AFC West: Does Anyone Want to Win Here?

The AFC West last season had three teams finish 8-8 and one finish 7-9. This year they appear to be on a similar course. Last season the Denver Broncos won the division on a tie-breaker that I think even most Denver fans can’t even tell you how. After 5 games for most of the division, nobody is taking charge. Break out your tie-breaking formulas because we’ll likely need them again this year.

The San Diego Chargers are 3-2. Is there a less impressive 3-2 in the league? Maybe not. The Chargers have a win over the Oakland Raiders, gained basically because the Raiders couldn’t snap the ball back to the punter all game long, they also have wins over the  1-4 Tennessee Titans and the 1-4 Kansas City Chiefs. They also have a loss to the 1-4 New Orleans Saints.

The Broncos, despite winning in the “Peyton Manning sweepstakes” during the off-season, are 2-3. They have lost to the Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans and New England Patriots. The Falcons and Texans are the only two unbeaten teams in the leagues, and the Patriots are, well, the Patriots. So there’s nothing embarrassing about those losses. But they are still losses.  The Broncos two wins are against the Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Beating the Steelers is a nice win.

The Chiefs, well they have not been good. Last week in a 9-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, fans cheered when Matt Cassel was knocked out, literally, from the game. This sparked outrage at the normally well thought of of Kansas City fan base. But that’s how ugly things have gotten there. It’s almost understandable in Kansas City that this would happen. These fans have been putting up with mostly bad football for 40 years and awful baseball for 20 years.

The Raiders have been playing bad football for a while too. This year the silver and black is 1-3. They escaped the cellar in the division last week by not playing. If they don’t play anymore games this year, maybe they’ll make the playoffs? Things have been ugly in Oakland. There was the Chargers game with the bad snaps, then blowout losses to the Miami Dolphins and the Broncos. They did manage to get a come-from-behind win over the Steelers, but that’s been it.

Bookmaker has odds for this week’s AFC West games:

Kansas City at Tampa Bay– Kansas City is +4 -110 or +179. Tampa Bay is -4 -110 or -209. Over/under is 40.5. We like Kansas City with the 4.5 points. The Bucs are pretty awful too.

Oakland at Atlanta-  The Raiders are +8.5 -110 or +330. Atlanta is -8.5 -110 or -400. Over/under is 49. We are going to take the Raiders with the 8.5.

Denver at San Diego-  Denver is +1.5 -110 or +105. The Chargers are -1.5 -110 or -125. Over/under is 50. The Chargers fooled us last week. So we’ll take Denver straight up at +105.