Football Function
Off-Season Outlook: AFC West
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Right just cases are taken on a percentage fee basis. Need help? Visit Dan Capitalist law.com. That's Dan C A P L I S law dot com. What's going on everybody? Guys and girls, welcome back to another edition of the football function podcast available on all your podcasting platforms, including on Patreon. If you prefer an ad free listening experience, as always, I am one of the hosts of the show, Michael Ritter, you can find me on X at Michael five Ritter on Instagram and Michael Ritter five. And then obviously the host of the SmackDown review over on the WWE podcast. In this episode, we are going to be going over the AFC West continuing the off season outlook, turning our attention to the defending Super Bowl champion, Kansas City Chiefs, and all the other teams that are in the AFC West, such as you know, the Chargers, Broncos and Raiders. Very interesting division for sure. A couple of these two teams are in cap Hell. Obviously, one of them is the Super Bowl champion, but three teams missed the playoffs in this division. So a lot of ground to make up, not just obviously trying to catch Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reed and that solid team, but all of the other teams in the AFC, because most likely you're not going to win your division and punch your ticket to the postseason that way, you're going to have to earn one of those wildcard spots, which is the fifth, sixth and seventh seed. So how are you going to do that? How are you going to improve your roster in order to get over the hump and close that gap a little bit? We're going to go over all those teams and talk about ways that they can do just that. But before we do that, got a little bit of sad news to talk about Chris Mortensen, reporter from ESPN, who's had a cancer battle for a pretty long time, he lost that battle. And he passed away today, March 3rd, 2000 and 24. So obviously, pretty sad for the football world. Chris has been around for a pretty long time. I remember whenever Adam Schefter left NFL Network in the mid 2000s at some point, and he went to ESPN and teamed up with Mortensen, they were pretty much running the insider game. It was Morton or Adam and Mort, Morton Adam, however, you referred to it. But unfortunately, Chris Morton's and got cancer and he lost that battle. So I did want to give him a quick shout out here on the show, just my era of watching football and sports television. Mort's pretty much always been around. So that's definitely a sad announcement that was made today. But thoughts and prayers go out to his family and obviously the entire ESPN company, because I'm sure he meant a pretty big deal to a lot of people who were still employed there. Also, another thing that's happening, not nearly as serious, but still somewhat sad for other reasons, Sting, the professional wrestler, is having his last match any minute now, pretty much I'm just waiting for my buddy DJ Kuzmo to let us know when that match is taking place on the AEW Revolution pay-per-view. Because Sting is having his retirement match. And you know, it's pretty obvious if you listen to the WWE podcast or if you just know me personally, I was a WCW fan in the late 90s, Sting and Goldberg and you know, the NWO, they were my first love in the professional wrestling world. And you know, Sting was the very first wrestler that I was able to touch at the Civic Center here in Amarillo, Texas, back in like 1998, 1999, one of the two. I'm not really sure exactly when, but it was my first wrestling show to ever attend. And I was able to give Sting a high five, which was pretty much the highlight of my life for the longest time. And I'm extremely thankful for that because I'm never going to get an opportunity to watch him wrestle again. And he's definitely a bucket list type of, you know, wrestler to see, I've been knocking things off the bucket list. For the past several months now, going to a kiss concert in October, going to my first Celtics game, going to the mountains for the very first time, I had never really done that before. So I'm kind of in the, in that phase where it's like, Hey, let's knock some things off the bucket list. Life is short, obviously, like, we just talked about a little bit earlier on the show. So if you're kind of in that in that situation where you're like, Should I take this trip? Should I buy the tickets to this event? I'm always going to say yes, because money and that type of thing is always replaceable opportunities to make memories. That's not replaceable. So I always gives a thumbs up whenever you do that. And that's exactly why I'm taking my dad to a Las Vegas Raiders, versus Falcons game this year, because it's, he's never been to a Raiders game. And I want to take him to Vegas, to the Raiders home environment, and kind of just, you know, two birds, one stone, go to a Falcons game as well. I've, you know, planned on going to another road game for the past couple of years, just haven't hasn't really worked out since I went to that Cowboys beat down. So I wouldn't mind getting a chance to knock out the the Raiders on the, on the old bucket list as well. I mean, it's not something that's very high on the bucket list, but a Legion stadium, I could pretty confidently say that that's on my bucket list of NFL stadiums to go to and obviously Vegas, I've been to the Vegas airport just to change planes. But outside of that, I haven't gotten a