AFC Notes: Chargers, Chiefs, Raiders

“Yeah I mean you expect a really good football team that’s going to play really hard. We’re expecting a fight, we’re expecting a battle,” Mahomes said, via NFL.com. “They have a great offense, great defense, great special teams and we played them in the AFC Championship last year and we know that it’s going to be another fight for us if we want to try to move on to the AFC Championship Game this year.”

Chiefs DE Frank Clark said Mahomes vs. Bills QB Josh Allen is a top tier QB matchup.

“You’ve got Josh Allen [and] you’ve got Pat on our side,” Clark said, via ESPN’s Adam Teicher. “These are two of the best guys in the league. You say the two best young quarterbacks in the league today, I’d say 99% of the people in the world are going to say Pat Mahomes and Josh Allen.”

Raiders

• The Athletic’s Vic Tafur says ultimately Raiders GM Mike Mayock‘s draft record was too much to overcome. Former HC Jon Gruden had final say on everything, but Mayock was relied upon a lot for the draft and the two would defer to each other on certain things. 
• Inside the building, Mayock gets the credit/blame for DE Clelin Ferrell, CB Damon Arnette, WR Hunter Renfrow, DE Maxx Crosby and CB Nate Hobbs. Former WR Henry Ruggs was a Gruden pick, the two were aligned on S Johnathan Abram and OL coach Tom Cable had a big hand in the selection of OL Alex Leatherwood this year. 
• Per Tafur, Gruden was behind the trade for WR Antonio Brown and the signing of OT Trent Brown, while DE Carl Nassib was one of the guys Mayock pushed for. 
• Tafur adds Mayock would have been in favor of keeping interim HC Rich Bisaccia, so his firing could be an indication of which way that domino is going to fall. 
• Raiders assistant director of player personnel DuJuan Daniels is seen as a top in-house candidate to take over the vacant general position left by Mayock. (Ian Rapoport)
• Raiders owner Mark Davis still plans to interview Bisaccia for the team’s head coach vacancy. (Rapoport)
• Raiders scouts were working on all-star game/free-agency assignments when they saw requests going out for the team to interview general manager candidates. The team’s scouts were unaware that the position was open. (Albert Breer)
• When Mayock was seen by the team’s scouts leaving the building, they believed he was leaving work for the day. They were completely unaware that he had just been fired. They found out the rest on social media. (Breer)