Division's coach-QB duos are still headed by KC's Reid and Mahomes, but Chargers' Harbaugh and Herbert are capable. So where does that put Payton and QB To Be Named?
DENVER — It remains to be seen whether Jim Harbaugh can match the same success he had at the University of Michigan or previously with the San Franciso 49ers.
Still, the Broncos were better off when Brandon Staley was the Los Angeles Chargers’ head coach.
There goes the only team in the AFC West the Broncos could handle. Harbaugh and quarterback Justin Herbert figure to move the Chargers into the upper half of the division that has otherwise been dominated by the Kansas City Chiefs’ Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes II.
Harbaugh just won a national championship with a 15-0 record for Michigan to cap a run of three consecutive Final Four appearances. Previously with the 49ers, Harbaugh never had a losing record in his four seasons and reached the NFC Championship Game in his first three season with first, Alex Smith and then, Colin Kaepernick as his quarterbacks.
The rest of the AFC West's coach-quarterback duos are the Broncos’ Sean Payton and To Be Determined, and the Raiders’ Antonio Pierce and To Be Determined.
A look at the coach-QB pairings in the AFC West for the 2024 season:
Chiefs (Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes II)
The Broncos had won five consecutive AFC West titles from 2011-2015. Then the Chiefs took control, winning the West eight straight times -- two with Alex Smith as their quarterback, their last six with Mahomes, and all eight with Reid. The Broncos, meanwhile, have missed the playoffs eight consecutive years.
Reid and Mahomes have carried the Chiefs to six consecutive AFC Championship games, including their matchup Sunday at Baltimore. Mahomes is still only 28. So as long as the 65-year-old Reid can keep going, the Chiefs dominant run may be far from finished.
Chargers (Jim Harbaugh, Justin Herbert)
The Chargers won five of six AFC West titles from 2004-‘09 with first, Marty Schottenheimer then, Norv Turner as their head coach and Drew Brees, then Philip Rivers as their quarterback. It’s been a dry spell since.
The Chargers just finished their 14th consecutive season without a division title. Staley was fired before the team finished off its 5-12 record in 2023.
Even during the Broncos’ ongoing eight-year draught, they have gone 10-6 against the Chargers in that span.
Herbert was sensational in his second season of 2021 when he threw for 5,014 yards and 38 touchdowns. But instead of solidifying his place among the league’s top five quarterbacks, Herbert seemed to slightly regress the past two years amid numerous injuries to his skill-position group.
Enter Harbaugh. He inherited a 49ers team that went 6-10 in 2010 and turned them into a 13-3 NFC West Division champion in his first year of 2011. After edging Sean Payton’s New Orleans Saints, 36-32 in an NFC second-round playoff game, Harbaugh’s 49ers lost in overtime to the New York Giants in the 2011 NFC Championship Game.
Harbaugh guided the 49ers to the Super Bowl in his second year with the team, losing to his brother John’s Baltimore Ravens, 34-31. Now the Harbaugh brothers are competing in the same conference, if on opposite coasts.
Broncos (Sean Payton, Jarrett Stidham?)
After 15 seasons in New Orleans, where he put together an impressive overall record of 10 wins a season, Payton spent a year away from coaching. He then joined the Broncos where in one year he improved the team from 5-12 to 8-9.
However, the season ended with more uncertainty than when it started because Payton benched the supposed franchise quarterback Russell Wilson for the final two games. Wilson is now expected to leave the team by March 17, either via trade or release, leaving the Broncos with Who at quarterback?
Jarrett Stidham started the final two games and went 1-1 while the team averaged just 15.0 points per. Payton spoke well of Stidham after each game so there’s a chance Stidham will be the Broncos’ starting quarterback in 2024. The Broncos could also sign a free-agent quarterback with a more expansive resume than Stidham’s four career starts in five seasons. The team could also draft a quarterback. It has the No. 12 overall pick in the draft. Then again, as many as seven teams drafting ahead of the Broncos will also be looking at quarterbacks.
Therefore, the Broncos could have Stidham and a free agent-to-be-named later compete for the job, draft a quarterback in the later rounds, and wait a year before using their first-round draft pick on a quarterback (Quinn Ewers?).
Payton again showed he’s an elite coach by guiding the Broncos to wins against three playoff teams – the Packers, Chiefs and Bills – in succession. But by far the biggest disappointment — and No. 1 concern going forward — was the lack of significant improvement on offense. Has it been mentioned this division has one team with Reid and Mahomes and another with Harbaugh and Herbert?
Raiders (Antonio Pierce, Aidan O’Connell?)
Pierce and O’Connell are this division’s respective neophytes, not that the Broncos can knock them. Whether Las Vegas’ head coach was Jon Gruden, Rich Bisaccia, Josh McDaniels or Pierce, and whether its quarterback was Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo or O’Connell, the Raiders managed to beat the Broncos eight games in a row over the past four seasons.
The Raiders are expected to shop for a quarterback in the free agent market, but Pierce showed a lot of confidence in O’Connell in the second half of last season. And for the most part, O’Connell rewarded his coach.
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