The AFC West is a one team race for the top, with three other teams beneath that could finish in any order. They will scramble and claw, with rosters loaded with young talent and plenty of interesting big-name veterans trying to keep their careers alive. And in the end, Kansas City will coast to another division title. These other three teams may have bright futures ahead of them, but they are going to be looking up at the Chiefs for a long time.
Kansas City Chiefs
Best Case Scenario
This one is pretty easy. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl a year ago, and they’re set up to do the same in 2020. The only hiccups they hit a year ago were when Patrick Mahomes went down with an injury, and by the time they reached the playoffs they rolled through every opponent they faced (even after spotting a couple double-digit leads to start the game).
The firepower on this offense is unmatched, and they have enough pieces on their defense to keep teams from just walking down the field on them. Resigning Chris Jones to a long-term extension was a huge move, and along with Frank Clark, Juan Thornhill, and Tyrann Mathieu he sets the Chiefs up to be at least competent on defense for years to come. Competence is all they need, because I’m really not sure there’s a way to slow down this offense. The only way to beat the Chiefs is to outpace them in a shootout.
Worst Case Scenario
I don’t really know what to put here, except to say injuries are a concern for them as they are for any team. I suppose with a team like this anything short of a Super Bowl title is a disappointment, but even that is tempered by having just won a year ago. I can’t envision a reasonable scenario in which they don’t make the playoffs, and once they get there they’ve proven they can win pretty much no matter what is thrown in front of them.
The Chiefs have had a couple players opt out already, and I suppose that’s some cause for concern. But in both cases they managed to find a reasonable option to replace them. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif decided using his medical degree to “help people” was more important than playing football, so they went out and signed former All-Pro Kelechi Osemele to fill the gap. And while Damien Williams had some nice moments in their playoff run last year, he still plays a position that is very fungible, even without considering they spent their first round pick on Clyde Edwards-Helaire. The rookie will now have to shoulder a bigger load, but it isn’t that much of a load to begin with on an offense that is happy just dropping back every play and launching the ball down the field.
Player to Watch – Mecole Hardman, WR
This team doesn’t particularly need more weapons on offense, but fast wide receivers are one of those things you can never have too much of. And Hardman is certainly fast, as demonstrated by his 4.33 forty time as well as his 20.7 yards per reception average his rookie year. He was a rotation player on the outside for them as he adjusted to the NFL, and he still put up 538 yards and six touchdowns.
It’s kind of unfair to have Tyreek Hill on one side and Hardman on the other. There are very few cornerbacks in the league who can keep up with either of them, and no team out there has two that can. Toss in a quarterback with seemingly infinite arm strength, and defenses are faced with the grim reality of having to guard every goddamn inch of the field on every play. If you don’t play two deep safeties, Mahomes will launch it to one of his lightning bolts over your heads. If you do keep two safeties deep, he’ll pick you apart with his running backs and tight ends. This has been the best offense in the league for the past two seasons, and they are only getting more dangerous heading into 2020.
Las Vegas Raiders
Best Case Scenario
A lot of the decisions the Raiders have made since bringing in Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock have certainly been odd, but I can’t say I hate the roster they’ve assembled. There are still some remnants of puzzling draft selections like Kolton Miller and Clelin Ferrell holding down crucial starting spots, but they’ve also managed to pull together some great finds like Maxx Crosby, Maurice Hurst, and Hunter Renfrow. They still have a puzzling habit of signing big name veterans well past their prime (why is Jason Witten on this team?), but for the most part they’ve assembled a roster full of intriguing young talent across the board that has the potential to step forward this season.
Derek Carr was quietly very good a season ago. He completed more than 70 percent of his passes while also setting a career high in yards per attempt, and he did so while maintaining his impressively low interception rate. He also had the fewest pass attempts of any season in his career by a significant margin, and I expect they will open things up a little more on offense now that they’ve added rookie receivers Henry Ruggs and Bryan Edwards. If he can take advantage of this talent and remain efficient while being let loose, this offense has the potential to carry the Raiders into the postseason.