chance to actually explore the city and I'm really not going to this time, but I can still do a hell of a lot more than what I did last time when I went to the airport. I'll actually get a chance to go to Vegas and experience at least something. I mean, you guys know, I put, you know, put parlays in every single damn day. So I do have a little bit of gambling in my blood, but I don't want to go overboard and end up coming back broke or something like that. Because, you know, Vegas can really grab you by the balls, if you know what I mean. But anyways, looking forward to that looking forward to this Friday to just about four or five short days from now, I'm going to be in Dallas, Texas watching SmackDown. So another wrestling event to look forward to this is a live televised event. And you know, I mentioned seeing staying in the late 90s. Well, I'm going to get to see the rock this time. And that's another just massive thing to check off the list. Got a chance to see Stone Cold Goldberg, obviously. So, you know, getting a chance to see the rock for the very first time. That's going to be absolutely massive. Not to mention, it's going to be jets first wrestling event to ever go to and he doesn't know that we're going there. So, and, you know, jet, obviously, it's my girlfriend's son. So he has fallen in love with wrestling over the past six, seven months and this is going to be just an absolutely bonkers event. I'm definitely looking forward to it. But another thing I'm looking forward to was talking about this AFC West. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and get into this bad boy. One of the best divisions in football when you look at the rosters, when you look at the players that are on these teams respectively, you could just go down the list and look at where they're strong in one of the best corners in the entire leagues in this division. Patrick Sturtain, another very good corner with Jerry Sneet, who just got franchise tag. That's all part of the Chiefs off season plans. Look at what the Chargers have. They have a franchise quarterback. The Raiders are kind of in that weird transition period where you can just feel that they're going to make some pretty big moves. This division is never quiet. Like, there's never a lack of things to talk about whenever you're mentioning the AFC West, but a little bit underwhelming in that same breath whenever you look at the expectation that was placed on this division whenever Russell Wilson made his way over there. A lot of people expected Justin Herbert to take that next step. The Chargers as a whole kind of like, you know, as an organization kind of regressed and took a massive step back. But I mean, you can't really blame or put too much blame on Justin Herbert because look at what they look like without him. They were an absolute dumpster fire. If you had gotten injured earlier in the season, they probably would have beat out the Panthers for that first overall pick. So as much as you want to crap on Justin Herbert, if you're not a fan of his game, trust me, the Chargers are really, really glad they have him right now, especially considering they have this fit overall pick, going to have an opportunity to either get a critical part protecting Justin Herbert or a weapon for him to throw to either way, you're going to help your franchise quarterback. And that's just, you know, one of the things we're going to talk about here on this episode once we get into the Chargers, but we're going to start off with the Denver Broncos. Because we're just going to go off that quarter. That's how we've done every other division so far. So we're going to continue to do that. The Denver Broncos went eight and nine in 2023, which was good for third place in the AFC West. They put out on the field the 19th ranked offense 27th ranked defense that earned them a trip to the couch for the postseason and also the number 12 overall pick going into free agency. They have a negative 19.2 million dollars. So $19 million over the cap. Not in a great spot, but they've already pretty much made it clear that they're going to make some pretty significant changes into their roster. They're going to have to eat a massive dead cap hit for Russell Wilson, but they only have 13 unrestricted free agents. We're looking at guys like Josie Jewell, Will Lutz, Mike Purcell, Kewan Williams, Cameron Fleming, PJ Locke, Michael Burton, Fabian Moreau, Lloyd Cushinberry, Adam Troutman, Jonathan Harris, Justin or Justin Strinard, I believe is his name. And then Quinn Bailey, you know, a couple critical pieces there. Whenever you look at a couple starters, obviously you've got one starter at the linebacker position. You have another starter on the offensive line. So some tough decisions are going to have to be made some structures might have to be made. You may see a surprise cut just to be a cap casualty happened with this organization. That's another thing that just happens every single year across the league. But I think this is going to be a big year for Sean Payton implementing his identity onto this football team last year. He kind of came into somebody else's team and he was just trying to make the best out of the situation. A lot like what Arthur Smith was doing his first year in Atlanta 2021 season, having to use Matt Ryan and I guess have a shell of Calvin Ridley or rookie Kyle Pitts. Like it just it wasn't his version of the offense. I mean, the next two years weren't any better or anything like that. But