AFC West becoming a serious division again
 

We all sorta expected it at some point. The Donkeys and Bolts have substantially improved so it looks like the cakewalks of years prior won't be so easy. They would give us the division by like game 8. Not this year even though we are highly likely to close it out again. End of year division games may mean much more this year.

I think it's better for the Chiefs as they have to focus for every game and the proof will be in the results. No easy games.

Then you have the Raiders, who are the Browns or Jets of the West. They have one or two big victories a year like beating the Ravens this year and us last year.

As we finish up 2024 with a Super Bowl march and look at 2025 and beyond, our drafts, the ability to execute in free agency and having a season with fewer injuries will be much more important.

Beating them will be tougher BUT much more rewarding.

Here's to a better overall, more respected AFC West.........:thumb:

Have you improved your sex life or do you still have to buy hookers?

I loved the Harbaugh and Peyton hires. Honestly, I wouldn't have been mad if Reid retired and KC hired one of them. Both are fantastic coaches and significant upgrades to their previous coaches....and after sucking ass for so long, they are loaded with talent.

Then there are the Raiders...

Our division has played the shit teams this season (except for KC).

**** that. I want 6 byes. Like the rother****ing Cheatriot ****bags got so many years.

Sean Peyton is a low life piece of shit coach that paid players (bounty gait) to end careers of football players. I would be pissed if he ever coached the Chiefs. He fits the Broncos with their history of cut blocking.

With Andy Reid, he gives us integrity.

Schedules are so similar aside from 2 games, right? Not a lot of difference there.

I think the biggest difference this year is that the AFCW has outstanding coaches.

Reid, Payton, and Harbaugh all have their warts but they're all highly decorated coaches with success all the way up to the Super Bowl level.

I really think we need to appreciate the job Sean Payton is doing with a limited Bo Nix, he's really squeezed everything out of him that he can. Harbaugh is doing the same in LA.

The Chiefs, as always, have the highest upside of the bunch, but they can't simply roll over these teams like they have in the past.

All of this excepts the Raiders, which are just horrendous across the board.

3 games. We have to play the top seeds from the other 2 AFC divisions and an additional game against a team in the NFC which finished with a similar standing in 2023-24, which was the 49ers.

In that additional NFC game the Chargers played the Cardinals and the Broncos played the Seahawks.

You got the Jets and Colts, we got the Bills and Texans. Chargers will face the Dolphins and Jaguars

Yeah it makes a difference

Could you imagine the whining of the NFL if the Chiefs faced the Jets rather than the Bills, and the Colts rather than the Texans? Our only loss on the year right now is to the Bills, and one of their only 2 losses is to the Texans. Yeah, you're right. It makes a difference.

On paper before the season, it looks fairly significant… no so much though as it plays out. Yeah, the Bills are the biggest difference, but that’s expected. It’s not as if Denver and Chargers have been feasting on winless teams and KC has run through this gauntlet of mega teams.

We'll see how good the Broncos and Chargers really are when they aren't playing soft schedules and/or drafting in the top 10 every year.

So, if it doesn't make a difference, then why do it? How about next year we give the Broncos the "most difficult" schedule and the Chiefs the "easiest" schedule? You say it's only "on paper," but if you take a look at the current standings, you'll notice that those 2 AFC games that the Chiefs have scheduled differently than the Broncos were both against teams either in first place in their division or nearly so, but both well above .500. OTOH, the Broncos had those 2 games against a last place team, and another that while in 2nd place in their division is still under .500.

The NFL is an extremely difficult league in which to win. Having 12% of your games against competition that is clearly much better than average, versus 12% of your schedule against competition that is either clearly much worse than average or around average is a decided advantage.

The competition for the #1 seed and the final playoff spots will be fierce. A single game decided by the bounce of a football can put teams either in or out of the playoffs. Playing a more difficult schedule makes a big difference.

Peyton is scum.

