Welcome to the AFC West, which is ruled by one team until their quarterback leaves. Outside of the AFC East, this might be the most one sided division in the NFL. In one corner, you have the back to back AFC Champions. In the other three corners, you have a bunch of Barry Horowitz’s that are stepping in buckets and accidentally lighting themselves on fire and stabbing their own players in the lung.
The division is entertaining at the top end, because two of the teams have good quarterbacks. Two of the teams have rusty dildos playing the most important position in football. Those two teams aren’t entertaining. Alright, the week is almost over, lets get through this together. Welcome to the AFC West.
Kansas City Chiefs
2020 Record: 14-2
Coach: Andy Reid
Key Additions: Joe Thuney, Orlando Brown
Key Losses: Eric Fisher, Mitchell Schwartz, Sammy Watkins
Patrick Mahomes terrifies me. And he terrifies me twice. As a football fan, he terrifies me because, as long as he is in the NFL, the team he is quarterbacking will always be one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl every season. He also terrifies me because he takes at least one hit every year that makes you cringe and think he had just been murdered on the field. For the love of god, Chiefs, spend enough money to keep our sweet, sweet Patrick from taking any more hits!
There was a ton of turnover on the offensive line, but Andy Reid deserves the benefit of the doubt until further notice. There isn’t much to say about this team because they have made two consecutive Super Bowls. It honestly isn’t that much fun writing about teams that you know will be good. They are just kind of going to be good, and will probably win their division, and will probably beat the piss out of whatever cannon fodder ends up playing them in their first playoff game. Sun rise. Sun set. I’m just gonna save my energy to spectacularly rip on the Raiders.
Do They Have a Chance to Win a Super Bowl? They are definitely one of the favorites.
Will They At Least be Entertaining? As long as PattyMo and Reidsy are together, they will always be fun and interesting.
San Diego Chargers
2020 Record: 7-9
Coach: Brandon Staley
Key Additions: Corey Linsley, Jared Cook, Matt Feiler
Key Losses: Melvin Ingram, Casey Heyward, Hunter Henry, Trai Turner, Rayshawn Jenkins
Deep down in the balls of my heart, I hoped the Chargers would keep Anthony Lynn as their coach forever. He was just so bad to the point that it was super entertaining, because I’m not a fan of the team. The clock management and play calling issues were so bad that it was magical to watch. There is a certain art form to be being that bad of a coach. The Chargers were “The Room” of NFL teams. It was cringe worthy in a way that made you feel better about yourself.
Remember, this is a team that left Justin Herbert on the bench, and only allowed him to start playing because their FUCKING TEAM DOCTOR ACCIDENTLY STABBED TYROD TAYLOR IN THE LUNGS.
Brandon Staley is the new head coach, fresh off his one year stint as the defensive coordinator of the Rams. Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey just got this guy a job. Spoiler alert: the Chargers do not have Donald or Ramsey. In fact, if Justin Herbert hadn’t been a supernova last year, this team wouldn’t even have fans. The Chargers are the second most popular team in a town that doesn’t want any football teams. They are a vanity project and nothing more. They moved the team two hours from their home of over forty years and assumed fans would still be fans. The problem? Those people still get to live in San Diego. There is other shit to do than watch a team go 6-10 every year.
Now the Chargers are in Los Angeles, trying to compete with not only another team, but with the existence of Los Angeles in general. Everything I said about Vegas goes double here. The only people that are going to Chargers games are fans of the opposing teams that want to make a weekend out of being in California. Justin Herbert will bring some hangers on to this team, but since they no longer have roots with the city or a real fan base to build off of, they are just flaccid pensises flapping in the breeze, hoping someone will notice them.
Do They Have a Chance to Win a Super Bowl? Maybe not, but they have the offense to stay in games and maybe catch a few breaks.
Will They At Least be Entertaining? In the words of my good friend Steven Austin, “OHHH HELL YEA!”
Team: Las Vegas Raiders
2020 Record: 8-8
Coach: Noted Hooters spokeperson Jon Gruden
Key Additions: Casey Heyward, Yannik Ngakoue
Key Losses: Trent Brown, Rodney Hudson, Tyrell Williams, Gabe Jackson, Nelson Agholor
Thank god. Finally a team that I can trash and feel good doing it. The Raiders continue to exist to make every other team in the NFL feel good. Every downtrodden fan base can at least say “Well, at least we aren’t the Raiders.” Moving this team to Las Vegas is fitting because they are the Fremont St. of football. They sometimes get gussied up and polished and made to look new and refreshing, but they are still the same old landfill that only sick and diseased seagulls eat off of.
Over the last five drafts, the Raiders have had eight first round draft picks. They have botched seven. Only one has been worth a damn, and the Raiders like Josh Jacobs so much, they handed out a bunch of money to Kenyan Drake to be the most expensive backup running back in the NFL, that is until the team below this team in the preview benches Melvin Gordon.
