AFC West Preview

Rather than doing a “best case”/”worst case” for the AFC West I’m gonna change it up and tell you why each team will win and why they won’t. These things happen here at Armchair Linebacker, which isn’t exactly a finely tuned race car. It’s more like a stolen rickshaw being driven by a junkie who was just kicked out of an opium den. Things frequently don’t make sense until they do, or they don’t and you go read something else or watch a Youtube vid of a dude opening packages of vintage action figures or whatever the fuck people do in this post-literate age, strange and terrible as it may be.

Shit. Anyway, I suppose I should actually talk about the AFC West, which is a division that’s almost impossible to really call this year. I know, I know, I just said the same thing about the AFC South, but you have to understand that, one, the AFC is a wretched ass of a conference, and two, I’m not any good at this, which begs the question why I’m doing it, but lol look at that junkie pull that rickshaw!

But, really, each team in the AFC West has legitimate reasons to think they can win (or at least semi-legitimate, okay fine, delusionally legitimate in the Raiders case, and also my spell-checker says that “delusionally” isn’t a word but we won’t crumble before the artless lies of that fascism) and also legitimate fears that they may fall completely apart and finish last and consigned to the depths of football hell. Hence the “why they’ll win”/”why they won’t” changeup I’m throwing you. That’s a baseball metaphor in a football blog because I’m just that brilliant.

The Raiders

Why They’ll Win: The Raiders are only a season removed from winning the AFC West and Derek Carr was at least on his way to being an elite quarterback before his inner David Carr, who you’ll all remember or maybe not as the former number one overall pick who was stuck in the spiritual morass of Houston and then slowly eaten to death by giant horseflies and also as Derek’s brother, and by that I mean David is Derek’s brother, not that Derek’s brother ate David like the giant horseflies and yeah, I could have been clearer about that but lol that rickshaw just crashed and now that junkie is pissing himself in the street and these things happen and I just hope that one chick who used to chide me about run-on sentences isn’t reading this.

Why They Won’t Win: No team in the NFL should have as powerful a spiritual and psychic energy as the Raiders. They are the team of Kenny Stabler, of “Just Win Baby”, of a million and one Spirit Warrior psychos channeling their inner Willie Young, and of a fanbase made up of biker degenerates and Mexican tow-truck drivers. They are the motherfucking Raiders and that should mean something. But Kenny Stabler is dead (at 69, naturally), they haven’t won baby in roughly a million years, the odd playoff appearance aside, all those Spirit Warrior psychos are being chased out of the NFL by Sheriff Goodell and his posse of gentrifiers (again, spellcheck is being a little bitch here, which proves that it too is a gentrifier) and that passionate fanbase has been jerked around to the point that they simply don’t give a shit anymore. It’s dark, dudes and lady dudes. It’s real dark.

But that’s what happens when your team is run for decades by a megalomaniacal literal vampire who moved the team to Los Angeles (this is where the spiritual rot began) and then back to Oakland because he was a selfish and capricious old man, which killed that degenerate psycho backbone of psychic energy. And that’s what happens when that vampire is finally staked in the heart, only his even more monstrous son, who is like some horrid hybrid of Donald Trump and a shit-tier Will Ferrell character, takes over and thinks he knows best. Now the team is on its way to Las Vegas, the most spiritually empty and profane place in the world, where no one will care because no one is actually from Vegas and those who are will just spend most of their time trying to con and destroy the Raiders players because that is what people from Vegas do to outsiders, even the wealthy and powerful, especially the wealthy and powerful. It is a blackhole of despair, built on greed and grift, a con of a city. That’s who the Raiders are now, that’s what the Raiders are now. And worse, what’s left of their fans know it by now. My boy and yours, the esteemed Harpo Garza, told me he doesn’t even give a shit anymore. They’ve killed Harpo, one of the Armchair Linebacker OG’s.