That was my first thought, but it's never stopped the rest of the division from being trash before, either... 'serious' might be a stretch, but it's a least gone from a complete dumpster fire to mediocre.

That's exactly what's happened.

SoS is of course similar, but the Chiefs' SoV is .474, 2nd best in the AFC, while the Chargers' is .315 and Broncos .349.

The Broncos have beat one team all season with a winning record (6-5), and the Chargers none.

I’m not suggesting that it doesn’t make a difference… it’s just not as vast as some think. Through week 11, with Denver having played one more game… the total opposition wins for KC is 54 and Denver is 58.

The difference in teams played between the two so far.. CIN, 49ers, Bills for KC and SEA, PIT, Jets, Panthers for Denver.

KC - teams faced are a combined 54-52
DEN - teams faces are a combined 58-56

Take out the common teams faced
KC - 24-19
Den - 28-23

Again, what teams look like on paper in the preseason and 11 weeks later are not the same.

Uh no, that's a big ****ing difference. LMAO

The Bills and Bengals are huge rivals and play the Chiefs almost as often as divisional teams (Mahomes has played the Bills more since 2020 than the Chargers)... 49ers were pretty meh this time around, but still better than the Steelers. The Jets and Panthers are practically bye weeks in comparison. LMAO

Yeah, I said "SoS is of course similar".

Is this taking out KC? They strengthen the Broncos SoS quite a bit.

Rivalries are about emotion and do not reflect record. The Bengals have a bad record, same as SF… KC faced them without CMAC. Bills are legit.

Good catch… both teams still account for SOS. Take out KC and Den respectively…

KC is 18-14
Denver is 19-22

Glad we're on the same page... the Chiefs' schedule and wins have been far better for all these reasons and their SoV versus the other two teams clearly proves it.

The y have to play the Chiefs though

The coaching is definitely an improvement for both organizations.
Harbaugh will lose the team and be out in 4 years. Payton could last a bit longer, but neither will have the long term stability the Chiefs have been fortunate with under Reid.

It’s still not as great a difference as some think. KC has a couple of better wins, for sure and that should be expected. KC lost to their toughest opponent and Denver lost to their 3 toughest. Each team has played 6 teams over .500

And who were the Chiefs without when they faced SF? You always do this kind of stuff.

Chargers 7 wins... Raiders, Denver, Saints, Carolina, Tennessee, Cleveland, and Cincy. Only one of those teams is currently over .500.

Denver's 6 wins... Tampa, Jets, Raiders, Saints, Carolina, and Atlanta. Only one of those teams is currently over .500.

Ravens? Remember them? How did that go for Denver? And I think you are off on victories against teams above .500. But u may be using a different criteria. Im counting teams as their records stand now, and I see that Denver has only beaten 1 team currently over .500. What am I missing? :shrug:

I’m not dismissing that Denver has lost all but 1 game against the winning teams they’ve played. They were terrible at Baltimore.

And yes, KC was without a couple of guys at SF, but they won.

Don’t misinterpret my comments as me suggesting that Denver is equal to KC. They almost won that game, but didn’t. Even if they had won, still not on par with KC. My comments have been focused on the SOS not being vastly different after 11 weeks.

Well, let's take a more practical look at the differences between the Chiefs and Broncos schedules. First of all, the Broncos schedule is a bit more difficult in the fact that you all play the Chiefs twice while the Chiefs play the Broncos twice. That makes your schedule more difficult, but it's not exactly honest to factor that into calculations about the difficulty of schedule.

So, let's dispense with that nonsense and let's also dispense with the nonsense of looking at just games played to date. Let's look at the entirety of the 2024 schedule. Let's also eliminate all common opponents because those will all work out as equivalent.

When we eliminate all common opponents and our head-to-head matchups, we're left with just 3 games each in which we face opponents that the other does not. For 2024 those opponents are San Francisco, Buffalo, and Houston for the Chiefs, and Seattle, NYJ, and Indianapolis for the Broncos. The difference in win totals for those teams is:

Chiefs opponents: 20 wins

Broncos opponents: 13 wins

That is an honest comparison.

