Las Vegas Raiders

Where should I start with the Raiders? Josh McDaniels has completely gutted this team thus far in the off season. Especially at the quarterback position. Benching then cutting Derek Carr was one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen an NFL franchise make. To make matters worse, they go out and get someone worse than Carr in Jimmy G. Why on earth would they do that? Because they are the Raiders. McDaniels is choosing familiarity over talent, and it is obvious. Signing Brian Hoyer as back up QB is not a horrible move, except when your could out play your starter any given Sunday, which is exactly the case here.

As far as offensive weapons go, they do still have Devonte Adams, one of the premier WRs in the game today, so they got that going for them. I’ll be suprised if he doesn’t want out by mid season. Suprisingly the Raiders traded away a perennial pro bowler in Darren Waller, to the Giants. He is a top 3 tight end in the league when healthy. The Raiders did bring in a few additions, but again chose familiarity. The Raiders picked up Phillip Dorsett and Jakobi Meyers, both of whom played in New England under McDaniels. They also managed to retain Josh Jacobs who had an unbelievable year running the football.

Defensively the best thing I can say is, they got two damn good defensive ends in Chandler Jones and Maxx Crosby. As for the rest of the defense, the Raiders need to rebuild it, start from scratch.

Early Prediction: The Raiders will end up dead last in their division, and Josh McDaniels will be terminated at the end of the season. You can’t cut Derek Carr for Jimmy G, in a division with Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert and expect to win.

Denver Broncos

What a complete disaster last year turned out to be. Broncos giving away the draft picks and the players for a quarterback in Russell Wilson who seems to have had a steep decline. Maybe Pete Caroll is just that good of a coach, that he made Wilson look as good as he did when he was in Seattle. Whatever the case, the Broncos are stuck with Wilson, at least his contract. They could pivot to Jarrett Stidham, who they signed this off season, if Wilson fails to produce early on.

What the Broncos do have, is solid weapons on the offensive side of the ball, and a good defense. Which should keep them in ball games this coming year, but with the lack of moves during the off season thus far, they seem to be heading for more of the same this next season, unless their new head coach is as good as he thinks he is.

Early Prediction: They won’t be as bad as the Raiders, but they’ll be real close.

Los Angeles Chargers

Why this team doesn’t live up to their hype I will never understand, maybe it is the distractions in Los Angeles. The Chargers are stacked, if it were me, I would have fired Brandon Staley, and moved in a different direction, they did not. On paper this team should be super bowl contendors. Last year they did have a lot of their core pieces injured for a majority of the season, so maybe they get a pass for last year, but I got to believe Staley is on a real short leash.

Offensively, they have the whole gang back inlcuding, Justin Herbert, Austin Ekeler, Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, Joshua Palmer, and Gerald Everett. Now Austin Ekeler is a bit disgruntled over his contract, but that won’t take away from them being an explosive offense again. Whether he gets traded or not, the passing game should be on point, barring injury.

Defensively, they made a pretty big splash in free agency getting Eric Kendricks from the Minnesota Vikings, who still has plenty left in the tank. On paper, all three levels of defense have some very solid players, the defense should be much improved, barring injury,

Early Prediction: They will finish 2nd in the division, but will be firing their head coach next off season, unless they make it to the AFC championship game, that is the only way he saves his job.

Kansas City Chiefs

Early Prediction: 1st place in the division. Nothing really needs to be said about the Chiefs, they’ll reload, and do what they do all over again.