One of the leading storylines of the offseason has been the move of talented players from around the league into the AFC West.
The Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett as their new head coach before trading for quarterback Russell Wilson, the Chargers added edge rusher Khalil Mack and cornerback J.C. Jackson to their defense and the Raiders traded for wide receiver Davante Adams and signed edge rusher Chandler Jones after hiring Josh McDaniels as their new head coach. All of those teams have eyes on ending the Chiefs’ run as division champions after Kansas City parted ways with wide receiver Tyreek Hill and safety Tyrann Mathieu.
Opinions vary about how the teams will stack up as a result of all that shuffling, especially since the Chiefs still have the likes of Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. While the Raiders made the playoffs last year and were in the thick of that offseason activity, quarterback Derek Carr thinks that the football world is discounting them at the expense of the other teams in the division.
“It’s going to be fun,” Carr said, via Vic Tafur of TheAthletic.com. “No one thinks anything of us and I think that’s what makes it fun is you always have to put the ball down and play the football games. . . . You get frustrated when you see other people’s names on things and this and that. And you’re like, ‘We’re here, too. We feel like we got better, too.; I thought we made the playoffs.”
The nobody believes in us approach feels like a stretch given the Raiders’ circumstances, but Carr went on to say that the team is carrying a “chip on their shoulder” so it seems that it’s going to be a line of thinking that remains in place as they get ready to take the field in September.