Kansas City Chiefs: AFC West filled with drama in 2018
For the first time in awhile, the Kansas City Chiefs aren’t one of the more dramatic teams in the AFC West and that’s definitely a good thing.
Over the offseason, the Kansas City Chiefs made headlines when they traded cornerback Marcus Peters to the Rams for diddly squat. The summer prior, then-Chiefs general manager John Dorsey cut Jeremy Maclin by voicemail. Dorsey was fired days later.
Remembering those days makes it even sweeter right now that the Kansas City Chiefs are not the most dramatic team in the AFC West. That honor could be a toss-up between the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders, who both have their fair share problems in their organizations at the moment.
We’ll start with the Broncos, who the Chiefs host at Arrowhead on Sunday. Denver hasn’t seen much success since Sheriff Manning got his second Super Bowl and rode off into the sunset. GM John Elway has struggled to find a suitable replacement at quarterback for Manning, rolling with the likes of Trevor Siemian, Paxton Lynch, and now Case Keenum.
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It wasn’t long ago when there was heavy speculation that Keenum could be benched in favor of Chad Kelly, who the Broncos took with the final pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. At the time of that selection, I thought to myself that the Broncos won the draft with that pick. If Kelly panned out, good for Denver. If he didn’t, they only used a seventh rounder on him. It was a little risk, big reward type of move.
Well… Kelly will not be taking over the quarterback duties for the Broncos, as he was released by the team after getting arrested earlier in the week. Kelly has had behavior problems throughout his entire football career, so it’s not shocking this happened. Hopefully the guy gets some help and maybe he can play in the NFL some day (hopefully just not with Denver).
Now, we turn to the Raiders, who have all kinds of problems in year one under Jon Gruden. Gruden has traded away Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper, two big time pieces in the Raiders’ successful 2016 season. It might not even be surprising if quarterback Derek Carr was traded as well and Carr heard those speculations and spouted off on Twitter.
Some of that tweet might also have been directed at Pro Football Talk, who claimed some Raiders teammates lost confidence in Carr because it looked like he was crying after being sacked in a game against the Seahawks. Looking at what Gruden has done to the Raiders in just a few months has shown that he’s not committed to anyone on that roster and is looking toward the future in Vegas and not the present in Oakland.
The Chiefs lead the AFC West at 6-1 and it’s no coincidence that the Chargers, another drama-less team, is right behind them at 5-2. The Broncos are 3-4 and have had a few decent games this year, but man are the Raiders a mess or what? Two years ago Derek Carr was an MVP candidate and now he might not even be with the team by year’s end. Crazy, man.
Kansas City is benefitting from a tremendous talent at the quarterback position, as Patrick Mahomes has taken the league by storm and could arguably be the frontrunner for MVP. When teams have their quarterback of the future, life is (for the most part) pretty good.
That could be why both the Broncos and Raiders are having problems right now, as their quarterback situations aren’t ideal whatsoever. Chiefs Kingdom will gladly take other teams in the AFC West having all kinds of drama because it just makes the Chiefs’ road to the playoffs that much easier.