When the NFL schedule is released, the vast majority of fans do the same thing. It's virtually a contractual obligation for fans to go through their favorite team's season game by game and pick winners. It's just part of the job. I would argue that these projections are usually a tad optimistic, but part of the fun of getting excited for the season is imagining the feeling of beating your archrivals or pulling out an upset on the road. I get it.
My guess is that if we could somehow get every projection from every single person who went down the schedules of the four teams in the AFC West, not a single one of them would be perfect through three weeks. I'm not knocking the fans, either; ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) didn't expect this, and if there's any professional who expected the Chiefs to be in last place in the AFC West after three games, I'd tip my cap. Nobody saw this coming, myself included.
Let's take a look at what has become a wide-open race in the AFC West. After winning the division five straight times, the Chiefs were heavy favorites to claim No. 6. Now they're in a pack of three teams trailing the new favorites. FPI thinks one of the four teams in the AFC West is way ahead of the competition, but it might not be the one you expect:
Jump to a team:
Broncos | Chargers
Chiefs | Raiders
1. Denver Broncos (3-0)
Preseason FPI projection to win AFC West: 12.9%
Post-Week 3 FPI projection to win AFC West: 39.7%
Difference: Plus-26.8%
The Broncos have dominated their competition through three weeks, outscoring teams 76-26. Those 26 points even understate how effective Vic Fangio's unit has been, as they include a kickoff return for a touchdown and a Daniel Jones rushing touchdown on the final snap of a blowout Denver victory over the Giants. The Broncos rank third in defensive win probability added and defensive expected points added per 100 snaps, and they've done it with just 19 snaps from star edge rusher Bradley Chubb.
OK. I know what you're saying, and I'd be remiss in going any further without addressing it. The Broncos are 3-0, and those wins are banked, but they've gone up against some truly foul competition. Their three wins have come against the Giants, Jaguars and Jets, who are a combined 0-9. Only one of those teams has even come close to winning a game. Even if we exclude the Denver games, those teams have been outscored 159-103 in their other six contests so far this season. Have the Broncos just benefited from playing a preposterously easy schedule?
Their schedule has been easy, but they haven't been benefiting from anything historically easy, at least through six games. If we take that 159-103 point differential in games not involving the Broncos and plug it into our Pythagorean expectation formula, they have gone up against teams whose expected winning percentage -- in games not involving the Broncos -- is .263. That's the equivalent of playing a 4-12 team in the 16-game season universe.
That's an easy schedule, but it's hardly unprecedented. Last season, the Steelers started 3-0 against a schedule with a Pythagorean winning percentage (in games not involving the Steelers) of 0.162 through three weeks. In 2019, the Bills, Cowboys, and Patriots all started 3-0 against lesser schedules. The 1996 Broncos started 3-0 against teams that were blown out 176-67 without even including their losses to Denver, good for an expected win percentage of 0.092.
Of course, as the schedule gets tougher, those teams don't win as often. It's rare, though, to see a team that has feasted against terrible competition totally collapse as the degree of difficulty increases. From 1991 through 2020, there were 23 teams before this season's Broncos to start 3-0 against a schedule of teams whose expected winning percentages (in games not involving their 3-0 opponents) were .333 or less. Those 3-0 teams won an average of 7.3 of their remaining 13 games the rest of the way. Just one of those teams -- the 2001 Chargers -- failed to hit .500.
What this means is that even as the Broncos face stiffer competition, they should still be a competitive team. If they go 7-7 the rest of the way, that would get them to 10-7 and likely net Teddy Bridgewater & Co. their first playoff berth since the franchise won the Super Bowl in 2015. FPI is just a tad more optimistic, projecting Denver to finish with 10.8 wins, the fourth-highest mark of anybody in football.
