AFC Notes: Chargers, Chiefs, Raiders

Chargers

• Daniel Popper of The Athletic theorizes that because the Browns and DE Myles Garrett agreed to a five-year, $125 million extension that reportedly includes $100 million in guarantees, making him the highest-paid non-quarterback, a player of Chargers DE Joey Bosa’s caliber will likely negotiate relative to other existing contracts for players at the same position such as Garrett’s. 
• After the NFL announced that Chargers’ S Roderic Teamer is suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2020 regular season due to a violation of the league’s substance-abuse policy, Popper notes that Teamer is still eligible to participate in training camp practices and any preseason games.
• Popper adds that Teamer was already going to have a hard time making the 53-man roster, but the team can now stash Teamer on the suspension list and won’t have to make a decision on keeping him or waiving him until Week 5 when he returns on October 5th.
• Popper does not expect DE Melvin Ingram to be back with the Chargers in 2021, noting his age and the fact that he won’t necessarily be relying on the Chargers for his payday due to the demand for pass rushers in free agency. The Chargers also already have a cheap replacement for Ingram on the roster in LB Uchenna Nwosu.
• As for rookie LB Kenneth Murray, Popper thinks he will be starting at linebacker in Week 1, but that much will depend on how quickly he acclimates to the speed of the NFL.
• The Athletic’s Daniel Popper predicts Chargers TE Hunter Henry will be the team’s breakout player in 2020 and make the Pro Bowl. 

Chiefs

• According to the NFLPA, the Chiefs are one of eight teams to have their Infectious Disease Emergency Response plan approved by both the NFL and NFLPA. The other 24 are submitted and are being reviewed. 
• In a roundtable discussion by The Athletic, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt was mentioned as someone who could succeed Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as the most prominent and powerful of the group: “He’s got a good team. He’s highly respected. He’s a visionary like his dad with what the league needs. The Hunt family has always been about the league. They are an NFL family through and through. Clark is young enough that he’s going to be the guy. And I think his team is going to be good enough for a lot of years. He’s going to be able to kind of be that in the next round of meetings, maybe like his dad was. With that coach and that quarterback, his team has a chance to be special.”
• Per ESPN’s Vaughn McClure, Falcons QB Matt Ryan was impressed by the deal Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes signed: “Man, it’s a good time to be a QB in the NFL, right? I’m happy for him. He’s an unbelievable player; has had an unbelievable career so far. For him to kind of have that long-term security… like I said it’s a good time to be a QB in this league.”

Raiders

Raiders GM Mike Mayock believes new FS Damarious Randall will be a “wonderful complement” to second-year S Johnathan Abram with Randall possibly seeing time in the slot. 

“What I believe is that he could be a wonderful complement to John Abram,” Mayock shared. “We’re going to pair [Abram] with Damarious and Erik Harris, and we think Damarious can bring some athletic ability where he can drop down and cover the slot. So, we think there’s a potential pairing there that could be exciting, but don’t forget about Erik Harris, he’s played some good football for us. We signed Jeff Heath who started for the Dallas Cowboys, so again, this is all about creating competition throughout our team and especially on defense.”

Mayock said he had Randall rated as his best free safety prospect in the 2015 NFL Draft while he was working as an analyst for NFL Network. 

“When I was back in television, doing the draft rankings and everything, I had [Damarious Randall] ranked as the No. 1 free safety coming out of college football that year,” Mayock said. “He had played a lot of corner and people were split on where he should play in the NFL. When I called him for the first time in the offseason about signing him as a free agent, the first thing I did was remind him to go check my old college ranking and see where I had him. He started laughing and said, ‘Mayock I know exactly where you had me, that’s why we’re on the phone right now.'”