Of course, the few remaining Raiders diehards will tell you that it’ll all be different now that Jon Gruden is back, but lol come on man. This is a dude who hasn’t coached in a decade. I mean, at all. He’s spent that time being a dick on Monday Night Football. Shit, why not dig up Howard Cosell and name him coach? Also, and people forget this, Gruden’s reputation as a coaching genius is, uh, somewhat inflated. In 11 years as an NFL coach, his teams won 10 or more games only 4 times. Yes, he won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers, but he did so after taking over a team already built and brought to the doorstep by Tony Dungy. Afterwards, he basically tanked the Bucs.

But Raiders fans don’t care about that. They’ll tell you that they remember that he was the guy who built the Raiders the last time they were any good, and yeah, maybe. But even then, he only had two winning seasons with the Raiders, and also, that was almost 20 years ago now, which in NFL terms is about the same as having coached 200 years ago.

This is a desperate and terrible gamble, which is fitting given the whole Las Vegas thing. Mark David is a dude on his final throw at 4AM, who’s lost the family fortune, trying to win it all back at once. He’s a literal Mark. He gave Gruden a monster contract, gave him dictatorial powers, and this either works (it won’t) or Mark Davis is going to be sitting in some dark back room having his thumbs broken with a hammer.

The Raiders are a dead team, spiritually and in every other way. Gruden is just robbing them blind before the buzzards in Vegas can pick their corpse clean in the desert. There are no fairy tale endings here, no happy redemption stories. The Raiders were always the true America’s Team, no matter what the soulless corporate whores in Dallas say, and so it’s fitting that they die along with the last ragged and pathetic gasps of the American Dream.

Kansas City Chiefs

Why They’ll Win: The Chiefs are the defending AFC West champs, and they have a ton of young, badass weapons on offense like Tyreek Hill, Kareem Hunt and Travis Kelce. If new quarterback Patrick Mahomes is ready, they should win it again. Mahomes has a monster arm, and with Eric Berry returning from injury on defense, the Chiefs are supposed to be even better than before.

Why They Won’t Win: “Supposed to” is one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language, especially in a sporting context. It is where False Hopes are born and with them the Failure Demons who hook themselves like parasites to the brand new baby. Trust me, I’m a Lions fan. I understand these things.

Mahomes replaces Alex Smith at quarterback, but the truth is that Alex Smith has always been really underrated. Yes, he was a bust when he first entered the league, but he basically taught himself how to be a good quarterback, which is a mental game as much – if not more than – a physical one. He mastered the mental part of it and learned how play the position instead of trying to brute-force it like some young, dumb big-armed kid, which is what Mahomes is. Smith’s been to back-to-back Pro Bowls and led the Chiefs to the playoffs 4 of the last 5 seasons. That is not a dude you just easily replace.

Basically, in sex terms (look, you know what you’re getting here, don’t complain), Smith is that veteran dude who might not be the most physically gifted but who has learned how to work with what he’s got. He knows how to get you off, knows how to make it last, knows how to play the fucking game (literally), and in the end, isn’t that the point? Meanwhile, Mahomes is the rocked-up young dude who pulls just based on his look and then gets you home and ends up dribbling all over your thigh before anything even really gets going. He doesn’t know how to use what he’s got yet and you’re just gonna end up frustrated while he takes the long uber ride home.

And really, the Smith vs. Mahomes thing is what this whole thing boils down to for the Chiefs. I could talk about Eric Berry or the offensive weapons, but in the NFL if you don’t have a quarterback you don’t have jack-shit. It doesn’t matter if Berry can return at 100%, which he probably won’t because Achilles tears are the secret worst injuries, and it doesn’t matter if Hill and Hunt are for real if Mahomes is out there dribbling all over thighs and then mumbling an apology.

Denver Broncos

Why They’ll Win: The Broncos have a new quarterback in Case Keenum, who improbably led the Vikings to the NFC Championship Game last season, and they still have Von Miller on defense. There is just enough residual spiritually and psychic energy from the last time they were good lingering around. And in an open division in which every team has questions, if they can stabilize the quarterback position, they can steal this one.

