The NFL Previewed in Song, Part IV: The AFC West

Welcome back to our musical preview of the NFL.  Today we're taking a look at the AFC West, which is also known as "the Broncos."

"Royals" is one of the biggest songs of the last few years thanks to it's catchy, anthemic chorus and populist message, which is either positive and anti-materialist or deeply racist, depending on which blogs you read. Played on a trombone, it sounds like pretty much any other piece of music played on a trombone. The cows seem pretty happy to hear it though—or they are just wandering over because of the pickup truck of food behind our farmer friend, whichever.

Treating this video as an analogy for the San Diego Chargers, Philip Rivers, obviously, is the cows: He's somewhat bovine, docile, the kind of good-intentioned lug who would naturally wander over if he heard someone blowing a trombone. By any statistical measure he's been one of the top five quarterbacks of the past few years, but he'll probably never be in the same conversation as Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, or Tom Brady, because he plays for the Chargers, and in the NFL media world the Chargers might as well be a folding chair in the middle of a Kansas field. (In an alternate universe where the Giants didn't trade him for Eli Manning, Rivers is appearing on ads for DirecTV and rapping very badly.) Rivers is also Lorde in this extended metaphor we're building together, because he'll never be a royal and he has the wildly swinging emotions of a teenaged girl.

Head coach Mike McCoy is the farmer, because he is the man in charge, but also because he might as well sit down and play his trombone—no matter what he does, the offense is going to put up a bunch of points thanks to Rivers, but the defense will be terrible again and they'll lose a bunch of games 36-32 and 27-25. The defense, by the way, is the field, because you can run all over it without encountering any resistance.

Prediction: 8-8

-David Matthews

The Oakland Raiders are sort of like a bunch of well-coiffed Englishmen playing guitar pop about struggling in that both groups of people are not very good at football.

It's been 11 years since the franchise has had a winning season, and it's still not close to being competitive. Their starting quarterback is currently human ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Matt Schaub, with Derek Carr waiting in the wings. Their receiving corps consists of ha ha just kidding you don't care about the Raiders wide receivers, and why should you? Their unspectacular defense was the focus of the team's offseason, as it brought in the likes of Tarell Brown (lol), Carlos Rogers (lol), and Justin Tuck (yay). Meanwhile, first-round draft pick Khalil Mack will be expected to play every position on the front seven.

But even if the Raiders were better at football, they'd still be stuck in the AFC West. Competing with the Broncos is impossible, of course, but the Chargers and Chiefs aren't pushovers either—they've got respectable offensive and defensive units, respectfully, while the Raiders have neither. So in other words, "You just haven't earned it yet, baby. You must suffer and cry for a longer time."

In another division with another schedule (no, seriously, have you SEEN that thing? They could plausibly lose every game) the Raiders might stand a shot at mediocrity. And they will be more watchable this year than last. But will it enough to break past their opponents? Nope. Just like Morrissey, Raiders fans are going to continue to be unhappy

Prediction: 3-13

_-Lindsey Adler_

OK, this metaphor is a little more tangled than the last ones. You can't outrun Jamaal Charles, and like Jenny Lewis, Charles has beautiful hair and is often underrated—so I guess Charles is both the subject of the song and the singer? That's only appropriate, since the responsibility for the offense rests on his shoulders. He had 19 touchdowns and nearly 2,000 yards last season, and if he doesn't replicate those numbers the offense will be reduced to the dinking and dunking of savvy veteran Alex Smith.

There's all sorts of uncertainty surrounding the team this season, with Brandon "I'm the Best Cornerback in Football" Flowers leaving for rival San Diego and Alex Smith negotiating with the team over a contract extension. You can't outrun 'em, but can you at least make sure the guy leading the offense isn't worried about the future, right?

The team's tough schedule, plus all the things that could go wrong (what if Charles gets injured? What if he's not the same back after getting tackled over 300 times last year? What if the defense regresses) should make Chiefs fans nervous; I know it makes them hard to predict. It's sort of a 9-7 team, right? Or a 10-6 one. Crap. How about 9-6-1?

Prediction: 9-6-1

-Lindsey Adler

Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 is one of the best live records ever pressed to wax. The manic madman who yowls through the intro and launches into to "Bring It on Home to Me" is the perfect avatar for this year's iteration of the Denver Broncos. The album was delayed by RCA Records for 20 years because it's so unlike the Sam Cooke people were used to—too raw, too aggro, not the slick pop image music executives were trying to graft onto him. The Broncos are going to have to be raw as hell this year if they want to win the Super Bowl—and and this point, anything less is going to feel like failure.

The championship window at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium (aside: what a fucking name) is closing. Last year's Super Bowl shellacking at the hands of the Seahawks showed that the Broncos were only a juggernaut in the cozy context of the AFC. This year they might have the Seahawks waiting for them again, or the 49ers, and to get there they'll need to get past the Patriots, who were hobbled by injuries last season. Knowing this, during the offseason Denver brought in an inordinate amount of veteran star power, mostly on the defensive side of the ball: pass-rushing machine DeMarcus Ware, who will only complement Von Miller; Aqib Talib and T.J. Ward to anchor a secondary that looked helpless in that Super Bowl loss. On the other side of the ball, they've still got Peyton Manning and the Thomases to catch spirals, and added the big-play ability of Emmanuel Sanders to make up for the loss of Eric Decker.

Sam Cook would be dead a little less than two years later after this concert. There's no way he could have known the end was coming so soon, but performances like the one that he gave in Miami in January of 1963 showed that he was the sort of performer who put it all out there every damn night on stage. Peyton Manning probably isn't getting gunned down under auspicious circumstances any time soon, but he's more aware than Cook that his time on stage is dwindling, and without Manning Denver is just a bunch of guys wearing funny outfits. Their schedule is the kind of heart-wrenching agony that would cause any 60s R&B star to theatrically beg for mercy—they've got away games in Seattle, New England, and Cincinnati—so they're going to have to really bring it to get themselves home-field advantage in the playoffs. They likely will—for this team, the show doesn't start till January.

Projection: 14-2

-David Matthews