Chiefs: Around the AFC West

Laddie Morse

With the Kansas City Chiefs Training Camp less than a week away, it’s time to take a look at each of their AFC West opponents offseasons and see if the 2024 version of the Chiefs will be a shoe-in once again. Let’s begin with the Los Angeles Chargers.

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The Chargers haven’t won the AFC West since 2009. Then, they had won it four seasons in a row. The Chiefs made a brief appearance at the top of the division in 2010 then the Broncos won it from 2011 to 2015 and the Chiefs have owned the AFC West ever since. 8 straights seasons in a row.

The Draft

You’d have to say the Chargers had a good draft with the picking of OT Joe Alt at #5 and then WR Ladd McConkey at #34 in the second round. Of course it’s way too early to judge anyone’s draft but from the outset, many K.C. fans were hoping beyond hope that the Chiefs could somehow jump up and pick Alt, mainly because his father John Alt was a stalwart for the team a generation ago. Then of course, many fans were hoping the Chiefs might grab WR Ladd McConkey, but he ended up with the Chargers when K.C. elected to move up and snag speedster Xavier Worthy at #28, a pick we traded up for.

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Biggest Changes

Probably the largest and most dramatic changes this offseason for the Chargers come at General Manager and Head Coach. Joe Hortiz is their new GM and Jim Harbaugh is their new HC.

Jim Harbaugh

Harbaugh walked away from Michigan as their previous Head Coach and he walked away a champion. Although he was once a QB himself, his approach is typically a run-first offense. He’s also been an offensive minded HC so the Chargers weakness may be defense. The Chargers ranked #28 in the NFL (out of 32 teams) in Total Defense and they don’t look to be any better in 2024. However, Chargers fans are excited about Jim Harbaugh as outlined by BoltBeat.com:

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“Jim Harbaugh has won everywhere he has coached 

and it is not an accident. Harbaugh has brought success

to several unsuspecting teams and that is why LA Chargers

fans are over the moon that he is the team’s head coach.”

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In that same piece, ex-Charger great Nick Hardwick (former OC) who is now an assistant OL coach for the team said this:

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Harbaugh may be a hyper-diaper HC, and he may run a lot of practice plays, but he’s going to have to do a lot more than run the ball this offseason to beat the Chiefs for the AFC West crown. Many a pundit over the last several years have picked the Chargers to oust the Chiefs from the top spot in the division, but he’s going to have to make some major changes to flip their 5-and-12 – 2023 record.

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It’s been even longer since the Raiders were any good at all. Here’s a look at their record and AFC West finish since 2006:

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The area in Black represents the time they spent in Las Vegas and the area in Gray represents the time they spent in Oakland. They were in Oakland so long that many still make the mistake of calling them the Oakland Raiders. Understandable. It’s been since 2002 that they last won the AFC West and went on to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl where they lost to the Buccaneers 48-to-21.

JustBlogBaby.com, a FanSided website for Raiders fans, has an article called: “Raiders’ biggest offseason regret revealed” in which they quote Brad Gagnon of Bleacher Report. They say:

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“Brad Gagnon of Bleacher Report believes that

the Raiders not doing more at quarterback and

sticking with Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell

is one of the biggest team regrets in the NFL.”

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Austin Boyd who wrote the piece goes on to quote Gagnon as saying:

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“While Minshew had some nice moments last year in Indianapolis and flashed at various points during previous stints with Jacksonville and Philadelphia, he’s not likely a long-term franchise quarterback… Ditto for Aidan O’Connell, who posted a mere 83.9 passer rating as a rookie fourth-round pick in 2023. The Raiders are otherwise quite talented, but instead of investing in draft or market maneuvers to land a quarterback with an elite ceiling, they stood pat and went super conservative at the sport’s most critical position.”

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As we K.C. fans know, talent at the QB position means the most in the current NFL. That may be witnessed by Patrick Mahomes winning the ESPY for the Best Male Athlete two years running… while simultaneously winning back-to-back Super Bowls.

The Raiders HC, Antonio Pierce may ask his players to be as rough as they like, but if K.C. still has the best QB, best TE, best HC ever, things are not likely to change for them.

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The Denver Broncos will be out of contention for several years now. When they decided to discharge Russell Wilson as a post June 1 release, they were basically saying they will swallow all of his $85M salary but will be splitting it up over two seasons by doing it that way. Either way you look at it, it spells doom and disaster for their organization. Ever since Peyton Manning left them after the 2015 season, they’ve been looking for a suitable replacement and haven’t found anyone close who fits the bill. Plus, it doesn’t look like QB Bo Nix is the answer. He was taken as the 6th QB in this year’s draft and they took him at #12.

Here’s Pro Football Talk with their take on the Broncos offseason debacle concerning QB Russell Wilson called: “Russell Wilson was a ‘monumental organizational blunder’ by Broncos” (11:14):

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Second year HC Sean Payton was responsible for the decision to move on from Wilson and now he’s made his bed and he has to lie in it. Here’s a piece from PredominantlyOrange.com called “Broncos players on the roster bubble at every position before training camp” by Sayre Bedinger, for those wanting more content on the Broncos.

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What do you think?

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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