2026 NFL Preview: AFC West
Last year this division turned itself completely inside out. The Chiefs missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014. The Broncos won 14 games, took the No. 1 seed and got within a field goal of the Super Bowl. The Chargers won 11 games again and scored three points in a playoff game. The Raiders lost so bad they earned the No. 1 pick on a four-way tiebreaker.
And here I am putting it right back the way it was. Going 1 through 4.
1 – Kansas City Chiefs
2025: 6-11 (3rd in AFC West)
I'm ranking a 6-11 team first. Before you throw your phone, take a look at how they got to 6-11.
Kansas City went 1-9 in one-score games last season. In Week 6 I wrote that winning one-score games used to be the Chiefs' specialty and now they'd lost all three. Last season, It got so much worse. That is not a talent issue, that is a coin-flip number, and coin flips don’t repeat. Then Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL and LCL in Week 15 against the Chargers, in the exact game that eliminated them, on a drive where he was trying to tie it. Gardner Minshew, first of his name, came in having thrown zero passes all year and immediately threw a game-ending pick. That's the season in one sentence.
And it wasn't just him. Trent McDuffie went on IR with a hyperextended knee, tackles Josh Simmons and Jawaan Taylor were gone from Week 14 on, and Kansas City closed the year on a six-game losing streak that lines up almost exactly with the injury report. Mahomes still put up 3,587 yards, 22 touchdowns and a career-high 422 rushing yards before his knee out.
He's back. He's been rehabbing in Kansas City with trips to Dallas for checkups, he said in the spring he's in a good spot, and he's tracking to play Week 1 roughly eight months after tearing two ligaments in his knee. Justin Fields is here from the Jets as insurance, which is a genuinely smart signing for a team that watched Minshew throw a season away.
Now for the part I actually care about. Eric Bieniemy is back as offensive coordinator. In his five years running it from 2018-22, the Chiefs never finished worse than sixth in the league in points OR yards, led the league in scoring twice and in yardage three times. In the three years since he left, they've averaged 17th in scoring and 15th in yards. I'm not saying he's the whole answer. I'm saying that's not a coincidence.
Back in Week 2 I said this team needed to go get a receiver. Tyreek Hill?. Instead they went and got a running back, and honestly? Better call. Kenneth Walker III signed the largest free-agent deal a running back has ever gotten — three years, $43 million with $28.7 million guaranteed — after running for 135 yards and winning Super Bowl MVP. Kansas City ranked 25th in rushing at 106.6 a game. Kelce is back. Rashee Rice is back. Xavier Worthy is back.
The corner room got blown up again, because it always does. Trent McDuffie got traded to the Rams and Jaylen Watson followed him there in free agency. In come No. 6 overall pick Mansoor Delane, L'Jarius Sneed on a reunion deal and Kader Kohou. Steve Spagnuolo has posted three straight top-six scoring defenses. He’s pretty good as his job.
Win total 10.5 and the best division odds on the board at +160. They open Week 1 at home against Denver on Monday night. Perfect.
2 – Los Angeles Chargers
2025: 11-6 (2nd in AFC West)
As Tradon once famously said, "The Chargers are the team to beat in the AFC West." Tradon, buddy, I need you to look at me. They have now won 11 games in back-to-back seasons — the first time they've done that since the LaDainian Tomlinson era — but scored a combined 15 points in their last two wild card losses. Fifteen. Across two playoff games. Last January it was 16-3 to New England, and Justin Herbert is now 0-3 in the postseason.
So Jim Harbaugh did something I didn’t see coming. He fired Greg Roman, his longtime guy, and hired Mike McDaniel to run the offense. In Week 7 last year I wrote "Come on Jim, run the damn ball." He responded by hiring the single least run-the-damn-ball coach available. I love it. I'm not even mad.
Let’s look at what happened to this offense last season. Rashawn Slater tore his patellar tendon in training camp and played zero snaps. Joe Alt made it six games before ankle surgery ended his year. Herbert was sacked a career-high 54 times, led the NFL with 268 pressures faced and got pressured on 43.3% of his dropbacks, and still threw for 3,727 yards and 26 touchdowns and ran for 498. That's not a quarterback problem. That's a guy getting hit by a truck twice a game.
Slater and Alt are both back and practicing. They added Tyler Biadasz at center, Cole Strange, and second-rounder Jake Slaughter. Left guard is the last open spot, with Kayode Awosika leading and Harbaugh saying he wants a starter named inside of ten practices.
McDaniel has changed Herbert's footwork and even his shotgun stance in year seven, which is a wild thing to ask of a quarterback that established, but Herbert has apparently just gone along with it. McDaniel said he's progressing "much faster than I was planning for" and shrugged off an interception as a great rep. Around him: Ladd McConkey, Quentin Johnston, Omarion Hampton, and a tight end room of Oronde Gadsden II, David Njoku and Charlie Kolar. In Week 6 last year I said this team had the worst running back injury curse in the NFL — Najee Harris tore an Achilles in Week 3 after never missing a game in his career, and Hampton landed on IR right as he was breaking out. Hampton is healthy now and McDaniel has been raving about him, calling him completely obsessed and singling out how fast he starts a play. Fantasy alert.
The one big problem is Tuli Tuipulotu, who was sixth in the NFL with 13 sacks and has been limited for six straight practices with his contract unresolved. Khalil Mack is still here, first-rounder Akheem Mesidor led the ACC with 12.5 sacks, so that group is fine if Tuli plays.