The biggest factor driving this team's success is the same one that led Denver to appear in our column of the teams most likely to improve: turnover margin. In 2020, the Broncos posted a league-worst turnover ratio of minus-16. Drew Lock threw interceptions on 3.4% of his passes, while Fangio's defense mustered only 16 takeaways. We know teams with terrible turnover margins typically improve the following season.
Through three games, the Broncos have a turnover margin of plus-3. Bridgewater, who won the offseason competition with Lock, hasn't thrown an interception. The offense's two lost fumbles have been damaging, since they've both come inside of the opposing team's 5-yard line, but the Broncos aren't likely to continue losing the ball in the shadows of the end zone each week. Bridgewater is going to eventually throw interceptions, but the Broncos probably aren't going to turn the ball over 32 times again in 2021.
Bridgewater's brilliant start is worth noting. The journeyman starter was a salary dump by the Panthers this offseason, but he has been picking apart opposing defenses. He has completed a Drew Brees-esque 76.8% of his passes through three weeks. Some of that owes to degree of difficulty, but his expected completion percentage per NFL Next Gen Stats is 65.7%; his resulting completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) of 11.1% is the best in the NFL so far this season.
The defense, meanwhile, already has five takeaways. It took Denver until Week 6 to get to five turnovers a year ago. I'm not sure the unit will be quite as good as it seems, given that it has managed to play two rookie quarterbacks and Jones. The Broncos have benefited from those passers posting the league's highest off-target pass percentage at 27%, a number that is independent of pressure rate. Despite the presence of Von Miller, Denver ranks only 22nd in pressure rate through three games. Opposing receivers have made the Broncos' lives easier by posting the league's fourth-highest drop rate.
My other concern with the Broncos would be health, which was a problem a year ago. Chubb is on injured reserve with an ankle issue. Expected starting right tackle Ja'wuan James tore his Achilles over the summer before being released. Free-agent addition Ronald Darby is already on injured reserve with a hamstring issue. The Broncos' vaunted depth at wide receiver is already a thing of the past, as Jerry Jeudy is out indefinitely with a high ankle sprain, while KJ Hamler tore his ACL on Sunday. Injuries have generally hit the deeper points of this roster, but the Broncos are already banged up after three games.
The schedule gets tougher from here, with the Broncos facing the league's 15th-toughest slate from here on out. They get games against the Steelers, Ravens and Browns and a matchup with the 3-0 Raiders before three consecutive games against the NFC East and their bye. I don't think they are going to look quite as good as they have during their 3-0 start, but they've already done enough to make themselves viable contenders for a division title.
2. Kansas City Chiefs (1-2)
Preseason FPI projection to win AFC West: 71.4%
Post-Week 3 FPI projection to win AFC West: 22.0%
Difference: Minus-49.4%
Wow. The Chiefs were the most likely team in the NFL to win their division heading into the regular season, and I suspect most people would have suggested that FPI was being too conservative with that 71.4% preseason expectation. Now, after two losses in three weeks, FPI thinks the Chiefs have only a 63.1% chance of making it to the playoffs altogether. Their chances of winning the Super Bowl have dropped from a league-best 18.5% to 5.7%. The algorithm still seems to know that they have a truly spectacular ceiling, but their ability to reach that ceiling seems to be in question.
Leave the record aside for a second. Look at the Chiefs on a snap-by-snap and drive-by-drive basis over the first three weeks and you see a team that could have any record through three games. They beat the Browns in Week 1 in a game in which their win expectancy fell to 13.6% in the fourth quarter; it took a fumble and a dropped punt to get them back in the contest. On the flip side, they were favorites to win for virtually all of the Week 2 game against the Ravens before a fumble sank their chances. On Sunday against the Chargers, they turned the ball over four times and were still in position to drive for a game-winning score, only for a Patrick Mahomes interception to flip the script.
As we wrote about in suggesting the Chiefs would decline this season, the formula of 2020 wasn't going to be sustainable. They went 8-0 in one-score games, then added a ninth win in the postseason. They've now played three close games to start the 2021 season, going 1-2. "Keep it close and let Mahomes win it late" might have felt like an unbeatable formula, but it's not how the Chiefs won the majority of their games in 2018 or 2019, and it's not how great teams typically win Super Bowls.
