During the month of August, the Last Word on Sports NFL department will be breaking down every division in the league by position. This article contains a position-by-position breakdown of the AFC West offenses. The breakdown will contain “the best” at each unit followed by “the rest” in descending order.
AFC West Breakdown: Defense and Special Teams
2020 AFC West Breakdown by Position: Offense
Quarterbacks
The Best: Kansas City Chiefs
The Rest: Las Vegas Raiders, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers
The Chiefs definitely stand out pretty far from everybody else in the AFC West with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback – the 2018 MVP, and the reigning Super Bowl MVP. With him now being locked up by the team for the next decade, he’ll likely be at the top of this list for a long time. They also notably have a good backup in Matt Moore who played well for them when Mahomes missed some time last year.
With Philip Rivers out of the division, the quality of the quarterbacks in the AFC West goes down dramatically after Mahomes. Out of all of them, Drew Lock for the Broncos might have the highest ceiling. But we’re also working off only a five-game sample with him, so for now Derek Carr gets the edge. He seems to have replaced Alex Smith as the Captain Checkdown of the NFL (not a good thing), but he’s still a competent enough quarterback who won’t typically turn the ball over and can still sling it when he wants to.
The Chargers are the one team with a quarterback battle; Justin Herbert is the clear starter of the future, but it’s expected that Tyrod Taylor will be the short-term starter until Herbert is ready. How long that will take is unknown. But Taylor, despite having good running ability, is often far too passive to be taking the Chargers anywhere on his own.
Running Backs
The Best: Las Vegas Raiders
The Rest: Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs
Right now, the Raiders have easily the best running back in the division with Josh Jacobs, so they get the nod for best group. They still have Jalen Richard to back him up and be a receiving back as well, though it is doubtful that they would have the same level of success between Richard and Devontae Booker if Jacobs got hurt.
The Broncos have a more complicated running back situation. Phillip Lindsay would presumably be the main starter, but they signed Melvin Gordon in the off-season as well, providing some competition. Gordon flamed out badly with the Chargers last year, but he could still be a good change-of-pace back for the Broncos. Royce Freeman rounds out the depth well enough.
The Chargers, who will have more of a run-first attack this year, will have Austin Ekeler, Justin Jackson, and Joshua Kelley to choose from. Jackson seems to be the best choice as an all-around runner, but Ekeler definitely still has flashed as a runner too, and is also a top-tier receiving back. Kelley remains an unknown. The biggest issue here is the lack of clarity of who’s going to be receiving the lion’s share of the carries.
With Damien Williams opting out for the season, the Chiefs drop down the bar a bit here. Admittedly, they have had a lot of success in the past tossing in random running backs and being successful when one misses time. But the apparent starter now is a rookie, Clyde Edwards-Helaire (with the depth being uninspiring). No matter how much we think he’s going to take off in the Chiefs scheme, Edwards-Helaire is still a rookie and a completely unknown factor in the NFL. That leaves the Chiefs at the bottom of this list at the position for now in the AFC West.
Wide Receiver
The Best: Los Angeles Chargers
The Rest: Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders
None of the teams in the division have particularly outstanding depth at the wide receiver position. The Chiefs have had a number of receivers beyond Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins that have done fine when called upon (Demarcus Robinson and Mecole Hardman), but it’s hard to tell sometimes if it’s actually good depth or just Mahomes doing Mahomes things with whoever he has out there. More importantly, the Chargers had two 1,000-yard wide receivers last year in Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. So given that they have the best starting duo, they get the distinction of “best” wide receiver corps in the West.
The Broncos and Raiders are both teams that are depending on rookies to bolster their wide receiver corps. The Broncos at least already have Courtland Sutton. But they will be depending upon two higher draft picks in Jerry Jeudy and K.J. Hamler to take some pressure off Sutton. Of course, if Jeudy is as good as advertised, that might be enough.
The Raiders are depending on Henry Ruggs to probably take an even bigger role than Jeudy, since they don’t have anything resembling the likes of Sutton. They’ve got another quite promising young wideout in Hunter Renfrow. But after that, it’s just Tyrell Williams, who’s solid but also a bit of a one-trick pony.
Tight Ends
The Best: Kansas City Chiefs
The Rest: Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos
The AFC West had two tight ends cross the 1,000-yard mark in 2019 – Travis Kelce and Darren Waller. Kelce at this point is fighting with George Kittle for the title of the best tight end in the NFL, but he’s unquestionably the best in the entire AFC right now. Ricky Seals-Jones is a solid backup for Kelce to have this season as well.
Waller’s nothing to sneeze at, though. After having had a grand total of 178 career yards in four years, Waller had an insane breakout season with 1,145 yards and three touchdowns, becoming the Raiders best receiving weapon that year. Also, the Raiders have the most depth at the position in the West with Jason Witten and the second-year Foster Moreau to go behind Waller.
It says something when Hunter Henry is only the third-best tight end in a division. Henry’s biggest problem has been staying healthy. But despite missing four games in 2019, he got a career-high 55 receptions for 652 yards. The Chargers also have a solid blocking tight end (if not much of a receiving one) for a backup in Virgil Green. They also picked up a former XFL tight end in Donald Parham, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can bring anything to the table.
The Broncos have a promising young tight end in Noah Fant, who finished with 562 yards and two 100-yard games in 2019. And while there are certainly some high hopes for him, the problem is the Broncos don’t have much depth beyond him, with Nick Vannett and the often-injured Jake Butt. It will be interesting to see if rookie Albert Okwuegbunam can be a strong second option at the position, but tight ends historically take a couple years to make a significant impact.
Offensive Line
The Best: Las Vegas Raiders
The Rest: Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos
Part of the credit for Josh Jacobs’ excellent rookie season can probably go to the offensive line. Despite some of their woes at other positions lately, the offensive line has been surprisingly good for the Raiders. Right now they have Pro Bowlers Rodney Hudson and Trent Brown, plus Gabe Jackson and Richie Incognito to round things out. It’s not so bad when Kolton Miller is your worst starter.
The Chiefs have two Pro Bowl tackles in Mitchell Schwartz and Eric Fisher. Things get slightly iffier after that on paper, but this offensive line generally did a good job last year as well. While the off-season did see Laurent Duvernay-Tardif opt out, they did also pick up Kelechi Osemele; if he’s fully healthy, he might be able to contribute.
The Chargers lost Russell Okung during the off-season but gained Bryan Bulaga and Pro Bowler Trai Turner. Plus, they’ll be getting back center Mike Pouncey after he missed most of last year. This Chargers line should be somewhat improved over last year’s. The main question marks remain on the left side of the line, but the right side certainly looks a lot better.
Meanwhile, the Broncos saw impact lineman Ja’Wuan James opt out. They did sign Graham Glasgow and Demar Dotson, but they probably aren’t going to fix this line immediately, which has been struggling for years. Beyond that, it’s pretty much just hoping that rookie center Lloyd Cushenberry can do well out of the gate and that Garett Bolles can stop being a liability.
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