Post by Cincinnati Bengals (Chris) on Sept 1, 2016 15:36:51 GMT -5
AFC WEST
This time we look into the AFC West, the division that produced two playoff teams (DEN and SD) last year and has produced at least two postseason clubs for at least the past five seasons (I can’t see any further back than 2011 when I joined the league). Granted 2015 was a mediocre year for the division, but every team ended up winning 5 games as the division basically beat up on each other at the end, capping the potential for a higher-seeded division champion. It was also the only division (I believe) where every team either led or tied for the lead at one point once the season began. So with that in mind, has anything these teams have done separated them from the rest of the field? Can a team from the West become an elite team in 2016? That’s what we’ll discuss below. Let me know what you think about my projections and post you own comments. Also, DON’T FORGET to vote in the poll, as that’s the whole point.
Denver Broncos (Steve)
OFF: 63.03 (49.59 LY)
DEF: 56.82 (63.43 LY)
K: 9.69 (8.42 LY)
TOTAL: 129.54 19th (121.44 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Brandin Cooks, Jonathan Stewart, Stefon Diggs, Tony Romo
Defensive Impact Players: Corey Graham, Josh Norman, Cameron Jordan, Anthony Barr, Alec Ogletree
Last year’s finish and recap- 8th: Denver was slow out of the gates in 2015, going 1-3 in the first four weeks of the season, dropping them to last place, one game behind the rest of the division at 2-2. After consecutive wins in Week 5, 6 and 7, however, Steve’s Broncos took a one-game lead on the rest of the division, and maintained it through the next two weeks entering division play. But in Week 10, Denver faltered, getting thrashed by division-rival Kansas City by nearly 30 points, allowing a resurgent San Diego to tie for the top spot. Ultimately, Denver clinched the division the next week with a head-to-head win over said Chargers, despite an embarrassing fall back to Earth in a Week 12 loss to Oakland. Despite backing in to the division crown, Steve showed up in the playoffs, ousting his former teammate and friend Castle and his Dolphins from the first round. In the second round though, however, Steve’s Broncos were annihilated by one of the top teams in the league in Buffalo, ending their season.
Outlook: Denver sports a good offense and an above average defense, and has the makings of a contender for a playoff spot once again…or did at least, until Tony Romo’s on-again-off-again back injury cropped up in the third pre-season game. Now, the keys to both the offense of real life Dallas and Steve’s Broncos are handed to rookie Dak Prescott, who Steve smartly picked up as a free agent (how did he go undrafted?). Let me be the first to posit that, provided health, given his running ability, Prescott may actually be an improvement upon Romo fantasy-wise, especially from an ability to stay in the lineup standpoint. Denver has plenty of depth at running back after an pre-season trade that netted the Broncos Christine Michael (plaudits all around for one of the pre-season’s most hyped players), but it came at the cost of possible budding star Clive Walford. Couple that with Denver’s TE issues and the move is a little less defensible. But, it goes to show the confidence that Steve has in Darren Fells, his only existing TE option as of now. The top-three wide receivers should be good if Braxton Miller produces, but depth beyond those three is also a concern. Defensively, the Broncos’ top-two linebackers are excellent, and their top-three DBs are quite good as well, but the defensive line is pretty thin when it comes to proven production. All in all, it’s the makings of a good roster, but one that requires some further rounding out as the season progresses.
X-factor: TE/DL. Chances are that at least one of these two positions will have to be addressed by Steve. How he handles those moves might determine how far Denver will go this year.
Projected division finish: 2nd
Kansas City Chiefs (John)
OFF: 57.44 (52.25 LY)
DEF: 54.85 (47.1 LY)
K: 6.69 (6 LY)
TOTAL: 118.98 24th (105.35 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Blake Bortles, Rishard Matthews, Crockett Gilmore, Eddie Lacy, Sammie Coates, Tajae Sharpe
Defensive Impact Players: Aaron Donald, Jabaal Sheard
Last year’s finish and recap- 23rd: Kansas City was managed by two different owners last year, both bringing some good things and a bit of dysfunction (one attempting to skip his first round pick and exiting the league and another making some rather indefensible trades despite his dynasty league football pedigree). Hopefully John can be the replacement for the Chiefs that we’ve been looking for to replace future MFL/NFFL Hall-of-Famer Brooks. It was an up-and-down (but mostly down) year for the Chiefs, who were two years removed from being Super Bowl champions in this league. It started out with a throttling by Dave’s Redskins, but quickly turned it around with a huge win in Week 2 over the Bengals. From there, the Chiefs scored 140+ for the second-straight week, and took the early division lead in dispatching the Ravens. But after that promising 2-1 start, KC lost 5 of the next 6 games, including close losses to defending league champion Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, New Orleans, a 30-point demolishing by Atlanta and a 50+ point undoing by Carolina. It wasn’t until Week 10 that Kansas City got back in the win column with a surprise win over Denver, and found itself one game out of the division lead again. A ginormous win over Oakland in Week 11 allowed them to keep pace with the division leaders, but a Week 12 loss to San Diego ended their playoff hopes and longshot division champion odds.