Another thing Andy Reid-led teams typically don't do is turn the ball over at the rate Kansas City has over the past two weeks. Mahomes had done that only once, in a stretch that included the 54-51 classic against the Rams, but that two-game run in 2018 came on 137 offensive plays. The Chiefs just turned the ball over six times in two weeks on 125 plays. They were a little unlucky to lose three of the four fumbles that hit the ground on offense against the Ravens and Chargers, but you don't need to get lucky if you don't fumble twice a week.
Against the Rams back in 2018, the Chiefs were nearly able to overcome five turnovers by virtue of being absolutely devastating on offense. They haven't been devastating on offense this season. Tyreek Hill had a huge game in the opener against Cleveland, but Mahomes hasn't been able to hit his shots downfield. The future Hall of Famer is just 3-of-12 on passes 25-plus yards downfield, which is 9.2% below his expected completion percentage and below the league average of 33.5%.
Instead, the Chiefs have generally been getting by through three weeks on offense while looking more like the attack from the Alex Smith days. They rank second in the league in third-down conversion rate (55.2%) and 10th in point per red zone trip (5.8). After leading the NFL with 243 plays for 20 or more yards between 2018 and 2020, Reid's offense is tied for 10th with 12 such plays this season.
As you might suspect, Mahomes has faced a lot of coverages designed to protect against big plays; the Chiefs have faced two-deep looks 58.2% of the time, the third-highest rate in football behind the Jaguars and Falcons. (I suspect those teams are facing two-deep coverages at a higher rate because they've been trailing for most of the first three weeks.) They faced split-safety coverages at the fourth-highest rate in the league across 2019 and 2020, but with two-safety looks growing more popular around the NFL, even that fourth-highest rate meant that they saw split-safety looks 39.6% of the time over the two prior seasons.
The natural response to seeing light boxes and two-deep coverages is to run the ball, but the Chiefs have not been an efficient running team. I wrote a lot last week about Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who unsurprisingly saw plenty of volume against the Chargers in a game in which L.A. coach Brandon Staley dared them to run. Nearly 80% of Edwards-Helaire's runs this season have come against boxes with fewer than seven defenders, more than any other back in the league (with a 20-carry minimum), per NFL Next Gen Stats.
Having rebuilt their offensive line this past season, the Chiefs should be feasting on those light boxes, like Kareem Hunt did in 2018 or how various Saints backs did during Drew Brees' heyday. Instead, Edwards-Helaire is averaging 4.3 yards per rush and 1.4 yards after first contact, with the latter mark ranking 35th among 43 backs. Just three of his 44 attempts have gone for 10 or more yards. The Chiefs aren't running the ball effectively, aren't generating explosive plays at their usual rate and have been sloppy with the football. It's a testament to their superstars that they've managed to score 85 points on offense through three games.
Keep in mind that we haven't even touched the defense, which was expected to be the weakest part of this roster. It has allowed 95 points through three games, the second most of any team. Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo's unit ranks dead last in expected points added and expected points added per snap. In an ideal scenario, the K.C. offense was supposed to be great and the defense was supposed to be solid. Instead, the offense has been very good and the defense has been a disaster.
About the only thing the Chiefs have done well through three weeks is force takeaways. With Frank Clark playing just one game so far, they have been hopeless rushing the passer. Despite blitzing at the fifth-highest rate in football, they rank 27th in pressure rate and tied for 28th in sack rate. When they don't blitz, they are pressuring opposing quarterbacks only 17.9% of the time, which is the second-worst mark in football.
When they do blitz, it hasn't exactly gone well, either. The Chiefs are hitting the opposing quarterback on 6.1% of their blitzes, which is staggering when the league average is 24.4% and no other team is below 12.5%. Opposing quarterbacks are averaging 10.8 yards per attempt when the Chiefs blitz them.
