Pete Carroll’s return to coaching with the Raiders tops AFC West’s boldest bets of 2025 offseason as rivals try to unseat the Chiefs
The AFC West looms as one of the most challenging divisions in football. This is a fact despite the Kansas City Chiefs winning the division every year since 2016. The West is home to a present-day dynasty, but both the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos are nipping at the Chiefs' heels. What's more? Another Super […]
The AFC West looms as one of the most challenging divisions in football.
This is a fact despite the Kansas City Chiefs winning the division every year since 2016. The West is home to a present-day dynasty, but both the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos are nipping at the Chiefs' heels. What's more? Another Super Bowl-winning head coach now calls the West home thanks to the Las Vegas Raiders' bold offseason plan.
Bold feels like an appropriate adjective for most of these teams' moves and/or aspirations. Which moves stand out the most? Here are my picks for the boldest move for each team in the AFC West this offseason.
The Kansas City Chiefs
The Boldest Move: The Jaylon Moore contract
It wasn't necessarily a surprise to see Kansas City revisit their offensive line construction after the dismantling the unit received at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles. That was what happened the last time Kansas City lost in the Super Bowl, too. Between first-round draft choice Josh Simmons and Moore, plus trading away Joe Thuney, the line will look different in 2025.
Free agency comes before the draft, so Kansas City needed to make a move to ensure they weren't boxed into a corner with their transition along the offensive line — but Moore is an intriguing choice. He played a career-high in snaps in 2024, posting 271 snaps. He was sturdy in his time at left tackle but for that to be parlayed into $21.24 million in guaranteed money highlights both the swelling tides of the offensive line free agency market and Kansas City's need to be better up front. It is a big commitment for an unproven full-time talent.
The Los Angeles Chargers
The Boldest Move: Omarion Hampton in the first round
The Chargers had already signed Najee Harris to a one-year contract when they make Hampton the face of their draft class. Harris isn't the kind of back you give the keys to the car to and, thanks to the rest of the offensive infrastructure, the argument for Hampton as an explosive runner to be tabbed as the face of the running game is a fairly easy sell. But it is still a running back in the top-25 picks of the draft, especially when the Chargers had room for some upgrades and reinforcements on the other side of the ball.
The defensive line interior certainly could have used a jolt — the team is currently banking on names like Teair Tart, Da'Shawn Hand, Naquan Jones, Otito Ogbonnia, and rookie Jamaree Caldwell to anchor in the middle. It feels a little surprising that Jim Harbaugh's group with go with the back over the beef. That said, they're clearly betting on being close to a finished product on offense, which would justify the Hampton addition.
The Denver Broncos
The Boldest Move: Big money to 49ers veterans in free agency
The Broncos had a stellar defense in 2024 and chose to level it up with a pair of standout talents from San Francisco in free agency. Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw are ferocious players. But they also played less than a combined 350 snaps last season. Hufanga should be in the prime of his career but durability issues have marred the back half of his rookie contract in San Francisco and Greenlaw scrapped to make it back at the end of the season from an Achilles injury suffered in the Super Bowl the year prior.
Denver gave Hufanga a $13 million per year contract with $20 million guaranteed and won a bidding war for Dre Greenlaw as well — although Greenlaw's contract has more protections with the guarantees. These two big fish in free agency highlight that Denver feels they're close. And, if they're right, both players could be transformative for an already elite group from last season.
The Las Vegas Raiders
The Boldest Move: The Seattle transplant experience
I would like the record to state that I absolutely adore Pete Carroll. But the second Pete put pen to paper in Las Vegas, he became the oldest head coach in the NFL by nearly a decade. Carroll will turn 74-years old in September, which creates some fair questions about how long his runway is to turn the Raiders around. What's more? The team acquired quarterback Geno Smith via trade. He turns 35 years old in October.
The former duo from Seattle obviously has great chemistry and they, along with a revamped skill group, should make offense fun again for the Raiders. But for how long? Can Pete really instill a strong team and organizational culture with the timeline he has left before he hangs it up? There's a lot riding on the two former Seahawks to cover up the issues both on the team's defense in 2025 and organizationally amid an effort to become a more consistent contender in the West.
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