Outlook: The last two weeks have provided a lot of change in the projections for the Chiefs. The injuries to Ben Watson and Dennis Pitta provide Crockett Gilmore the opportunity to produce near where he did a season ago despite early projections dogging him. The rapid ascension of Tajae Sharpe up the Titans depth chart also makes him a fantasy darling. But it does muddle the fantasy outlook of one of the guys who Sharpe’s snaps might come at the expense of, Rishard Matthews. Additionally, though he’s projected for a beaucoup of points, does not have a starting role, it does not appear, entering the season, and therefore it’s near impossible to see him topping (or even approaching) the 10 PPG he was projected for. John also made a move for Eddie Lacy, upping his projected RB production from T.J. Yeldon, who is in line for more of a committee in Jacksonville. Defensively, KC is middle of the road with only two elite options, both coming on the defensive line. Additionally, on just numbers alone, the unit is rather thin, with only two subs beyond the starting unit at present. The key for Kansas City is having the offense to put up a lot of points so that the defense can help the Chiefs just hang with their competition. If that works, KC might be able to nab one of the AFC’s final Wild Card spots this year.
X-factor: Defensive depth. Short of going out and acquiring defensive difference makers, the only route KC can go is to make pick-ups in FA for depth. If he’s able to do this reasonably well, he could improve the profile of this defense significantly. If not, it’s tough to see the Chiefs sticking with some of their top competition regularly.
Projected division finish: 3rd
Oakland Raiders (League Run)
OFF: 49.93 (51.93 LY)
DEF: 40.01 (38.29 LY)
K: 0 (7.25 LY)
TOTAL: 89.94 31st (97.47 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Bilal Powell, Michael Floyd, Anquan Boldin, Ryan Matthews, Mark Sanchez
Defensive Impact Players: Derrick Johnson, Preston Brown, Davon House
Last year’s finish and recap- 26th: The only current ownerless team, Oakland’s 2015 season was rife with inattention from the previous owner Shane (who rightfully decided he couldn’t commit the time and gave it up for the betterment of the league). Derrick was slated to take over, but after a long absence, decided not to play this year. The Raiders started out the campaign 0-2, with losses to New England and Baltimore. But in Week 3, they took a turn, beating the Bengals handsomely and climbing back to even in the division race with a Week 4 win over Cleveland. It was their Week 5 performance, however, that turned the most heads, as they eviscerated defending league champion Pittsburgh by nearly 55 points, claiming sole possession of the AFC West lead. But two weeks later, they had relinquished it, with back-to-back losses to Atlanta and New Orleans. Though the 3-2 start was now a 3-4 uphill climb, Oakland got back to .500 the next week with a victory over Tampa Bay. But the next three weeks would be unkind, with a stale effort in a loss to Carolina, a close loss to San Diego and a shellacking at the hands of the Chiefs. Although nothing but a consolation prize, their Week 12 win over Denver assured they’d finish the year just one game below .500 at 5-7.
Outlook: There’s a lot of uncertainty with Oakland, as much as any other team in the league, and not just because they are the lone unoccupied team and league-run right now. The lack of a starting quarterback, a true starting tight end and a plethora of other issues on the defensive unit right now mean that I’m going to cut this one short and work on getting some of OAK’s issues settled.
X-factor: Finding an owner for OAK. Basically a lot could be said right here, and I intend to take care of a lot of that, but until the Raiders have a live body running their own team, there are as many question marks about Oakland as there are for the South Park character Mysterion, and that’s a lot (who ever was that guy?)!
