AFC West Notes: Broncos, Chargers, Raiders

Broncos

Before he passed, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen left Broncos CEO and team president Joe Ellis with plans to cover the future of the team, including who his successor would be.

“I don’t want to talk too much about it other than to say Pat was prepared for this day,” Ellis said via Mike Klis of KUSA. “He put a plan in place. It was his plan. As a trustee, it’s my obligation and our obligation with my other two fellow trustees to carry out the plan. My role which he assigned me and talked to me about and asked me to take on is to be what is known as the controlling owner delegee. Not just CEO and president but to be here to represent him until a child is ready to take over. That’s what the plan is and I’m going to follow through on that and honor him.

“I know there’s some stuff out there that may be concerning to fans. Everybody here knows what Pat wants and what he’s all about. Outside of winning games, which is very hard to do in this league, everything else is in my opinion easily achievable. And we’re going to continue to do that and do great things in the community and obviously try to get better on the field and I’m optimistic about what John has done in the offseason.”

• According to Ryan O’Halloran of the Denver Post, the Broncos could start training camp with WR Emmanuel Sanders on the PUP list with the goal of getting him ready for Week 1. 
• If Sanders isn’t ready for the start of the season, the team will rely on Courtland Sutton and DaeSean Hamilton as its No. 1 and No. 2 wide receivers. 
• O’Halloran says the Broncos likely won’t trade Sanders, as he has no value to other teams if he’s not healthy and has too much value to the Broncos if he is. 

Chargers

• Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer says the comments by Chargers RB Melvin Gordon and DE Melvin Ingram about them being the “team to beat” didn’t go over well with the team, especially since neither Gordon nor Ingram were at voluntary OTA’s.

Raiders

Raiders K Daniel Carlson had an opportunity to sign with the Raiders soon after being released by the Vikings in his rookie season. But Carlson elected to wait and work on his game on his own. 

“My agent and I obviously talked about it a good bit,” Carlson said via NBC Sports’ Scott Bair. “We just felt like at that time I could take a break, work on some things that I wanted to work on. Once you get into the season, you’re just getting ready for Sunday. You’re getting ready for Sunday, so it was nice to be able to step back, be able to work on a couple little things and then be able to… I knew an opportunity would come. Obviously, I didn’t know where from, but I just wanted to make sure when that came I was ready and would be ready for the rest of the season.”

Carlson ended up with the Raiders and performed well, hitting 16-17 field goals. Now, he’s focused on making sure he continues to improve and can be with the team for a long time. 

“I think he’s working on getting a master’s in himself,” Raiders ST coach Rich Bisaccia said. “I think he knows faster than anybody else what’s good about what he does and when it’s not the hit that he’s expecting to make. I think he can self-correct quickly and just our professional opinions we thought he was really a good player coming out. He was certainly a draft-able kicker and then when he became available we couldn’t get him for the first workout, he wanted to go work on a few things on his own and when he was ready for a workout we got him in. He did a tremendous job and now he’s ours.”