Sean Payton's a little bit different. Now looking at some of the positions that they're going to lose starting center Lloyd Cushinberry, starting tight end Adam Troutman and then Michael Burton's a full back full back absolutely replaceable position. But as far as the offensive line, I mean, obviously Garrett Bowles, talented player Ben Powers there at left guard Quinn Miners. He's a pretty talented player and then Mike McLinchy, one of their recent free agent acquisitions. They're in a good spot on the offensive line. Yes, you do need to replace the starting center. You can do that day two of the draft. That's what you want to do. But I do think that speaking of the draft, it's going to be a very critical part of the offseason for the Denver Broncos because they don't have a lot of money to work with and they're not going to go out and go shopping around the league. Like they're going to have enough of a hard time replacing some of their other players because that's just offense. You go to the defensive side of the ball. Like I mentioned Josie Jule, you got Faber and Moreau, who was one of their starting corners on the other side of Pat Sertane. And then they're starting Nickel corner Kwan Williams. So they're pretty much trying to rebuild their entire cornerback group around Pat Sertane, which is a smart decision. He's one of the best defensive players in the league, especially one of the better young ones. So I totally understand their approach there. But I do think that they're going to have to maybe go to players like Garrett Bowles and try to do a little bit of like a restructure there. I'm not sure if they're going to maybe go to Mike Wiglinci, who they just gave a pretty big contract to see if they'll get him to convert some of that salary to, you know, assigning bonus or something like that. Some work definitely has to be done if you're the Denver Broncos. But I think that because of their lack of money, you're absolutely going to have to hit on your draft picks. Quarterback probably is where they're going to go in the first round, because I did mention that they have a top 12 pick. Don't know the next time you're going to have an opportunity to snag one of these quarterbacks. Do we see one that looks like he could fit in Sean Payton scheme? I mean, we've seen Sean Payton make a lot of different quarterbacks work. I mean, look at Taysom Hill, for example, even James Winston had a little bit of success. Hunter Sean Payton and he's just a turnover machine waiting to happen. So I think that if you give him somebody like, I mean, they've been linked to JJ McCarthy, maybe he's pretty much the fourth quarterback. You could see him maybe taking a swing on somebody like Michael Pinnik. There's talented players in the offense. You might have to go get a tied in. They're going to be in the ballpark to get one of those as well. But I mean, you can't just say, we'll handle that position in the draft. We'll handle it. I mean, you do only have a certain amount of picks. So you are going to have to let the board kind of fall, but I think quarterback is just such a wise decision. Russell Wilson is obviously not coming back next year. Seems like that's on the top of the list of things for you to get. And it just makes sense for that twelfth overall pick to be utilized on a new quarterback. But that's the Denver Broncos. Let's move over to another team, a team that has a little bit more things to be excited about. The first ever Buick on-court GX Avenir is now in stock and short-line Buick. It's been said luxury is in the details and Avenir's exclusive embroidered leather seating with a quilted stitching pattern welcomes you to this luxury SUV. Avenir comes loaded with advanced technology, including a rear camera mirror, HD surround vision and wireless charging, staying connected and safe on the road as possible. Now in short-line Buick, experience Buick on-court GX Avenir at 1301 South Havana Street. You do the drive-in, we'll do the rest. It's Buck Sexton along with PlayDrive is talking about Dan Capitalist Law. Buck Dan's the son of a police officer and a guy who finished law school and aimed high to build a world-class firm for the people where everyone regardless of background gets top-notch treatment. Dan Capitalist Law lives that mission, scoring record verdicts for folks from all walks of life and they don't care about your wallet. Righteous cases are taken on a percentage fee basis. Need help? Visit Dan Capitalist Law.com That's Dan C-A-P-L-I-S Law.com Cross over to new possibilities with the first ever Buick and Vista. Now in short-line Buick, refined, versatile, intuitive, tech-friendly, cargo-loving, and best of all, in Vista is fun to drive. The flowing exterior of the in Vista is easy on the eyes and inside you will experience a quiet ride. Thanks to quiet tuning with active noise cancellation, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and wireless charging will keep you connected. Visit Shortline Buick today and experience all Buick has to offer in its new lineup of vehicles. At Shortline, you do the drive-in, we'll do the rest. To say the least, we're going to talk about the Kansas City Chiefs 11 and 6 record first in the division. 