AFC West Notes: Broncos, Chiefs, Raiders

Broncos

New Broncos HC Vic Fangio explained that they can’t be putting band-aid solutions together for their roster. 

“Here’s what happened to the Bears before I got there. What they were doing was putting Band-Aids on every little problem, hoping they would be a good team the next year,” Fangio said, via Woody Paige of the Gazette. “By the time we got there, they sucked. They were old, no young talent, no nothing. I’ve coached on two expansions teams in Carolina and with the Texans, and our roster on defense when I was hired (by the Bears) was worse than those expansion team defenses.

“We can’t let that happen here. We can’t do everything to just get to 8-8 now and be 3-13 in 2021. Does that mean that we won’t get a veteran in free agency that will help us for a year or two? We can do that. But we can’t go and throw a bunch of (stuff) against the wall and hope it sticks.”

• Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic lists LB Brandon Marshall, S Su’a Cravens, S Darian Stewart and DE Derek Wolfe as potential cap casualties worth watching for the Broncos this offseason. 
• Jhabvala also provides a great breakdown of every roster position for the Broncos as they head into the offseason. 

Chiefs

• According to Matt Verderame of Fansided, the Chiefs franchising OLB Dee Ford is “far from certain.”
• Verderame notes that tagging Ford would likely result in the team parting ways with veteran OLB Justin Houston, who will count $21 million against the team’s salary cap. 
• Releasing Houston would result in $14 million cap room for the Chiefs and Verderame mentions that Kansas City believes he would prefer to test the open market, as opposed to accepting a pay cut. 
• If the Chiefs are to move on from Houston, Verderame writes that Breeland Speaks and Dorian O’Daniel appear to be “ideal fits” for Steve Spagnuolo’s 4-3 scheme.

Raiders

• Paul Gutierrez reports that the Raiders have A.J. Neibel as their new strength and conditioning coach.