Worst Case Scenario
Again though, some of the names on this Raiders roster are just downright puzzling. They seem to be desperately throwing anything they can at their secondary in the hope that it sticks. How else do you explain a team having Damarious Randall, Prince Amukamara, and Lamarcus Joyner all together in the same unit in the year 2020? They are all capable veterans, which I suppose is a step up from what they had a year ago. But the pass defense has been the biggest weakness for this team for several years now, and their best solution is to cram it full of players the rest of the league didn’t particularly want.
Their offensive line looks reliable on paper, but they’re counting on 31 year old Rodney Hudson and 37 year old Richie Incognito to be the players they have usually been in the past. If holes start showing along the front, Carr’s performance from a year ago is going to be difficult to repeat. He’s the sort of quarterback who can operate well when everything is going right in front of him, and who falls to pieces the moment he faces any adversity. On a roster with this much youth, the veteran quarterback has to be pretty much a sure thing. Any struggles by him could easily spread to the rest of the team, and send them spiraling back to the bottom of the league.
Player to Watch – Maxx Crosby, EDGE
When you spend a top-five selection on a defensive end, you don’t expect your best pass rusher to be the guy you grabbed three rounds later. Yet this was absolutely the case for the Raiders last year. This was partially due to Ferrell’s struggles—he had only 4.5 sacks across 15 games—but also partially due to the fact that Crosby was really good.
Ten sacks is impressive for a rookie, particularly one that didn’t earn a full-time starting role until midway through the season. Crosby was a reasonably productive pass rusher at a low level at Eastern Michigan, and he tested as a sensational athlete, better than the 80th percentile in 40 yard dash, vertical jump, broad jump, 3-cone drill, short shuttle, and long shuttle. This athleticism made it an easy transition to the NFL, so now the only question is what he can do for an encore. Sacks can be a bit flukey, and it isn’t unheard of for a player to explode onto the scene and then fade from there. The Raiders are counting on Crosby to be a difference-maker on their defense right now, since they don’t really have anyone else they can lean on.
Denver Broncos
Best Case Scenario
I don’t really know what to make of this team, because I don’t really know what to make of their quarterback situation. Drew Lock was better last year than most people expected, but he wasn’t as good as some Broncos fans (and the front office) seem to have convinced themselves he was. He had one spectacular game against the Texans, but in the other four games he started he was fairly pedestrian. He could go either way this year, falling to pieces or rising to the challenge.
If he does step forward, the Broncos are positioned to take a massive leap on offense. Their line is still a mess even after adding some solid young pieces on the inside, and it only got worse with Ja’Wuan James opting out. Where they’ve really loaded up is at the weaponry. Courtland Sutton is an emerging star, and their last two first round picks were shifty receiver Jerry Jeudy and lightning fast tight end Noah Fant. They also used a second round pick this year on deep threat KJ Hamler. They have a lot of talent on the outside, and now they just need someone to get it to them.
Worst Case Scenario
If Lock isn’t the guy the Broncos think he is at quarterback, this team is going to be in trouble. They’ve been mediocre for several years now, with a defense that is solid but no longer excellent enough to carry them. They shuffled a few pieces on that side of the ball this offseason—Jurrell Casey and AJ Bouye are in, replacing Derek Wolfe and Chris Harris—and they may get some boost from the health and continued development of Bradley Chubb. But many of their top players are also at the point where their talent will begin to fade. Von Miller is 31. Kareem Jackson is 32. Casey is 30. They could be a lot closer to falling off than we realize.
If Lock struggles, the Broncos will likely try to lean on their defense and their running game. This isn’t always a misguided approach, but it certainly lacks the upside for a team that has focused so much on adding speed and youth on the outside over the past few seasons. They are building this team to be an aerial assault, and their long-term future depends on finding a way to develop this offense. They aren’t playing for this season , but this season will decide going forward if they should plan for 2021 or if they will have to push their window farther into the future. They need repetition to develop their young talent and set up their offense for the future, and failure by Lock could lead to stagnation of this entire team.