15th ranked offense, second ranked defense, and that's the story right there. The Kansas City Chiefs absolutely put together a just phenomenal defensive unit, which was the difference. Whenever you look at how players like Sneed and Chris Jones and Nick Bolton take in the next step, the defense was playing at an elite level for a majority of the season, and especially there in the back end. So yeah, you really have to give them credit for carrying this team through the playoffs, because yes, my home's just doing his thing, but man, when you look at what they did to some of the opposing offenses that they played, you have to tip your hat to obviously the Steve Spagnolo led Kansas City Chiefs defense, and the Chiefs obviously are picking number 32 in the draft. That's what happens whenever you win the Super Bowl, but it's not the first time they've picked 32. In fact, they are picking 32 back-to-back because they are the back-to-back Super Bowl champions, which is not something that you hear every year. In fact, we haven't seen a team do this, since like 2005, which is a holy shit a long time ago. So yeah, the Chiefs are doing things that we really haven't seen done in damn near two plus decades. They have $9.6 million, I mean, they've already franchised tag with Jerry Sneed. So that's one little situation there that we're going to have to not talk about, at least for the foreseeable future, we'll see if they can come to an agreement on like a tag and trade or something like that, or if they're just going to roll with it, try to run it back, land, play on the franchise tag, and go for this 3P. Luckily, the only starter that's an unrestricted free agent for the Kansas City Chiefs is Donovan Smith, given that they already announced that they're going to release Marquise Valdez Scaling. So that's going to clear up. So money, I think his cap hit is $10 million. I'm actually trying to pull up the Kansas City Chiefs right now in real time. So if you'll just bear with me, they do have 25 free agents. Chris Jones is at the tip top of that list. So that's why we're going to talk about how limited they are with spending. But Chris Jones, $19.5 million, was his price tag for the 2023 season. Pretty pricey there. He's 29 years old. He'll be 30 or he'll be 30 once the season starts, I believe. So this is no spring chicken. I mean, you want to get that money, but it's kind of like we talked about, you want to be careful rewarding players for what they've done more so than what they're going to do going forward. Now, this is a hell of a player. Let's not get it twisted. He would be an absolute slam dunk. You know, if you were to get this guy locked up for the back end of his career. But we already mentioned Marquise Valdez Scaling hitting free agency. Me Call Hardman as a free agent as well scored the game when he touched down on the Super Bowl. You know, take that and do with it what you will. Mike Edwards drew Tranquil, Donovan Smith, Clyde Edwards, Aleir, Tommy Townsend, Tertschon Wharton, James Winchester, Willie Gay, who's a starter, Jared McKinnon, Richie James. I mean, there's quite a bit of other players as well. Like I said, they have 25. But when you only have 9.5, 9.6 million dollars, and you have a player like Chris Jones, he's going to be coming up. This is where you're going to see and realize that we have no idea how the salary cap works and how general managers do what they do because they are able to pretty much just be magicians and create space where you would think that they don't have it. Like right? They have 9.6 million dollars. Well, don't be shocked whenever they come to a long-term agreement with Chris Jones because of the way that they structure it and the way that they're kicking money down the line. I mean, there's ways to do certain things. And you know, the salary cap, I'll admit the NBA salary cap is a hell of a lot more confusing than what the NFL is. But the NFL, it's also a tricky thing to work with as well. So, I'm definitely glad that my job doesn't require me to know it backwards in front. You got to be really savvy, really good at math to do things like that. So, credit to anybody who's doing that. But as far as the Kansas City Chiefs go, we've talked about their offense, how it's simply like a left tackle. That's all you got to replace because Donovan Smith's unrestricted free agent, you'd almost just think, man, wouldn't it be nice for Tyrant Smith, who the Cowboys are not going to bring back some of the people I've been talking with, just seem like that's a fit made in heaven, right? Donovan Smith going over to join the Super Bowl champion. Like he wants to ring chase, right? Go play for a contender. I kind of have a feeling like one of those lower teams are going to throw them a little bit more cash. Like I've kind of thrown out the idea of the Washington commanders maybe making an offer. They need offensive lineman help as well. He was just in the same building with Dan Quinn. I know on the different side of the football, but still, I mean, when you were on the same team as somebody for three full seasons, there's a good chance you're going to get to know that person a little bit and the commanders have a hell of a lot of money. So you would think maybe Tyrant Smith would find comfort in staying in the division where he knows all of the edrushers. Like he's already played against all these guys for the entire time he's been in the NFL since he's been with the Cowboys. So I mean, it just seems like it could be something that might happen, but don't roll out a team like the Kansas City Chiefs kind of coming in and doing some magic and fitting Tyrant Smith under their salary cap. But I mean, as far as the Kansas City Chiefs go, their defense, it's a little bit of a different