Just about everybody in the secondary besides Tyrann Mathieu has struggled. Slot corner L'Jarius Sneed has allowed nine catches on nine targets for 90 yards as the closest defender in coverage. Daniel Sorensen, the team's third safety, has been the closest player in coverage for nine receptions, 130 yards and two touchdowns, good for a passer rating of 141.0. Coverage breakdowns led to easy touchdowns for Austin Ekeler and Keenan Allen on Sunday, while Mike Williams simply overwhelmed former Vikings first-rounder Mike Hughes for his two scores.
In years past, the Chiefs have been willing to essentially cede their run defense to be better at stopping the pass. They're not doing either well in 2021. They rank last in defensive rush EPA and next-to-last in rush success rate ahead of only the Chargers, whose defensive philosophy is "Let them run!" No team has allowed more first downs on the ground. If you're up by 20 points and letting a team run, it's one thing. The Chiefs are struggling to get the ball back because they can't stop opposing offenses.
They've allowed 12 touchdowns in 13 red zone trips, which is unlikely to keep up, but they can't play this way and expect to be competent on defense. Something has to change. Clark being healthy would help. Right now, the only way they can stop teams is by forcing the occasional turnover or by hoping their opponents don't know how to successfully shift. Most teams don't have the Chargers' problems with lining up correctly before the snap, so Kansas City might be turnover-or-bust until it gets its pass rush going.
In the big picture, could this be an ugly three-week span that we'll all forget about by the time January rolls around? Absolutely. The Patriots had a 1-2 start in 2018 and still managed to win the Super Bowl. The defense can't play much worse than it has, and even given the amount of two-high teams have been playing, I don't think the Chiefs are going to be close to league-average when it comes to explosive plays on offense. It would hardly be a surprise if the offense hit a new level once the offensive line coalesces.
At the same time, we've also seen that the Chiefs aren't the exception to everything we know about football. It looked like Mahomes, Hill and Travis Kelce were enough to get by even without a healthy offensive line until the Super Bowl. They were winning every one of their close games until they didn't. We know they can be great, but they can't be ordinary and expect to get great results.
3. Los Angeles Chargers (2-1)
Preseason FPI projection to win AFC West: 11.6%
Post-Week 3 FPI projection to win AFC West: 20.6%
Difference: Plus-9.0%
While Chargers fans would have hoped for a 3-0 start to begin their season, most have to be happy with how the season has opened. If the Chargers were going to start 2-1, the most important win of the bunch would have been beating the Chiefs and securing a divisional tiebreaker. The only starter lost to injured reserve has been right tackle Bryan Bulaga. Brandon Staley's defense has forced six takeaways in three games. Justin Herbert might be throwing the ball as well as any quarterback at the moment. So much of what there was to like on paper about this team heading into the season is playing out in practice on the field.
Staley's defense is doing exactly what you would have expected. The Chargers are happy to let opposing teams run and are suffocating their big plays in the passing game. Opposing quarterbacks are averaging 6.1 yards per attempt on deep passes against Los Angeles, the second-best mark in the league and an impressive feat considering the competition. Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes were two of the most efficient quarterbacks in football over the past two years, and Ryan Fitzpatrick hit plenty of deep shots over that time frame. The Chargers have allowed nine explosive plays (20-plus yards) in three weeks; I expect that rate will drop as they face less imposing offenses in the weeks to come.
Independent of whatever the Chargers have produced on offense, new coordinator Joe Lombardi & Co. have to be thrilled with how Herbert looks. His velocity and ball placement have been incredible through three games. He's completing 69.8% of his passes, 4.6% above his expected completion percentage, the eighth-best mark in the league. He's seventh in EPA per dropback, and that's with a handful of big plays taken away by penalties. His 10% off-target rate ranks third-best.
