{"id":5962,"date":"2019-08-02T22:23:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T22:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=5962"},"modified":"2019-08-02T22:24:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T22:24:01","slug":"chiefs-chargers-teams-to-beat-in-highly-competitive-afc-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/chiefs-chargers-teams-to-beat-in-highly-competitive-afc-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs, Chargers Teams To Beat In Highly Competitive AFC West"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The AFC West could be one of the most competitive divisions in all of pro football this year. At the very least, it should be much closer than last year’s bifurcated result which had two teams (the Chiefs and Chargers) among the NFL’s elite and two teams (the Broncos and Raiders) among the league’s bottom feeders. The teams at the bottom of the table have improved while the teams at the top have at least some ambiguity heading into the 2019 campaign. Here’s a quick look at the division along with predicted order of finish and a play from the NFL futures betting odds <\/a>board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS<\/strong>: KC breathing a sigh of relief after it Tyreek Hill’s injury suffered in practice earlier this week turns out to be nothing serious. He’s also in the clear legally after child abuse allegations and the NFL isn’t going to punish him. With Hill’s status looking good for the 2019 season there’s every reason to think that the Patrick Mahomes led Chiefs will put up insane offensive numbers again this year. Throw in tight in Travis Kelce and wide receiver Sammy Watkins and KC has an abundance of offensive weapons. Now the bad news–running back Kareem Hunt is gone though the Chiefs look to have good depth here. The KC defense was awful last year finishing #31 in total defense and #24 in scoring defense. The team is looking to improve the defense by ‘going younger’ and DC Steve Spagnuolo is switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3. Mahomes might have more challenges from opposing defenses now that there’s plenty of game film on him. KC will have the toughest non-division schedule in the league this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS: <\/strong>The LA Chargers have something Kansas City doesn’t–they have a solid defense that finished top ten in both scoring defense and total defense last season. Phillip Rivers is 37 but playing better than ever and the team has brought in some talented QBs to back him up. Schedule is slightly tougher this year and the Chargers still have to prove they can win the big games. They had nothing for the Patriots in the playoffs last season and the Chargers have lost nine of their last ten against Kansas City. Overall, they’re loaded with talent on both sides of the ball and Anthony Lynn deserves more credit than he’s received for turning the team into a contender. Unless Spagnuolo orchestrates an unprecedented defensive turnaround in KC the Chargers are the most balanced team in the division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OAKLAND RAIDERS: <\/strong>The Raiders were extremely busy in the off-season and in theory should be dramatically improved on offense thanks to the addition of Antonio Brown, Tyrell Williams, Josh Jacobs, Hunter Renfrow along with offensive tackle Trent Brown to shore up the line. Derek Carr is one of our favorite quarterbacks and now he’s got a nice array of weapons to work with. A bigger question is on defense where the Raiders were awful last year ranking #26 in total defense and dead last in scoring defense. Oakland took some highly touted defenders in the draft including Clemson DE Clelin Ferrell and Mississippi State safety Jonathan Abram. Raiders should be improved by virtue of an increased points output alone. If the defense starts to mesh they could be vastly improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DENVER BRONCOS: <\/strong> Denver has to hope that 34 year old Joe Flacco regains his elite form. He didn’t have it last season which eventually ended with injury and losing his job to dynamic rookie Lamar Jackson. If Flacco gets injured or just doesn’t work out Denver’s QB situation could become ugly with unproven Stanford product Kevin Hogan and raw rookie Drew Lock. The good news is that Denver’s defense still has the potential to be nasty and new head coach Vic Fangio’s defensive pedigree should help things all the more. New offensive line coach Mike Munchak was a good hire and new offensive coordinator Rich Scangrello has plenty of upside but limited playcalling experience with none at the NFL level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREDICTED ORDER OF FINISH:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. LOS ANGELES CHARGERS<\/li>
  2. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS<\/li>
  3. OAKLAND RAIDERS<\/li>
  4. DENVER BRONCOS<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    BET LOS ANGELES CHARGERS +150 TO WIN AFC WEST<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The AFC West could be one of the most competitive divisions in all of pro football this year. At the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5964,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions\/5964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}