story when you look at who they have to bring back. Now George Karlofft is phenomenal player. They run a base for three defense. So he's there the left defensive end, pretty much set in stone. He's not going anywhere. But Derek Nondy, Mike Dana, Willie Gay, Chris Jones, those are all other players in their front, like their defensive front. And you look at their linebackers and their defensive linemen that are all hitting the open market. So this is a little bit of a, we kind of have to, you know, get something going here. We kind of have to fix this whole one step to do that is tag with Jerry Snead, which is pretty much something that they had no other choice that they were going to have to do. He played himself and do a very good contract. At the very least, he's getting that franchise tag, which is a lot of money. I think it's the top five paid at that position, and you average it out. And that's what the franchise tag is. To guarantee that you're getting a nice pay day, it's just not the security that you want. It's not the longevity and you know, that long term deal that all these NFL players seek. So that's step one, you get that taken care of. Maybe you try to get Chris Jones locked into a long term deal. I think that's step two, and you may have to replace some guys because you're not going to be able to have studs everywhere. That's just part of it. It's part of the business. And just as much as I would love for that to be the case, it's just it's not realistic in today's NFL. So if you can bring back Chris Jones, you bring back Snead for this season, you have a really good chance to run it back. You may have to find somebody to be Nick Bolton's running mate if you're going to let Willie Gago, but that's a bridge you're going to have to cross. You know, you have to make tough decisions whenever you're in this situation. But the Chiefs have always done a phenomenal job at handling those situations. Like let's think about the situations they've been in in the past. How do they lose to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that season? Like what happened right? Wasn't it their offensive line that was just getting wrecked? Patrick Mahomes is running for his life, making diving throws. He was getting praised for just his determination and his will to try to win the game despite them getting blown out. Well, what do they do that offseason, right? They draft Creed Humphrey. They signed Joe Tooney. They hit on like a fourth round pick and trace Smith. They just pretty much rebuild their entire offensive line. Not sure if that's the year they brought in Orlando Brown or not, but nonetheless, you get what I'm trying to say. They rebuilt their offensive line. So they fixed that issue. You know, obviously now they've one of the best offensive lines in the entire NFL. And then their defense was the backbone. Like the defense was the thing that, you know, Joe Burrow was carving up in that second half of the NSC champ or AFC championship game. I apologize and the Chiefs were kind of just kidding. I guess left out to dry whenever Patrick Mahomes would do some badass shit. Get them to lead late in the game. Next thing you know, the defense would let the opposing team drive down the field. It wouldn't happen in the playoffs, obviously, other than, you know, Tom Brady and Joe Burrow, they're the only guys that have beaten Patrick Mahomes, but it was still an issue that the Chiefs had to get fixed. And they did just that. Now they had, like we said, the top two defense in the entire NFL last year. You would expect them to do the same thing. Andy Reed is a problem solver. He's going to fix this part of the defense. He's going to absolutely put a good unit out there. They're bringing back their defensive coordinator. I just think it's going to work out for the Chiefs. Now in 2025, could be a different story. You could really see them hit the reset button and rebuild this defense. But at this point, I think they're in a prime position to run it back next year and make a few minor tweaks on the defense side of the ball. Maybe bring in a wide receiver, which this wide receiver class is absolutely loaded in the draft. So you can go draft somebody at pick number 32 and get Patrick Mahomes that weapon, or use that pick on the defense side of the ball just too much left the board fall because when you're picking that late in the first round, you can't really dictate much. You just have to let the other teams make their decision and try to make the best decision that you possibly can as well. Moving on to another team here, the eight and nine Las Vegas Raiders, who finished second place in the AFC West. It was a pretty wide gap, although it was only like three games. And the Raiders did beat the Chiefs. It still didn't feel like it was a close division race. Like just looking at the other two divisions that we've talked about, the AFC East and the NFC East, you're talking about teams, you know, the Dolphins and the Bills had the same record, and the Cowboys and the Eagles, there was only one game apart there. So these were really close division races. It felt like the Chiefs were able to kind of run away with this one, even though they had a little bit of a slow start to their season. Now the Raiders had the 23rd ranked offense, the ninth ranked defense, which earned them a trip to Cancun and the number 13 overall pick salary cap. They have $47.8 million to work with. And I mean, look, the Raiders aren't an interesting team. They