Herbert is only 19th by QBR, though, owing in part to three interceptions inside the red zone. One was a spectacular play by Dallas' Trevon Diggs on a pass thrown slightly behind a receiver, but the other two were bad decisions from the second-year quarterback. For a player who has completed 12 deep passes already this season, Herbert is also strangely averaging only 7.6 yards per attempt, which is about league average.
The five-to-15 yard range is where he has struggled so far this season; his 49.0 QBR there ranks 28th in the league, and his CPOE is 5.6% below expectation. The Oregon product was the third-best quarterback in the league in the midrange as a rookie by QBR, so I don't think this is much more than a blip. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't as effective on deep passes as the season goes on but instead trades some of that efficiency for more success in the midrange.
What has surprised me, though, is the long-awaited breakout of 2017 top-10 pick Mike Williams. After struggling with injuries and inconsistency over his first four seasons, Williams has become a steady part of the Chargers' offense. Lombardi has made him the X receiver in his offense, and that's brought him closer to the line of scrimmage for targets. He is being used a totally different way, and the Chargers are getting way more production out of him in the process:
Williams is on pace for 125 catches, 1,672 yards and 23 touchdowns. He's probably not going to get there -- and those numbers aren't as wild as they might seem because they're prorated out to a 17-game schedule -- but he had topped 80 receiving yards in a game in back-to-back weeks just once as a pro. He has done it in three consecutive weeks to start this season. If Williams is something like this guy all season in this role, the Chargers have a legit claim to be included in the discussion of best wideout duos in football.
What hasn't been so much fun, though, has been an almost comical run of penalties wiping away key plays. The Chargers have committed 32 penalties for 243 yards, both of which are league highs. It's one thing to commit a false start here or there, but the penalties the Chargers have dealt with have been hugely damaging to their chances of winning:
A fourth-and-1 pass interference call on Kyzir White gave the Cowboys a new set of downs; Dallas would eventually score a touchdown.
An Oday Aboushi illegal man downfield penalty took away a 31-yard catch by Williams.
A Donald Parham touchdown was wiped off the board by a Jared Cook holding penalty; the drive would later end with a Herbert interception.
A Cook touchdown later in the Cowboys game would be erased by an illegal shift on a drive that ended in a field goal.
Last week, the Chargers had a fourth-and-4 conversion for 30 yards and a touchdown both wiped off the board by two more illegal shift calls; those drives ended with a total of three points.
My hope and expectation is that the Chargers will learn how to set themselves before the snap before it costs them more touchdowns. As it is, sloppy penalties nearly kept them from beating the Chiefs and likely cost them the game against the Cowboys in Week 2. I understand the wide and appropriately held belief that the Chargers cannot get out of their own way when it comes to winning games, but I think even they would be hard pressed to find new ways to be snakebit as the season goes along.
And yet, it still seems difficult to avoid worrying about this team. Second-year kicker Tristan Vizcaino has already missed two extra points. Star edge rusher Joey Bosa barely practiced before the Chiefs game with an ankle injury. Derwin James injured his shoulder during the win and missed seven snaps, although he did eventually return. Storm Norton filled in for Bulaga at tackle and looked like he wanted nothing more than for Micah Parsons to win Defensive Rookie of the Year. It's always easy to look at the Chargers and expect them to sabotage themselves. The scary thing for their opponents, as we saw against the Chiefs, is that they might be good enough by now to make sloppy mistakes and still win anyway.
4. Las Vegas Raiders (3-0)
Preseason FPI projection to win AFC West: 4.1%
Post-Week 3 FPI projection to win AFC West: 17.7%
Difference: Plus-13.6%
Raiders fans, I can hear you from Las Vegas. I'm sorry. I understand that you're frustrated that a 3-0 team is still projected with the lowest odds to win its division. You can make a reasonable case that the Raiders have beaten tougher competition than the Broncos, the team FPI thinks has a much better chance of winning the West. I'm not the one in charge of the FPI algorithm, but I don't think there's anything in there about being deliberately biased against your team.
