player. He did a lot of natural things.

“And then after I watched him play defense for two or three days, I knew he wasn’t going to play offense. He was too good of a defensive player because he had too much instinct. He was good.”

During his time with the Dukes, Marlowe racked up 326 tackles, 30 pass breakups and 12 interceptions and secured an invite to the East-West Shrine Game after his senior year.

“I look back and say to myself that I was lucky to have two really good head coaches with Mickey Matthews and Everett Withers,” Marlowe, who was also recruited by Syracuse, Marshall, Delaware, Maine and a few Ivy League programs, said. “And the guys they brought along made me learn not only to just be a good football player, but a great man and a good person.

“Football is football at the end of the day, but it’s like when you’re in college there are so many distractions and things that go on. There’s so much schoolwork. But I can say I did everything I could to put myself in a good situation to be where I am today. Honestly, when I look at JMU, it’s the school itself and the football program that have given me the opportunity of a lifetime to achieve my goal.”

This past fall, Marlowe earned more game action than he ever did previously. He was on the Bills’ 53-man roster for the entirety of the year and started twice, contributing most significantly as the team’s ‘Big Nickel’ defensive back. Marlowe made 11 tackles and had a pass breakup.

He said one of those tackles came against former JMU teammate, wide receiver turned New York Jets tight end, Daniel Brown in the regular-season finale.

In March, Buffalo re-signed Marlowe on a one-year contract.

He said he has a good relationship with Buffalo coach Sean McDermott, a William & Mary alum, who was the Carolina defensive coordinator when Marlowe began his pro career there.

McDermott got the Buffalo job after the 2016 season.

“2017 was a rough year for me,” Marlowe said. “I had the second hamstring injury and that forced Carolina to release me in training camp. And the 12 weeks that I sat aside, it was hard to grasp what my next move would be or where I would end up next. But I don’t think it was coincidence that Sean McDermott reached out to me and asked me how my health was and about the steps I was taking to get back on the field. He asked about where I was in my rehab, and then [Bills general manager] Brandon Beane and McDermott decided to bring me in on the practice squad in 2017 to get my body back, to get my mind back.

“And I appreciated every opportunity that they gave me coming off back-to-back injury seasons.”

Marlowe used that chance to play with the practice that year, go back-and-forth between the practice squad and the active roster two years ago, and eventually stick on the team last year.

The safety joked him and McDermott trade jabs about the rivalry between the Dukes and Tribe.

“During the season, especially when we play William & Mary,” Marlowe said, “I always have to throw it in McDermott’s face.”

He said McDermott has the Bills primed to build off of what they did last season and that everyone on the roster is waiting patiently for a return to football. Buffalo is scheduled to open the 2020 campaign against the New York Jets on Sept. 13.

“Our standard is playoff caliber as Coach McDermott explains to us,” Marlowe said. “It’s how we manage our meetings and it starts in the morning, how we manage our walkthroughs and our practice. Everything is game-like. It’s taking that step from where we know we’re a good team to how does everyone come together to be great?

“There’s a difference between good and great, and every player that they bring into the organization wants to be great, so we all have that common denominator of wanting to go above and beyond to maximize our opportunities and expectations.”