What the Las Vegas Raiders Need to do to Win the AFC West

The Las Vegas Raiders have different goals they want to reach and achieve in the upcoming 2024 NFL season. Every team wants to win the Super Bowl, but there are certain goals you have to achieve in order to get there first.

For the Raiders, their first goal will be to win the AFC West. The Raiders have not won their division since 2002, the last time they made it to the Super Bowl.

Winning the division will not be an easy task. The defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, are going for a ninth straight AFC West division title. The Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos are looking to dethrone the Chiefs as well.

On a recent episode of the "Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast," our Hondo S. Carpenter Sr. and Carter Landis talked about how the Raiders could win the AFC West.

"I do not believe they are going to win the AFC West," Carpenter said. "It certainly could happen, but I do not expect to. I am not sold on what is going on in Denver, and if they stick with Bo Nix, not sold on that at all. I am totally sold on what Jim Harbaugh is doing in Los Angeles, but they lost a lot -- there is new transitions to schemes on special teams' offense and defense. I think they [the Chargers] are going to be a year or two away. Raiders are changing the offense, but they started that last year. They added a bunch of new players, but they are all scheme focus. I like it. I like where they are going. To me, there are four big keys if they are going to win the AFC West. No. 1, you are going to have to at least spilt with Kansas City. No. 2, they are going to have to win every game on their schedule that they are supposed to win. ... Here is where I think it gets interesting: for them to win the AFC West, they are going to have to get some help from the Chiefs. ... I do not think they cannot win it with help, but I also do not think any of the help is so outlandish."

"We have seen stranger things happen," Landis said. "The other thing seen from Kansas City last year is there is a possibility they have not been taking the regular season seriously. ... You have to take advantage of the fact they may not be taking the regular season seriously. On Christmas Day [the Raiders said they] might not have the guys that you [the Chiefs] have, but you are not going to be tougher than us, and you absolutely saw that. The other scenario is you are going to have to see the quarterback play elevate a little bit."

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