I guess that’s one way to slice the narrative. The biggest difference really is Bills and the Jets.

They have 6 common opponents so far, KC is 6-0 and Denver is 4-2

There should be a banhammer for any Chiefs fan on this forum that gives praise to the Donkeys. One month first offense, lifetime on the second.

This is one thing I tend to forget, the NFL does try to prevent years long dynasties. What they want is teams rotating in and out of being contenders. You do well, you have to play a tougher schedule and you have less chances to draft good players, which should over time bring you down. Like, they in a way punish success, which makes sense, they want people who follow a team like Denver or Steelers to have a reason to watch every week and remain invested.

The AFCW is the only division with 3 500+ teams. The AFCN has the Steelers and Ravens, the AFCE is just the Bills and the AFCS is just the Texans.

AFCW is officially the toughest division in the AFC. Crazy.

I always like how bounty gate is brought up and it completely covers over the fact that Sean Peyton was stealing using and selling pain pills.

Yes, over the entire season.

Look at the games so far. Hardly the same.

Broncos remind me so much of the 2014 Chiefs.

Middle of the road QB, excellent defense, good OL, not beating good teams.

I care a lot more about bounty gate because it actually potentially imapcts my team. That other crap is his problem so I don't give a shit.

And it's only going to get tougher. DEN is still dragging Wilson's cap hit this season, so they weren't able to be as active in FA or even retain players the way they probably wanted to this season, but that basically goes away in 2025. So they'll be able to reload some talent this coming off-season. All the more reason to seriously consider re-signing DHop, btw, as I really don't want to see him playing for DEN next year. Yuck.

And Harbaugh has already proven to be a better coach than any of his Chargers predecessors. Yeah, the 2nd half of last night's game wasn't pretty, but they did finally execute on their final drive and put CIN away. Staley would've shit the bed there. And right now LAC doesn't have top-tier weapons except at RB. They're only going to get better.

Seconded

I don't mind the Chargers being good. But I would prefer the Cheating Donks to stay bad forever. They deserve nothing but misery for all of their cheating.

My sentiments exactly.

I never had any problem with the Raiders being good when Rich Gannon was brought in as the Raiders starting QB.

Obviously, that sentiment regarding Gannon and Raiders was shared by Chiefs fans at that time by virtue of the fact when Gannon & the Raiders came to Arrowhead, the Chiefs fans would give Gannon applause when Gannon was introduced as the Raiders starting QB.

I'm quoting myself here because I wanted to make an addendum to my argument.

It is not enough just to compare the number of wins of Chiefs' 2024 opponents to Broncos' 2024 opponents because that comparison lacks any consideration of the schedules played by those opponents. Our respective opponents also play schedules that are harder and easier themselves. So, we should also recognize that not only do the Chiefs play opponents with more wins than the Broncos opponents, but the Chiefs opponents have more wins against more difficult schedules than those Broncos opponents. This could actually be taken even further, but the point is made. The Broncos may only play a couple of different opponents, but their schedule is really much easier.

Whatever makes you feel better.

Nearly half of the AFC has 4 or fewer wins thru 11 weeks...Chargers only victory over a winning team was the Donks. Donks only victory over a winning team was the Falcons....who were missing half their defense.

Donks winning streak came against teams that were 1-19 during that stretch.

Hard to tell how much either one has improved....

This is a pretty poor response from you MHM. I respect you as one of the best Bronco fans that posts on this board. When I present facts, I expect a poster of your caliber to respond with facts and reason. Your above response is neither of those things.

Either I am correct with my argument that the Chiefs face a more difficult schedule, or I am not. If you have more evidence to present that I am wrong, then please submit that evidence. If my rationale is faulty, then please present your rebuttal.