The Wild, Wild AFC West: A look into the new gauntlet of the NFL
What a difference a few weeks makes. The 2022 NFL off season officially began this March with the start of free agency, a time when every fan in the league hops on twitter and other social media outlets and begs their favorite team’s accounts to go sign for this player or go trade for that player etc. and so forth. This year even the most fervent hot take artists couldn’t have predicted the massive shuffling that has happened across the league, but specifically in one division: the AFC West.
For most of the past decade the league’s gauntlet ran through the west but in it resided in the NFC. The NFC West, even to this day, is considered to be a slaughterhouse of the gridiron with Jim Harbaugh/Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers, Pete Carroll’s legion of boom Seahawks, Bruce Arians’ tough as nails Cardinals and now Sean McVay’s LA Rams, the winners of Super Bowl LVI. Consider that from 2011-2021 the 49ers made 5 NFC Championship games and two Super Bowls, The Rams made two Super Bowls and won one, The Seahawks made two Super Bowls and won one and the Cardinals made one NFC Championship game appearance in 2015. Shanahan’s 49ers and McVay’s Rams look to be the bullies of the division for years to come while the Cardinals continue to falter in the second half of their seasons and Carroll’s Seahawks are in a full blown rebuild. The legion of boom has been dissolved for several years now but it was the inconceivable departure of franchise QB Russell Wilson that not only shuffled the deck in the ever waning NFC, but also kickstarted the rapid ascent of the AFC West to the top of the NFL food chain.
BRONCOS
On March 9th the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos for two first round draft picks in 2022 and 2023, two second rounders, a fifth rounder, QB Drew Lock, TE Noah Fant and DT Shelby Harris. It’s a mammoth haul for the Seahawks but at the end of the day the Broncos and their fans are the real winners here. Wilson is that rare superstar QB that is exemplary both on and off the field and a true leader of men.The Broncos have been mired in mediocrity because John Elway, for all his brilliance as an NFL QB, could not find an adequate replacement for Peyton Manning after the Broncos won Super Bowl 50. In that time the franchise has gone through Gary Kubiak, Vance Joseph and Vic Fangio at head coach and a laundry list of QBs that were either washed beyond recognition or just not fit to play the position at the NFL level. First year head coach Nathaniel Hackett doesn’t have that excuse. He’s got the man to get him wins immediately. In addition to the major splash of Wilson
becoming the team’s QB the front office also added Randy Gregory to the linebacking core, making an already stout defense even more formidable.
CHARGERS
The Chargers saw the Broncos make their upgrade at QB and decided to do their part to make the division even tougher by going out to trade for former Bears stud pass rusher Khalil Mack and signing pro-bowl CB J.C. Jackson away from the Patriots. The issue for the Chargers was never with Justin Herbert and the offense, it was with their defense giving up big plays at the absolute worst possible time in big games down the stretch in 2021. With Mack added to the defensive line opposite Joey Bosa and Jackson added to the secondary with Derwin James? Good luck scoring on these guys. Brandon Staley might still be a question mark as their head coach but there’s no denying the Bolts have more than enough talent to compete for the postseason and perhaps even the division crown.
RAIDERS
Then you have the Raiders seeing all this happening in their division the same time the rest of us are. Did they decide to stand pat with what they have in Josh McDaniels’ first year at the helm of the silver and black? Hell no. The big move initially was the Raiders signing pass rusher Chandler Jones to the defensive line to join Maxx Crosby. That alone would have made the Raiders’ stock jump up considerably. However, it wasn’t enough...not to keep pace in this murderer’s row of a division. On March 18th the Raiders pulled a rabbit out of a hat and traded their first and second round 2022 draft picks to the Packers for superstar receiver Davante Adams, who apparently has always dreamed of playing for his favorite team from childhood. While Derek Carr might be the “worst” QB in the AFC West there is no question that the addition of Adams provides him with an elite weapon he’s never had in his entire career. McDaniels is going to have a field day designing plays for these two to connect. Somewhere Aaron Rodgers has to be seething that his partner in crime chose to bail instead of playing under the franchise tag.
CHIEFS
Not every team in the division improved, however. Seemingly out of blue the Chiefs traded the fastest man in the league, Tyreek Hill, to the Miami Dolphins for FIVE future draft picks, only one of them being a first rounder and it’s pick number 29 this year courtesy of the San
Francisco 49ers as the Dolphins owned that pick from the Trey Lance trade they did with them from last year. There’s no two ways about it: the Chiefs are 100% a worse football team without Hill in the flat. Hill not only is a speed demon that can take the top off opposing defenses but he also served as a decoy on several designed plays for Travis Kelce. With Hill gone, Kelce will garner much more coverage on every passing down as no receiver on the Chiefs roster poses a big play threat like Hill does. At the end of the day the Chiefs still have Patrick Mahomes under center but the league is about to see just how great he is minus his, arguably, most dynamic weapon for the first time in his professional career. Make no mistake, despite Hill’s age, the Dolphins won the trade easily. The odds of the Chiefs finding the next Tyreek Hill with any of those picks they received is slim to none. That massive Mahomes contract that he signed a few years back is starting to show it’s ugly face. Not that he’s not worth it, obviously he is, but the loss of Hill is going to be a bitter pill for Chiefs Kingdom to swallow for a long time.