Why isn't FPI as optimistic about the Raiders as it is about the Broncos? Well, to start, the Raiders haven't been winning as emphatically as the Broncos have. Two of Vegas' three wins have required overtime. In the other victory, the Steelers got within two points of the Raiders before a bomb to Henry Ruggs III reestablished a two-score lead. On a play-by-play basis, FPI thinks the Raiders have been the 18th-best team in the league through three weeks. The Raiders were 19th in DVOA through Week 2, and given that they went to overtime with the 27th-ranked Dolphins in a close game, I suspect they won't budge much from that spot when the Week 3 rankings are released. Advanced metrics generally peg the Raiders as an average team.
How does an "average" team start 3-0? You catch a few breaks. The Raiders have recovered all five of their fumbles on offense. They've been particularly successful on third down; Jon Gruden's offense ranks 19th in expected points added per play on first down and 15th on second down, but it is the third-best offense in the league by that metric on third down. Offenses that are that dependent on third down tend to regress toward their performance on first and second down as the season goes on; as an example, the Raiders were also much better on third down in the first half of the 2020 season and then regressed toward the mean over the remaining half of the year.
Even with those caveats, though, give credit where credit is due: Derek Carr is playing excellent football through three weeks. He was a low-risk, low-reward quarterback earlier in his career, but it might be time to throw that prior out the window. Carr averaged 6.5 yards per attempt over his first four seasons before Gruden arrived. He then averaged 7.7 yards per attempt over the ensuing three seasons. Through the first three weeks of 2021, he is all the way up to 8.8 yards per attempt.
No quarterback has thrown downfield more frequently than Carr, whose 36 deep pass attempts are seven more than anybody else in football. He's completing 50% of those passes, which is above the league average of 44% and good for a 6.2% CPOE. The Raiders lead the league in plays gaining 10 or more yards (59) and 20 or more yards (23). It's true that the two overtimes they've played mean that they've run more offensive plays than anyone else through three weeks, but given how they've played on offense, it's like the Raiders and Chiefs have switched uniforms.
I wouldn't say that Las Vegas is great on defense, but it has at least taken much-needed strides forward under new coordinator Gus Bradley. It beat itself too frequently over the past few years on defense; this season, outside of a Week 1 Ty'Son Williams touchdown where nobody filled the gap Williams was running through, the Raiders have done a better job of being fundamentally sound.
Bradley has had a consistent plan of relying on Maxx Crosby and the rest of the Raiders' front four to get pressure while playing coverage. They have blitzed just 8.0% of the time, the lowest mark in all of football and way below the league average of 25.3%. When they do blitz, it has worked; they've created pressure on 54.5% of those plays, the fourth-best mark in the league. And when they don't blitz, they've created pressure at a league-average rate. Crosby, who had 14 quarterback hits as a rookie and 13 in his second season, has 12 knockdowns in three games. He's turning into a superstar. The Raiders don't have a great secondary; playing coverage gives them the help they need to avoid giving up big plays.
So far, that's the formula for the Raiders. They've created a ton of explosive plays on offense and haven't done so on defense. They rank 11th in terms of plays with 10-plus yards allowed. They're right around league average in allowing plays of 20-plus yards. This offense has been underrated for years, and the hope has always been that Gruden would eventually land on a competent defense to hold up the other half of the bargain. It feels like they're getting closer to that possibility than ever before in 2021.
If the Raiders want respect, they can get some over the next few weeks. They get two winnable games against NFC competition (the Bears and Eagles) and two road games against AFC West competition in the Broncos and Chargers. After the bye, they get what should be a road layup against the Giants before a crucial home game against the Chiefs. We know they can beat the Chiefs, given that they did so a year ago. If they get there at 6-2 or 7-1, Gruden's charges might even be favored to beat their divisional rivals. Who could have seen that one coming?