Projected division finish: 4th
San Diego Chargers (Trey)
OFF: 75.4 (57.54 LY)
DEF: 60.47 (35.78 LY)
K: 10.44 (8.83 LY)
TOTAL: 146.31 9th (102.15 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Derek Carr, James Starks, Tyler Lockett, DeVante Parker, Mark Ingram, Corey Coleman
Defensive Impact Players: Deone Bucannon, Kelvin Sheppard, Karl Joseph, Shawn Williams
Last year’s finish and recap- 16th: Trey’s first season results couldn’t have gone much better, especially considering some of the obstacles he faced. After a close Week 1 win over St. Louis (now Los Angeles) and our other Trey, Trey (SD) dropped a laugher to Pittsburgh and another close one to Cleveland to make the Bolts 1-2. But San Diego powered back with a win over the Ravens in Week 4 to share the division lead. Though Cincinnati ran over them by nearly 60 in Week 5 and a closer loss to Tampa Bay in Week 6 dropped them to 2-4, Trey got back to .500 after heaping on the points over Carolina and beating Atlanta in Week 8. The Boys in Powder Blue (sometimes) stayed one game back in the division as all four AFC West teams lost in Week 9, and then capitalized in Division play, beating Oakland in Week 10 (though losing to Denver in Week 11) and Kansas City in Week 12, assuring them a .500 record and the AFC’s final playoff spot. One week later, it was all over though, as 1-seeded Buffalo was (barely) able to fend off a strong fight from Trey, whose play down the stretch looks to have him poised for a big year-2 improvement.
Outlook: The only one of the four teams to field a truly elite offense in this division, San Diego looks to be the strongest on that side of the ball. With breakout years expected from Derek Carr, Tyler Lockett, DeVante Parker and Corey Coleman, the unit should be in good shape, even if early projected impact players like Cameron Brate, James Starks, Jordan Howard and Jeff Huermann look more like bench fodder, at least early. Defensively, Trey’s Chargers barely edge Steve’s Broncos in the pre-season projections, and look to have a top-10 starting unit with the news that Mason Foster has won a starting spot at ILB. There aren’t any holes at any of the three positions, but once again, bench depth is a concern, where only two players project to have a significant role, at least out of the gate.
X-factor: Depth. Trey has pretty much everything else covered at this moment, so it may be the depth of the offensive and defensive units that determine if he is once again fighting for a Wild Card or winning the division and going on to bigger and better things in the playoffs.
Projected division finish: 1st
Remember to watch out for the sixth and seventh of our divisional previews this weekend.
This time we look into the AFC West, the division that produced two playoff teams (DEN and SD) last year and has produced at least two postseason clubs for at least the past five seasons (I can’t see any further back than 2011 when I joined the league). Granted 2015 was a mediocre year for the division, but every team ended up winning 5 games as the division basically beat up on each other at the end, capping the potential for a higher-seeded division champion. It was also the only division (I believe) where every team either led or tied for the lead at one point once the season began. So with that in mind, has anything these teams have done separated them from the rest of the field? Can a team from the West become an elite team in 2016? That’s what we’ll discuss below. Let me know what you think about my projections and post you own comments. Also, DON’T FORGET to vote in the poll, as that’s the whole point.
Denver Broncos (Steve)
OFF: 63.03 (49.59 LY)
DEF: 56.82 (63.43 LY)
K: 9.69 (8.42 LY)
TOTAL: 129.54 19th (121.44 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Brandin Cooks, Jonathan Stewart, Stefon Diggs, Tony Romo
Defensive Impact Players: Corey Graham, Josh Norman, Cameron Jordan, Anthony Barr, Alec Ogletree
Last year’s finish and recap- 8th: Denver was slow out of the gates in 2015, going 1-3 in the first four weeks of the season, dropping them to last place, one game behind the rest of the division at 2-2. After consecutive wins in Week 5, 6 and 7, however, Steve’s Broncos took a one-game lead on the rest of the division, and maintained it through the next two weeks entering division play. But in Week 10, Denver faltered, getting thrashed by division-rival Kansas City by nearly 30 points, allowing a resurgent San Diego to tie for the top spot. Ultimately, Denver clinched the division the next week with a head-to-head win over said Chargers, despite an embarrassing fall back to Earth in a Week 12 loss to Oakland. Despite backing in to the division crown, Steve showed up in the playoffs, ousting his former teammate and friend Castle and his Dolphins from the first round. In the second round though, however, Steve’s Broncos were annihilated by one of the top teams in the league in Buffalo, ending their season.
