Interesting that 538's rating system has all four AFCW teams going 10-7 or better. If that's anywhere near accurate, the division is going to be a dogfight this year.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...l-predictions/

If they sweep the rest of the AFCW games yes.

Wow, they've got the Broncos with the best chance of winning the division? That is pretty absurd.

I get their basic math as there probably aren't a ton of teams that go 1-2 in a division with a team that goes 3-0, and the 1-2 team overtakes them... and that's just because it's not crazy often that an underdog team happens to have a complete shit schedule while at the same time the biggest contender is facing two (or three) playoff contenders (and maybe one SB contender).

Scheduling quirks makes for poor statistical analysis.... and they could throw in projected SoS with it to maybe help, but probably still tough after 3 games.

Makes for some lols later in the season though if the Broncos complete flop.

I can understand them giving the Broncos higher chances than the Chiefs given the fact that they've got a 2-game lead on us, but I can't understand why they'd give the Broncos higher chances than the Raiders.

I guess it's due to the Broncos' last place schedule.

Yep, and the Donko's will collapse wins against the jets, jags, and giants ?

ROFL spare me

Do the Broncos get to keep playing the Giants and Jaguars and Jets every week?

i can take the end of mahomes spectacular septembers

i cannot take the end of donk dominance

we must sweep them

Denver may walk out of October with only one win, the WFT

Yeah, the Raiders' 3-0 is far and away more impressive at this point.

And the Broncos have already played their two last place teams, so I believe the only difference at this point is the Raiders play the Colts later on while the Broncos still have the Ravens... so I guess they're saying all is equal except the Broncos would beat the Ravens and Raiders would drop the Colts? :shrug:

Yeah, doesn't make sense, even with a small difference.

Yeah, it's definitely the schedule, but it's still a bit hard to wrap your mind around. They've already played two of their three "last place" games (Jaguars and Jets), so those don't matter anymore. They still have the Lions (while we have the Packers), so that's another almost gimme for them.

Still, you wouldn't think a two-game lead would carry that much weight. Guess we'll see.

Oops, yeah so the Raiders get the Bears and Broncos get the Lions.

More broadly, I think I may have underestimated the impact that adding a third game that is based on division ranking would have. Maybe it's just because there are so many awful teams these days, but just look at this:

Chiefs - Bills, Titans, and Packers
Raiders - Dolphins, Colts, and Bears
Chargers - Patriots, Texans, and Vikings
Broncos - Jets, Jaguars, and Lions

I know that's 100% on purpose, but man, that's a pretty big disparity in quality across those three games.

at this point I think it'll ultimately come down to being between the Chargers and the Chiefs. I don't trust Gruden enough yet, and Broncos ha ha no. It'll still most likely be the Chiefs winning the div once the Chargers Charger themselves out of winning it.

I see Chiefs finishing first and Broncos finishing last, while both the Raiders and Chargers could finish either second or third depending on what happens, they are too shaky to accurately predict right now. This MNF game coming up will tell us more about the two teams.

If the Chiefs were 3-0, I probably wouldn't even put a ton of effort in finding their game this week and dealing with any streaming issues (assuming we don't get it here), especially after catching some of MNF last night and with the weather being amazing (they either win easily or it would just be frustrating). .. and I might actually watch MNF this week.

It's definitely elevated my interest some, given the Chiefs' rough start and putting some importance behind these early season games now.