have a new head coach, right? They actually made the right decision. They brought back Antonio Pierce after making the wrong decision the last time around whenever they fired Rich Basasha. You know, that's a whole other story for a different day. He's a hell of a special teams coach. Would he have been the right guy for the job? That's a hypothetical, that's a situation we really are never going to know. But right now they have Antonio Pierce, Luke Getzi, as their offensive coordinator, and then Patrick Graham, as their defensive coordinator. But the thing about Luke Getzi, as I've heard, that he doesn't gel well with Justin Fields, because he came from Chicago. And this was someone that just really wasn't a great match with Justin. And the Raiders are a team that I've seen linked to Justin Fields, other than obviously the Falcons, and maybe the Patriots too. I'm not really sure who else has been linked to Justin Fields, but I mean, I know the Raiders are one team. And it does make sense, just looking at kind of the culture that they'll let their build in there. You do have Aidan O'Connell currently slated to be the starting quarterback with Brian Hoyer as his backup. Hoyer's days are probably done. He's already, you know, on Good Morning Football, pretty much getting his feet wet in the broadcasting stage. And let's be honest, even if he was like, no, I got six more years in me, you're not hitching your wagon to Brian Hoyer. So let's be honest, let's call what it is the Raiders need a new long term quarterback. Aidan O'Connell is not the guy that's going to carry this team and take him to the promised land. So if it's not Justin Fields, and you're in a position in the draft picking number 13, you're kind of right there with the Broncos where it's like, damn, like we're not in the position to get one of the quarterbacks we want. Do we reach on the guy? That's the fourth best quarterback and make that our first round pick. They're in kind of a tough situation here, so we'll see how they approach it. They do have Tom Telesco as the general manager, who came over from the Los Angeles Chargers. Seems like he's pretty good at building a roster. I know that people have their opinions on Tom Telesco, whether or not he's actually good at his job, but I think that one of you build a talented team then, and I mean, I know they get injured. You can't really control whether or not they get injured. That was the main knock for the Chargers, not who. They have glaring holes here, glaring holes there. You can only do certain things. You know, every team is going to have holes, and the Chargers just kind of always got bitten by the injury bug and have terrible luck, and that's just part of the Chargers organization. I don't know if that's going to change. And we'll talk about them next, obviously, but the Raiders, I mean, looking at some of their free agents, their center, right guard, and right tackle are all free agents. They're running back Josh Jacobs, clearly not going to come back. I don't expect them to give him an offer, although, like I said, $47.8 million. You could, but it's almost wiser just to roll with his demeanor white and maybe try to draft another guy and just have a talented young running back duo. That's pretty much the best route you could possibly go. Just use the plethora of talent at that position. And the fact that, I mean, there's not really that big of a difference. Like, you had Josh Jacobs. He led the league in rushing just two years ago. You franchise tagged him. Him playing some of the best football in his career got you what? An eight and nine record. Like, maybe it's time to shift the philosophy a little bit, not pay money to a running back. Maybe go spend it on a quarterback that could throw the football to Devontay Adams. Maybe go, you know, fill some holes on your defense, get Max Crosby or running mate. There's, there's multiple things you can do if you're the Las Vegas Raiders. But I think that number one, you got to hit on this draft. Like, I know that your picks aren't the best. You're kind of picking in the middle. That's what you get for being second in your division and kind of barely missing the playoffs. Although it could be a lot worse. You could be picking like 17, 18. But luckily, you're right there, top 13. So you could make it happen. You could also make a trade. I've heard the Raiders possibly is one of the teams that could make a move up to go get their franchise quarterback. Because similar to the Falcons, I know that he was an interim last year, but it's still a new coaching staff. Like, this is still his first year as the guy as like, no interim tag. He is the head coach. So they're going to make some shifts. They're going to have to do something and, you know, really shake this organization up from the core. Because I do think that there's some cultural stains with this place. Like it's been so long. John Gruden didn't help Al Davis. God bless him towards the end of his run. Just he had this organization taking someone just because they ran a four to like he's probably turning over in his grave right now because of Xavier worthy in the performance that he put on the NFL combine. So the Raiders, they're kind of in that position where like the Monte Adams could be moved to like, I'm not sure if they're going to continue to just try to reload or if they're a team that's going to hit that reset button. At this point, we got to see how they approach free agency with the money that they