Outlook: Denver sports a good offense and an above average defense, and has the makings of a contender for a playoff spot once again…or did at least, until Tony Romo’s on-again-off-again back injury cropped up in the third pre-season game. Now, the keys to both the offense of real life Dallas and Steve’s Broncos are handed to rookie Dak Prescott, who Steve smartly picked up as a free agent (how did he go undrafted?). Let me be the first to posit that, provided health, given his running ability, Prescott may actually be an improvement upon Romo fantasy-wise, especially from an ability to stay in the lineup standpoint. Denver has plenty of depth at running back after an pre-season trade that netted the Broncos Christine Michael (plaudits all around for one of the pre-season’s most hyped players), but it came at the cost of possible budding star Clive Walford. Couple that with Denver’s TE issues and the move is a little less defensible. But, it goes to show the confidence that Steve has in Darren Fells, his only existing TE option as of now. The top-three wide receivers should be good if Braxton Miller produces, but depth beyond those three is also a concern. Defensively, the Broncos’ top-two linebackers are excellent, and their top-three DBs are quite good as well, but the defensive line is pretty thin when it comes to proven production. All in all, it’s the makings of a good roster, but one that requires some further rounding out as the season progresses.
X-factor: TE/DL. Chances are that at least one of these two positions will have to be addressed by Steve. How he handles those moves might determine how far Denver will go this year.
Projected division finish: 2nd
Kansas City Chiefs (John)
OFF: 57.44 (52.25 LY)
DEF: 54.85 (47.1 LY)
K: 6.69 (6 LY)
TOTAL: 118.98 24th (105.35 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Blake Bortles, Rishard Matthews, Crockett Gilmore, Eddie Lacy, Sammie Coates, Tajae Sharpe
Defensive Impact Players: Aaron Donald, Jabaal Sheard
Last year’s finish and recap- 23rd: Kansas City was managed by two different owners last year, both bringing some good things and a bit of dysfunction (one attempting to skip his first round pick and exiting the league and another making some rather indefensible trades despite his dynasty league football pedigree). Hopefully John can be the replacement for the Chiefs that we’ve been looking for to replace future MFL/NFFL Hall-of-Famer Brooks. It was an up-and-down (but mostly down) year for the Chiefs, who were two years removed from being Super Bowl champions in this league. It started out with a throttling by Dave’s Redskins, but quickly turned it around with a huge win in Week 2 over the Bengals. From there, the Chiefs scored 140+ for the second-straight week, and took the early division lead in dispatching the Ravens. But after that promising 2-1 start, KC lost 5 of the next 6 games, including close losses to defending league champion Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, New Orleans, a 30-point demolishing by Atlanta and a 50+ point undoing by Carolina. It wasn’t until Week 10 that Kansas City got back in the win column with a surprise win over Denver, and found itself one game out of the division lead again. A ginormous win over Oakland in Week 11 allowed them to keep pace with the division leaders, but a Week 12 loss to San Diego ended their playoff hopes and longshot division champion odds.
Outlook: The last two weeks have provided a lot of change in the projections for the Chiefs. The injuries to Ben Watson and Dennis Pitta provide Crockett Gilmore the opportunity to produce near where he did a season ago despite early projections dogging him. The rapid ascension of Tajae Sharpe up the Titans depth chart also makes him a fantasy darling. But it does muddle the fantasy outlook of one of the guys who Sharpe’s snaps might come at the expense of, Rishard Matthews. Additionally, though he’s projected for a beaucoup of points, does not have a starting role, it does not appear, entering the season, and therefore it’s near impossible to see him topping (or even approaching) the 10 PPG he was projected for. John also made a move for Eddie Lacy, upping his projected RB production from T.J. Yeldon, who is in line for more of a committee in Jacksonville. Defensively, KC is middle of the road with only two elite options, both coming on the defensive line. Additionally, on just numbers alone, the unit is rather thin, with only two subs beyond the starting unit at present. The key for Kansas City is having the offense to put up a lot of points so that the defense can help the Chiefs just hang with their competition. If that works, KC might be able to nab one of the AFC’s final Wild Card spots this year.
X-factor: Defensive depth. Short of going out and acquiring defensive difference makers, the only route KC can go is to make pick-ups in FA for depth. If he’s able to do this reasonably well, he could improve the profile of this defense significantly. If not, it’s tough to see the Chiefs sticking with some of their top competition regularly.
