AFC West Watch – Runningback

AFC West Watch continues on BroncoTalk, and this week it’s the runningbacks that’s under debate. Of course, the AFC West features some of the best runningback in the entire league – similar to the tight ends I reviewed two weeks ago, San Diego, Denver and Kansas City can all consider themselves in the upper echelon of runningbacks.

1) San Diego Chargers

League MVP Ladainian Tomlinson? Check. Probably the best backup runningback Michael Turner? Check. The best fullback in the game Lorenzo Neal? Check. Yeah, the Bolts take this one hands down.

2) Kansas City Chiefs

Larry Johnson may be threatening a holdout, but I can only rank these teams based on the talent I see, and LJ makes them dangerous at runningback. While they lost their really good fullback to free agency two years ago, and their backup runningback is a mess by committee, Johnson is good enough that you have to rank them second only to San Diego, possibly in the entire league.

3) Denver Broncos

We have the best runningback we’ve had in a long time back there – I would rank our runningback situation easily in the top 10 across the entire league. So while we may be in the bottom half of the division, I don’t believe that reflects our rank overall. Travis Henry is a huge upgrade, and we have some healthy competition going at both backup runningback and at fullback. Look for the Broncos to possibly rush for more yards than the Chiefs too.

4) Oakland Raiders

Drafting Michael Bush with the first pick on Day 2 of the Draft may prove to be one of the best picks of the entire event – if healthy, Bush would have competed with Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch as the premiere back in the draft. Other than Bush, they still have some talent, but I wouldn’t rank their unit in the top half of the league. Lane Kiffen is supposedly installing the zone blocking system Denver employs over in Oakland, so we’ll see how that turns out.

There you have it – the runningback situations of the AFC West, ranked 1-4. If the Broncos are going to move high into the playoffs, they’ll need a solid running game, and they’ll need to be able to stop the run of the opposing teams. Next week I’m off, but two Fridays from now I’ll run through the linebackers. Have a great weekend everybody.