have. Look at some of the choices that they make. It could be the long game. If you see they make a move with the Monte Adams, maybe trade them to the Jets, then okay, now we're cooking. The Raiders might be hitting that rebuild button and they might go after a young rookie quarterback or we could see them go after a veteran. They just tried to do that exact same thing with Jimmy Garoppolo. Didn't really work out for them for multiple different reasons. But at least at this point, they have a completely new culture and you could tell that Max Crosby was very fond of this decision to bring back this coach and he threatened to demand a trade and you never want to upset your franchise players. So smart decision by the Raiders to bring him back. Let's just let this bad boy get rolling and hopefully this team is better in 2024, but I'm going to be honest. I hope the Falcons beat them. Just being honest. I'm going all the way to Las Vegas in Allegia Stadium and I have to deal with fucking Raiders fans. Are you kidding me? They beat the shit out of each other at their own games, number one. So I know I'm going to be hearing it. So you know, it's just that's just part of the game. But I am looking forward to hopefully walking out of that stadium with the win and you know, we'll get there whenever we get there. It's Buck Sexton along with playtrivis talking about Dan capitalist law. 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At Shortline, you do the drive in. We'll do the rest. It's Buck Sexton along with playtrivis talking about Dan capitalist law. Buck Dan's the son of a police officer and a guy who finished law school and aimed high to build a world-class firm for the people where everyone regardless of background gets top-notch treatment. Dan capitalist law lives that mission, scoring record verdicts for folks from all walks of life and they don't care about your wallet. Righteous cases are taken on a percentage fee basis. Need help? Visit Dan capitalist law.com. That's Dan C-A-P-L-I-S law.com. But let's move on to the final team here. The Los Angeles Chargers, 5 and 12 record. Last place in the AFC West, 21st ranked offense, 24th ranked defense, number 5 picking the draft, obviously did not make the playoffs. Another team that fired their head coach and they have negative $25 million to spend, $25 million over the cap. And you could argue that they are in the worst salary cap situation of any team in the league because if they could literally restructure every single one of their deals, every single player on their team, if they got to restructure, it wouldn't even fix their, you know, get them over the cap, you know, or under the cap, I should say. So they're pretty much in a situation where I don't even know what they could possibly do. I mean, how long do we think Keenan Allen is going to be a big time playmaker on this team? He did what he had to do this year, but he's not on the right side of 30. I know his game is aging very well, but do you expect that to be, you know, something that continues to happen? I mean, this is going to be like his 14th year or I'm sorry, I apologize. This is going to be like his 12th year. He was drafted in the third round of 2013. So, I mean, you do the math on that. Like I said, I'm not a math guy, but Mike Williams, I know the math enough to know he's missed too many games. And obviously, Quentin Johnston, that's still a sort of subject for the Chargers, Joshua Palmer. They do have Rashaun Slater, Zion Johnson, Corey Lindsley, Jamari Salier, and Trey Pipkins on the offensive line could be a spot number five overall where they get a new franchise player on the offensive line. Like I was kind of talking about earlier in the show, or you go big time and you get a weapon, whether it's Malik Neighbors, Romo Dunezay, you could go get a tight end since you're losing Gerald Everett as well as Austin Echler. So, some targets are going to have to come somewhere. That's why I think it makes a lot of sense to get a playmaker. And you've been so desperate drafting two wide receivers in the first round in the past six years. Why not just make it three in the past seven and try to hit on one, go eight overall earlier than what you've drafted one those past years. And I'm going to be honest, Malik Neighbors is better than Johnston and Williams. So, I think this is kind of a no-brainer. You take one of these big time wide receivers and you give Justin Herbert a big time playmaker for him to grow with and let this be, you know, that Joey Burrow to Jamar Chase connection. I know people aren't as high and the mainstream media isn't going to give them the credit they deserve. But for the longest time, in terms of homegrown, there wasn't a better quarterback to receiver duo than Matt Ryan to Julio Jones. Like there really wasn't. Yeah, Brady to Gronkowski, he's a tight end. That was cooking around the exact same time that Matt and Julio were Big Ben and Antonio Brown as well. But the what Matt Ryan and Julio Jones were doing, if you gave him time, if you could protect Matt Ryan, he was going to pick you apart. He was going to find Julio Jones who was virtually unguardable. And if you're going to double team him, guess what? We had Roddy Wyatt, we had Muhammad Sinu, we had Calvin Ridley, we had Taylor Gabriel. So many different players. And that's what the Chargers, like that's what they can do, where if you protect Justin Herbert, I think him and Malik neighbors, who's a receiver I'm very high on in this