KC Chiefs: Five AFC West rookies to worry about in 2020

The AFC West has been owned by the KC Chiefs over the last four seasons, but before that it was the Broncos’ division. Out of all of the teams this offseason, Denver made the most progress in trying to catch Kansas City in the division.

That’s not to say Denver is anywhere close to what the Chiefs are though. I remember seeing a tweet from Pete Sweeney after the draft wrapped up that said something to the effect of unless Drew Lock becomes Patrick Mahomes and Vic Fangio becomes Andy Reid, the Chiefs are still the kings of the AFC West and I couldn’t agree more with that sentiment.

Will the Broncos be a playoff team in 2020? Maybe! They have added a lot of offensive talent for Lock, but now it’s all on his shoulders and we don’t know if he can handle that type of pressure yet. He struggled against good teams in college and while his rookie season was good, when he did play against the Chiefs, he did not look very good. Now there’s more film on him too.

As for the other two teams, they made strides to get better too. The Raiders really went receiver heavy in the draft, grabbing Ruggs and also taking back-to-back receivers in the third round (and with back-to-back picks at that), showing that they too would like to partake in shootouts with the Chiefs and not have it be a one-sided event.

The Chargers are a strange team to figure out this offseason because it’ll be the first time they’ve had a different starting quarterback since 2005. Tyrod Taylor isn’t bad, but he’s not a long-term solution, so it’ll be interesting to see how long he’s under center before Justin Herbert takes over.

The rookies on this list might not instill fear into Chiefs Kingdom right now, but as their first years progress, we’ll see more examples of why they might be scary to face.