Player to Watch – Dre’Mont Jones, DT
Denver has been aggressive about building their offense over the past few seasons, which leaves them light on youth on the defensive side of the ball. Chubb and Justin Simmons are their only two starters who have potential long-term upside, but coming off the bench they have an intriguing option in second-year player Jones.
Jones saw limited action a year ago, playing just over a quarter of Denver’s defensive snaps. But he managed to pull together 3.5 sacks in that time, and he showed flashes of the unique athleticism he brings as an interior rusher. He doesn’t have the size of a traditional defensive tackle, but he is lightning quick in space, and he should have plenty of space to work with between two elite outside rushers. He’ll likely still begin the season as a rotational pass rusher, but if he continues to produce his role will grow. He could prove to be a shot of youth that this defense desperately needs.
Los Angeles Chargers
Best Case Scenario
After a decade-and-a-half being carried by Philip Rivers, the Chargers are finally moving on. It’s hard to know what a team will look like as they make such a transition, but there are still pieces of this roster to like, mostly on the defensive side. Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram are both still great. Rookie Kenneth Murray could give them a spark on the second level. And their secondary may be the best in the league, with Chris Harris now joining Casey Heyward and Desmond King at cornerback to go along with the dynamic Derwin James at safety, hopefully healthy after a rough second year.
This defense should be enough to keep them in every game (though we’ve been saying this for years and it hasn’t always worked out). It’s just a matter of whether they can get anything from their offense. Their best bet is to stick with Tyrod Taylor at quarterback for as long as they can, though that’s always difficult with a highly drafted rookie on the bench. But Taylor is a proven starter who does plenty of good stuff on the field, even if his ceiling is limited. He’ll have much better weapons to work with than he ever had in Buffalo. Keenan Allen and Hunter Henry will always be dangerous working the underneath parts of the field, Austin Ekeler is a nuisance out of the backfield, and Mike Williams has developed into a consistent deep threat who makes up for his lack of speed with his ability to outmuscle defenders at the point of the catch. They don’t need much from this offense, and if everything breaks right (not something the Chargers are used to), they could claw their way into playoff contention.
Worst Case Scenario
There are still massive flaws with this roster. The most glaring is the offensive line. It’s been a problem with the team for years, and even adding an aging Bryan Bulaga isn’t going to have much impact. They won’t be able to open holes in the running game on a consistent basis, and whoever plays quarterback is going to have to be ready to escape the pocket at the first opportunity. This is less of an issue for someone like Taylor, whose legs are a useful weapon. But if they end up switching to Justin Herbert, he is going to have a very rough start to his career.
Normally I am in favor of throwing a rookie onto the field as quickly as possible, but this is a situation where I might take a different course. For one thing, Taylor is better than most quarterbacks holding place in front of highly drafted rookies. For another, I really am not a fan of Herbert in general, and particularly behind a bad offensive line. He doesn’t handle pressure well, and he doesn’t create outside the pocket. At some point this season it’s almost inevitable that he will see the field, and if that happens early on it could be the start of a long, dark spiral back into the top ten of the draft for this team.
Player to Watch – Dan Feeney, OG
I liked Feeney a lot when he was drafted in the third round in 2017, but so far in his NFL career he has been a mess. He was always a bit undersized for the position, but I expected him to do a better job adding strength in the NFL, something that clearly has not happened yet. More shocking is how often he gets caught sitting completely still while a pass rusher races past him. He looks lost most of the time that he’s on the field, and he is a major part of why the Chargers have struggled so much on the offensive line.
But he’s still only 26 years old, and entering his fourth season it’s possible that not all hope is lost. He’s bracketed on both sides by a pair of quality veterans in Bulaga and Mike Pouncey, and while that’s only a slight upgrade from what he had a year ago, it will still make his life easier. It’s put-up or shut-up time for Feeney, and if he can’t handle it early on, this is another position that could see a change as the season unfolds. Fellow member of the 2017 draft class Forrest Lamp has been somehow even more disappointing, but he’s still waiting on the Chargers bench for his shot to finally put his impressive physical skillset to use on the field.
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