Why They Won’t Win: John Elway is on the verge of ruining this thing completely. He’s basically like almost every other superstar-turned-exec (Michael Jordan, Isiah Thomas, etc.) who got the job simply because he was so good as a player that he must know how to build a team, right? Only he finds himself in over his head, reveals that his innate talent is an instinctive physical one and not a deliberative mental one, and everything falls apart like that junkie who crashes the rickshaw cart.

The Broncos have gotten progressively worse and worse, Elway hasn’t been able to find a quarterback, and meanwhile, the defense, who really carried the team when they were winning, has become more and more ordinary. Von Miller isn’t really “Von Miller” anymore, and this is how 12-4 becomes 9-7 becomes 5-11 becomes whatever shitass record the Broncos have this season.

Keenum did a good job for the Vikings last season, but you have to remember, this is a dude who’s been a journeyman his whole career. Last season was the aberration, not the rule, and so counting on him to resurrect things and save Elway’s reputation is perhaps maybe dumb as fuck. I’m not saying that it can’t happen, just that it probably won’t.

I wish I had more to say here, something clever perhaps, but really, it just comes down to whether they get Career Renaissance Keenum or Journeyman Keenum. One gives them a chance to win a division in flux, the other will get them last place.

San Diego Chargers

Why They’ll Win: In a league full of questions and turmoil, the Chargers have one important thing: Philip Rivers. I know, I know, holding Rivers up as a pinnacle of stability seems lol as fuck, but Rivers has been consistently good for more than a decade now. No, he hasn’t been the A+ dude he thinks of himself as, and yes, he’s still a tremendous dick, but what he has been is a solid B to B+ dude and let’s face it, being a tremendous dick is not exactly a disqualifying trait for an NFL quarterback. Lions fans will absolutely hate me for this, but he is basically the AFC version of Matthew Stafford, only he’s been doing it longer.

The sad reality is that is not a quarterback who is going to lead you to the promised land all by himself like a Tom Brady or an Aaron Rodgers. And relax, you jackals, Stafford could still up his game and get there. Rivers, though, won’t. He is what he is, and worse, he’s on the downside of his career. But, this is the “Why They’ll Win” section, and in a division full of more questions than answers, he’s the one safe bet. If Mahomes is dribbling on thighs and Keenum goes back to being, well, Case Keenum, while the Raiders dig their hole in the desert, then Rivers and the Chargers are going to win by default. They’re the team with the least amount of questions, and sometimes that’s all it comes down to.

They also have Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram to rush the quarterback. Both are Pro Bowlers, and along with Casey Hayward at cornerback, give the Chargers a great foundation on defense. Take them and take Rivers being Rivers and the Chargers probably have enough to steal the AFC West.

Why They Won’t Win: Rivers is a huge dick, and “winner” is not exactly the word people would use to describe him. Even if he can lead the Chargers to an almost flukish division title, that’s about as far as they’re gonna get with him.

Meanwhile, the Chargers have been hit hard by injuries already and the goddamn season hasn’t even started. Hunter Henry, the heir to now-retired Antonio Gates, is out for the season and Jason Verrett, Casey Hayward’s CB partner, is out now too. This is not how you want to start things.

The Chargers also have maybe the NFL’s worst home-field advantage. No one cares about them in Los Angeles. I mean, nobody in Los Angeles really cares about anything, but they almost go out of their way not to care about the Chargers. This creates two problems: the NFL is so competitive that any sort of disadvantage could cripple you, and two, it creates a sort of spiritual and psychic energy void for the Chargers and you know how I feel about that. Am I a ridiculous idiot? Yes, of course. But you’re the one reading this so what does that make you?

Shit, now I’m attacking you for no reason, so this is probably a good place to stop.

FINAL JUDGMENT:

1. Chargers 10-6

2. Chiefs 9-7

3. Broncos 6-10

4. Raiders A Howling, a Mad Void of the Soul filled only by its own Emptiness and the Failed Dreams of the Damned