LogFAQs > #973893775

AFC West Prediction

1. Portland Express
2. Oakland Raiders
3. Denver Broncos
4. Kansas City Chiefs

One can argue that the Express have been the league's best team over the past five seasons. Retirements to Hall of Famer MLB John Abbate and OLB Koa Misi shouldn't stop them from adding to the cause. They are elite on offense, defense, and special teams, and they might be the only team able to claim that. Yeah, their depth has taken a little hit, but it won't be tested right away as they left the preseason with one starter injured, and he might return the opening game. They do open the season with three straight road games to playoff contenders and then their home opener is to a bounceback candidate in the Jags. If they can manage to begin 2-2 or better, then they have an excellent chance to reach double digit wins and presumably a playoff spot with the schedule being relatively weak after the initial quarter of the season.

The Raiders had the league's #30 offense last season but managed to make to their first Super Bowl behind the #1 defense. Two of their best defenders, MLB Vontaze Burfict (a former Def PotY) and SS Kam Chancellor, left in free agency, so some regression is in order on that side of the ball. The offense will likely need to see some decent improvement though. The OL was finally invested in last season, and it performed well. The skill positions are where the concerns are at. QB Gaines was great at managing the game, but with him not being much of a passing threat or talent elevator, the onus is mostly on second-year HB Chris Carson to make a major leap forward. While HBs are typically slow to reach optimal efficiency and effectiveness, it isn't unheard of to see someone break out in major way so soon (like HB Joe Mixon who then regressed in his third season last year). Even if that doesn't happen with Carson, the defense should be good enough to keep them in playoff contention. With a lot of teams that underwent major changes over the offseason, it's hard to gauge their schedule as a whole, but my first thought was that their away schedule does look a little tough.

The Broncos have just three losing records in 17 seasons and have never had double digit losses in a season. This could be a season where that streak is threatened. The Broncos have still not properly replaced LaMarcus Coker at HB and with the offseason trade of Dalvin Cook, they are on attempt #4 or 5. To say Cook has had an underwhelming career up to this point is an understatement, but he's never been injured and has seen his yards and YPC increase each season. While the Broncos OL has the talent, they haven't quite had the production of late, but perhaps in a contract year, they could see Cook have a breakout season. The question to me and what might limit their ceiling/cause their downfall is on defense though. While generally a great defensive team, they lost longtime DL studs to retirement, and they are being replaced by fringe starting talent with extremely playing history. In a run-oriented game as the one we are using for this project, the DL is the most important part of a defense, and if those two cause the defense to get gashed against the run, it could be a long season for Denver in what has recently been a pretty competitive conference. I don't think things will be grim, but I do believe that Denver doesn't have the ceiling that it has had.

The losses the Chiefs experienced over the offseason (2 prominent CBs and a SS) weren't as bad as their divisional foes, but they were important parts of this team, at least the CBs. Still, the secondary is a weakness of this team, not that their schedule has a bunch of opponents prepared to exploit that. While not in great shape, the OL is more talented than it was last season. Hopefully that rubs off on QB A.J. McCarron who was downright dreadful the final 3/4 of the season. I think his passer rating was the second-worst in the league among qualified QBs, only beating 49ers rookie Kyler Murray. Even a 10 point improvement to the below-average territory of the low-70s would be a boon to this team that has thin margins for error. They had a revolving door at HB last season due to injuries, so as long as LeSean McCoy has a healthier season, the offense should improve with a regression toward the mean with McCarron and the OL changes. I don't think it will be enough to end the league's longest playoff drought, but maybe they can avoid an all-too-common Top 10 pick.