Win total 10.5, same as the Chiefs. If McDaniel is real, this is the best offense in the division. I just need to see one playoff game where they score more than a field goal.
3 – Denver Broncos
2025: 14-3 (1st in AFC West, lost AFC Championship)
Third place for a 14-win team feels rude and I want to explain myself.
Denver went 14-3, tied a franchise record set in 1998, and won their first division title and No. 1 seed since the 2015 Super Bowl team. They beat Buffalo 33-30 in overtime in the divisional round. Then they lost the AFC Championship at home to New England, 10-7. Seven points. In a home conference title game.
That score is the entire scouting report. The Broncos finished third in the NFL in points allowed at 18.3 a game and 14th in scoring at 23.6. Bolles, Quinn Meinerz, Zach Allen and Devon Key all made first-team All-Pro, with Surtain and Hufanga on the second team. That defense is legitimately elite. The offense was fine, and fine got them beaten 10-7 in January.
Sean Payton clearly agreed, because he fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi two days after that game and promoted 31-year-old quarterbacks coach Davis Webb, then handed him play-calling duties a month later. Webb has been under Payton since 2023 so the system won't be foreign, but Nix has a new voice in his helmet.
Speaking of Nix — I owe him. In Week 2 I said he looked scared and was making haarrrrible decisions. By Week 6 I was writing that he was asking "what's a sophomore slump?" In Week 7 I dropped them four spots after a WIN because beating the Jets 13-11 was the worst football game I'd watched in a decade. Then they won 14 games and I looked like an idiot, which is becoming a theme in these previews. He broke his right ankle in the closing minutes of that Buffalo win, needed a second surgery in April to clean out bone spurs, and was a full participant on Day 1 of camp, looking full speed and hitting red zone throws to close the day. That's the best news in Denver.
They gave up their 2026 first-round pick and more for Jaylen Waddle and absorbed his three-year, $84.7 million deal, pairing him with Courtland Sutton. Payton said Waddle can walk on water, which…. sure. The real question is who's third — Marvin Mims Jr., Troy Franklin and Pat Bryant have all had good camps, and Franklin was my fantasy sleeper call in Week 3 so I have a rooting interest. Otherwise they ran it back — re-signed Alex Singleton and J.K. Dobbins, lost John Franklin-Myers, released Dre Greenlaw (hi, San Francisco) and didn't make a draft pick until the third round.
Camp has been a little iffy. Three straight days of a starter leaving early: center Luke Wattenberg, then Nik Bonitto, then Waddle walking off with muscle tightness on August 5. Payton says everyone's fine. Nix also got taken down below the knees in a live drill by Malcolm Roach, which… no. Please stop.
Win total is 9.5, lowest of the three real teams here. The reason I have them third: at Chiefs, Jaguars, Rams, at 49ers, at Chargers, Seahawks. That's the first month and a half. Good luck.
4 – Las Vegas Raiders
2025: 3-14 (4th in AFC West)
Four teams finished 3-14 last season and the Raiders were declared the worst of them on a tiebreaker, which earned them the No. 1 overall pick for the first time since 2007. Some of my favorite losses from last year: 40-6 to the Colts, 31-0 to the Eagles, 20-9 to a Chargers team whose leading rusher was Justin Herbert with 31 yards. Pete Carroll got one season and that was that.
The new head coach is Klint Kubiak, who was coordinating Seattle's offense roughly four months ago when they won the Super Bowl. Getting the OC off a championship staff is a real hire, not a consolation prize, and it's a very different vibe than handing the thing to a 74-year-old for a year and just hoping. Early camp reports say Cousins and Brock Bowers already have real chemistry and Mendoza has made a couple of beautiful throws, which is about all you can ask for in July.
The quarterback is the story and it's being handled well. Fernando Mendoza went No. 1 overall after going 16-0, winning the Heisman and leading Indiana to a national title. Kubiak named Kirk Cousins the starter for the opening of camp and said plainly that Cousins is the guy because he's earned it, but that he wants Mendoza and Aidan O'Connell pushing him. Mendoza has already moved from third-team in the spring to second-team reps. Signing Cousins means Mendoza's debut happens by choice instead of by emergency, which is how you're supposed to do it but almost nobody does.
Then there's Maxx Crosby, who lived through the strangest offseason in football. Las Vegas agreed to send him to Baltimore for two first-round picks. Four days later the Ravens backed out. In those four days the Raiders had already spent an enormous amount of money rebuilding the defense for life after Crosby — and then Crosby just... stayed. He had left knee surgery in January, missed OTAs and minicamp, and showed up to camp full speed. Kubiak said flatly, "He's ready to practice."
The defense around him is unrecognizable: Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker at linebacker, Taron Johnson at corner, Kwity Paye opposite Crosby, and rookie corner Jermod McCoy. Las Vegas spent $281.5 million on the first day of free agency alone. They also signed Tyler Linderbaum to anchor a line that now runs Kolton Miller, Spencer Burford, Linderbaum, Jackson Powers-Johnson and DJ Glaze.
The offense has Ashton Jeanty and Brock Bowers, which is a genuinely fun place to start, and then a receiver room that is a giant question mark. Tre Tucker was the most trustworthy guy last year but doesn't profile as a WR1. Jack Bech and Dont'e Thornton Jr. are trying to bounce back from rough rookie seasons. Jalen Nailor arrives from Minnesota with 858 yards and 10 touchdowns over two years.
Win total 5.5, +2000 to win the division, seventh-hardest schedule. They open against Miami. This is a rebuild that's actually being run correctly, which for this franchise is the headline all by itself.