Projected division finish: 3rd
Oakland Raiders (League Run)
OFF: 49.93 (51.93 LY)
DEF: 40.01 (38.29 LY)
K: 0 (7.25 LY)
TOTAL: 89.94 31st (97.47 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Bilal Powell, Michael Floyd, Anquan Boldin, Ryan Matthews, Mark Sanchez
Defensive Impact Players: Derrick Johnson, Preston Brown, Davon House
Last year’s finish and recap- 26th: The only current ownerless team, Oakland’s 2015 season was rife with inattention from the previous owner Shane (who rightfully decided he couldn’t commit the time and gave it up for the betterment of the league). Derrick was slated to take over, but after a long absence, decided not to play this year. The Raiders started out the campaign 0-2, with losses to New England and Baltimore. But in Week 3, they took a turn, beating the Bengals handsomely and climbing back to even in the division race with a Week 4 win over Cleveland. It was their Week 5 performance, however, that turned the most heads, as they eviscerated defending league champion Pittsburgh by nearly 55 points, claiming sole possession of the AFC West lead. But two weeks later, they had relinquished it, with back-to-back losses to Atlanta and New Orleans. Though the 3-2 start was now a 3-4 uphill climb, Oakland got back to .500 the next week with a victory over Tampa Bay. But the next three weeks would be unkind, with a stale effort in a loss to Carolina, a close loss to San Diego and a shellacking at the hands of the Chiefs. Although nothing but a consolation prize, their Week 12 win over Denver assured they’d finish the year just one game below .500 at 5-7.
Outlook: There’s a lot of uncertainty with Oakland, as much as any other team in the league, and not just because they are the lone unoccupied team and league-run right now. The lack of a starting quarterback, a true starting tight end and a plethora of other issues on the defensive unit right now mean that I’m going to cut this one short and work on getting some of OAK’s issues settled.
X-factor: Finding an owner for OAK. Basically a lot could be said right here, and I intend to take care of a lot of that, but until the Raiders have a live body running their own team, there are as many question marks about Oakland as there are for the South Park character Mysterion, and that’s a lot (who ever was that guy?)!
Projected division finish: 4th
San Diego Chargers (Trey)
OFF: 75.4 (57.54 LY)
DEF: 60.47 (35.78 LY)
K: 10.44 (8.83 LY)
TOTAL: 146.31 9th (102.15 LY)
Offensive Impact Players: Derek Carr, James Starks, Tyler Lockett, DeVante Parker, Mark Ingram, Corey Coleman
Defensive Impact Players: Deone Bucannon, Kelvin Sheppard, Karl Joseph, Shawn Williams
Last year’s finish and recap- 16th: Trey’s first season results couldn’t have gone much better, especially considering some of the obstacles he faced. After a close Week 1 win over St. Louis (now Los Angeles) and our other Trey, Trey (SD) dropped a laugher to Pittsburgh and another close one to Cleveland to make the Bolts 1-2. But San Diego powered back with a win over the Ravens in Week 4 to share the division lead. Though Cincinnati ran over them by nearly 60 in Week 5 and a closer loss to Tampa Bay in Week 6 dropped them to 2-4, Trey got back to .500 after heaping on the points over Carolina and beating Atlanta in Week 8. The Boys in Powder Blue (sometimes) stayed one game back in the division as all four AFC West teams lost in Week 9, and then capitalized in Division play, beating Oakland in Week 10 (though losing to Denver in Week 11) and Kansas City in Week 12, assuring them a .500 record and the AFC’s final playoff spot. One week later, it was all over though, as 1-seeded Buffalo was (barely) able to fend off a strong fight from Trey, whose play down the stretch looks to have him poised for a big year-2 improvement.
Outlook: The only one of the four teams to field a truly elite offense in this division, San Diego looks to be the strongest on that side of the ball. With breakout years expected from Derek Carr, Tyler Lockett, DeVante Parker and Corey Coleman, the unit should be in good shape, even if early projected impact players like Cameron Brate, James Starks, Jordan Howard and Jeff Huermann look more like bench fodder, at least early. Defensively, Trey’s Chargers barely edge Steve’s Broncos in the pre-season projections, and look to have a top-10 starting unit with the news that Mason Foster has won a starting spot at ILB. There aren’t any holes at any of the three positions, but once again, bench depth is a concern, where only two players project to have a significant role, at least out of the gate.
X-factor: Depth. Trey has pretty much everything else covered at this moment, so it may be the depth of the offensive and defensive units that determine if he is once again fighting for a Wild Card or winning the division and going on to bigger and better things in the playoffs.
Projected division finish: 1st
Remember to watch out for the sixth and seventh of our divisional previews this weekend.