Division will likely be:
1. San Diego
2. Raiders/Chiefs
3. Broncos
4. Raiders/Chiefs
This is with things as they are now, with no assumptions of improvement from either the Chiefs or the Raiders, and with the decline of the Broncos.
Things that change/influence this standing:
- The arrival of the true JaMarcus Russell. The man shows up, and the supporting cast does exactly that, and they light up the teams they SHOULD beat. Playing a tough NFC East will dull this though. Even if JaMarcus doesn't take off as expected, Garcia will be a capable standin should Cable be allowed to bring him in. Either way, this will give them +1 place in the division. A Chiefs team that doesnt show much improvement, a slip by the Chargers and the expected decline of the Broncos could give them the division by a couple of games if all goes very well for this very talented team.
- Matt Cassel shows he's not just a 1-year-wonder. The man who led a great team to 11-5 gets to try and lead a slightly less than mediocre group of talent to better than 2-14. That will happen, but how much of an improvement is TBD. As with the Raiders, an 8-9 win season and faults by San Diego and the Raiders could give the Chiefs the division.
There's no arguing that in this division, both the Chiefs and the Raiders have the potential to be 'this years Dolphins'. Both teams can not do much worse than they did last year. The Raiders chalked up a couple of wins to end the season, but one of them was against a flailing Tampa team who suffered from possibly the worst defensive collapse I've ever seen since I started watching the NFL.
For the teams that relatively did 'well' here's how I see them shaking up the rankings:
- San Diego is the most consistent team in the division. Usually underachieves and them performs in the stretch thanks to veterans and good leadership. Should they slip in the 2nd half of the season it's anyone's division, since a strong showing from either the Chiefs or Raiders (or both!) will leave them with little room for error. Preventing early season hiccups that seem to plague them and winning the games they should win will hand them the division easily. It truly is theirs to use, Chargers fans (all 4 of them) have a reason to be very confident outside of their 'do we need Merriman?' debate.
- Denver will complete their fall from the Elway dominance this season. Cutler was developing into a franchise QB that would be around for sometime and Bowlen let McDaniels (who has to be on suicide watch after Cassel signed his long term deal) hit reset and go with Orton. Neckbeard can only take a team so far, as shown in Chicago, and their defense won't be there to give him much of a break to look at the pictures of what he did wrong as teams run over them. There's not much good stuff to say about Denver sadly, and they'll could see a couple of teams in the division sweep them this year. I don't see them finishing better than 3rd in the division, tied with a Raiders or Chiefs team that couldn't quite get it going in time.
Division games are hard usually hard fought though, so forecasting any sweeps is usually pretty difficult.
The division is wide open, NFC East will likely plunder it for some easy early wins (Chiefs play all 4 NFC East opponents in consecutive weeks starting week 3) and a case could be made for ANY order, except for maybe Denver #1.