Nobody has shot themselves in the foot, then tried to solve the bullet wound by stepping into a bear trap quite like Las Vegas. They gave Jon Gruden 100 million dollars to leave his gig as a football commentator/whore for Corona to pretend that it’s 2001 on the sidelines again. A lot of people correctly argued that Gruden really wasn’t that great of a football coach in the first place and that the passing of time had put a rose colored tint on his tenure. The Raider chose to ignore those people and gave Gruden the keys to the castle. Then a sink hole opened up under that castle and enveloped everyone in it, leaving only Mark Davis’ iconic bowl haircut to survive.
In three seasons, Gruden has a record of 19-29. To put it into perspective, Bears coach Matt Nagy has a 28-20 record with two playoff appearances, and Bears fans want him fired. Legacy is a helluva thing.
On the field, all of the Raiders’ drafting failures are out there for everyone to see. Darren Waller is the lone star on the offense, and if he has even an ounce of common sense, he will bolt this Hindenburg of a franchise as soon as free agency comes up. Derek Carr has to live in the purgatory style hell Gruden created by threatening to trade him every offseason. The defense is going to suck, as it always has and always will.
The Raiders deserve to be in Las Vegas, being half paid attention to by overweight loads from Des Moines sitting in comped seats, only half paying attention to the game, while a small fraction of the crowd actually gives a shit about the fact that Henry Ruggs and his cement hands drop half a dozen passes. Late summer brings training camp, which brings optimism for all fan bases. It should bring zero optimism for this team. Every August, there should be a pall cast over the fans of this team for continuing to root for them. In a league where every team seems to make the playoffs every 2-3 years, the Raiders haven’t made the playoffs since 2016, and even then they lost to the immortal, legendary Brock Osweiler. Sebastian Janikowski is the best player in the history of this franchise and no, that is not a compliment.
Do They Have a Chance to Win a Super Bowl? They have one of the worst coaching staffs in the NFL and have botched every first round draft pick since they drafted Amari Cooper in 2015. So no, unless they got into a time machine and go back to hire a better coach and a better scouting staff, they will never be a Super Bowl contender.
Will They At Least be Entertaining? Yes, but only because they will spectacularly blow two or three games to another team.
Team: Denver Broncos
2020 Record: 5-11
Coach: Vic Fangio
Key Additions: Teddy Bridgewater, Kyle Fuller, Ronald Darby,
Key Losses: AJ Bouye, Ja’Wuan James, Jurell Casey
Interesting fact on the key additions: two of the players, Fuller and Darby, play cornerback. The Broncos also used their first round pick on a cornerback. This was done in spite of the fact that the Broncos desperately need a quarterback and two (Justin Fields and Mac Jones) were available. It was more important for this team to have three people playing for two spots on this team than trying to fill the most important role on a football team.
They do have quarterbacks. And oh boy, are they something. Drew Lock is here to be mediocre for three games a season before getting injured. Then, they brought in Teddy Bridgewater to throw a football with less velocity than a nine year old trying to throw a shotput. This is one of the least inspiring quarterback units in the NFL. There is no upside to these two guys. It’s like eating an old shoe or eating an old boot. This team will fail because their coach and scouting staff don’t think offense needs to exist.
The upside for this team is that horse faced bastard John Elway is finally gone. The guy who thought Brock Osweiler and Paxton Lynch were good ideas finally stepped aside so somebody else could fuck up this franchise. The good news is, there are apparently still plenty of people in the room who don’t know how to judge a quarterback to save their lives. Lets just remember that this team is the one that had to start a practice squad wide receiver at quarterback because their entire quarterback room had to be quarantined, and they had no backup plan. Vic Fangio desperately wants to be fired so he can go back to being a defensive coordinator somewhere, but since he is in Denver, he has a nearly endless leash to hang the entire franchise with.
Over the past four years, the Broncos have won 5, 7, 6 and 5 games. Last year, they were 21st in the NFL in total yards allowed. They gave up the eighth most rushing yards. Meanwhile, they were 23rd in the league in yards on offense. It will not shock you to find that they were 26th in the NFL last year in team passing yards. This team is mediocre all over the place, and one first round draft pick wasn’t going to fix all of that. But drafting a quarterback wouldn’t have hurt.
Do They Have a Chance to Win a Super Bowl? You would literally have to be about a mile high on the flossiest of strains to think that Teddy Bridgewater or Drew Lock will lead this team to the Super Bowl.
Will They At Least be Entertaining? Only when they play the Chargers. Because the Chargers are interesting. The Broncos are not.
COMING MONDAY: NFC EAST
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Fancy Boys Club 