draft, could absolutely make you pay. And if you start catching on, the neighbors is really killing us. Maybe you look at somebody like Keenan Allen, who's a veteran who's going to teach Malik neighbors how to be a pro. That that's something that, you know, can't be appreciated enough. I just talked about Julio, he had that benefit with Roddy Wyatt and he'll go on record saying that Roddy Wyatt's a big reason why he had such a successful career outside of the talent that was obviously God given. But Roddy Wyatt really showed in the ropes and you know how to be the number one wide receiver in Atlanta. And Keenan Allen's been the Chargers go to guy for so long that just him taking somebody under his wing, like they've tried to get him to do for so long. They try to keep pushing this guy out the door and replacing him. But he keeps being the most consistent. You know, he keeps being the guy that just refuses to take that step back. So shout out to him. I love the way that his game is aging. Moving over to the defense side of the ball, Nick Williams, Austin Johnson on the defensive line. They run a base three, four with Colomack and Joey Bose on the outside. Eric Kendrick's and Kenneth Murray as their two inside backers. Well, Kenneth Murray is hitting the open market. We'll see if they bring him back. And obviously Michael Davis, one of their outside cornerbacks. Alohi Gilman, another guy who is the, you know, the guy opposite of Derwin James there in that safety duo. So I mean, Asante Samuel is the other cornerback. The Chargers got a, it's an uphill climb when you look at their situation. It's not nearly as bad. But when you look at their salary cap situation, the fact that they have five starters slated to hit the open market on the defensive side of the ball. Oh, yeah. And you're in the division with Patrick Mahomes. And look at the other AFC teams. Like we said, we're not even worried about winning the division. Like, let's just try to, you know, you want to win the division. Obviously that's a goal. But let's be realistic. You're not going to be a favorite. You're going to have to really take a massive step forward. If that's going to be a realistic possibility. So let's think about earning a wild card spot, right? Let's beat out the Jaguars or the Texans. Whoever doesn't win that division, kind of the same thing, dolphins or bills, whichever team doesn't come out on top. They're probably still going to have a pretty good record, right? We expect them to have a successful season. So odds are you're going to have a very successful season as well. If you're going to want to earn a playoff spot, the Chargers might not be there yet. But as long as you have a quarterback like a Herbert, you have a shot and he's somebody that obviously 2020 me and 2024 me are in very different spots. Like I really believe that Herbert's a quarterback that Jim Harbaugh is going to get the most out of. And if they can stay healthy, this rebuild might happen a lot quicker than people think there's a lot of Michigan Wolverines entering this year's draft and next year's draft. So he's going to get some familiar players that he knows are pretty damn good. So the Chargers kind of just put them right there named down as a team that they're going to be very interesting to see how they handled this devastating salary cap situation and also an adjustment to a very different head coach than what they had in Brandon Staley. But that is the AFC West. Thank you guys so much for listening. Hopefully it was a little bit helpful to kind of paint the picture as to what these teams are dealing with, what they're up against as we head into the 2024 off season. A great place to be if you're the Kansas City Chiefs. I feel sorry for you if you're a fan of one of the other teams. But hey, you got to salivate at the opportunity that you're going to, you know, you kind of, you have to face Thanos at the very beginning. You know, you don't have to wait till the Super Bowl like an NFC team. It's like, now we finally got to see this guy. We have no tape. We have no experience. You've got a chance to go up Patrick Mahomes twice a year. So you should know what he does. And I know it's easier said than done stopping this guy. But I totally understand, you know, having a juggernaut in your division cannot be fun and, you know, more power to you. And hopefully things kind of shift and they get a little bit more balanced as we move forward. But I hope you guys all have a damn good week. You know, we got a lot of good stuff coming. The new league year is happening. We're in March. Free agency is right around the corner. Hopefully we'll get some news on maybe a couple trades or something like that. I feel like things are going to heat up. Something tells me that this week things could happen. And I'm looking forward to that. But one more time, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Walk passionately in the direction of the dream and I'll talk to you soon. What if you could have a career where the opportunities are as fast as our nation, where it's not about mission statements, but a shared mission? At US Customs and Border Protection, we go beyond to protect more than borders from ship to shore, air to ground, cities to local communities. CBP agents and officers are keeping people safe. Join US Customs and Border Protection and go beyond for something far greater than yourself. Learn more at cbp.gov/careers. Hey there! 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