The Kansas City Chiefs are the benchmark for the Las Vegas Raiders and the rest of the AFC West yet again

The Las Vegas Raiders’ final game of the season happened to be against the team that represents the gold standard not only in the AFC West, but in the conference as a whole.

The Kansas City Chiefs have now finished first in the division for the seventh consecutive season, having made trips to the AFC title game the last four years.

For the Raiders, who fell 31-13 to the Chiefs in their season finale on Saturday, Kansas City is where the Silver and Black want to be.

Raiders Coach Josh McDaniels said there is no way to gauge how close the franchise is to that point.

“There is no timeline on that,” McDaniels said in his postgame press conference. “I think the thing you do is you take best day you can have and you continue to do that and produce those through the off-season and improve the football team in any way that you can. Whether that’s our process, what we choose to do, how we play, how we coach, the players that are on the team. We have a lot of things to evaluate, obviously, and we know a lot more now than we did last January. And we’ve got a year full of evidence of what we need to make better, whether it’s our process or on our team.

“So there’s a lot of things that we can look at, and we’re going to address them. And like I said, we’ll see. But look, every year, you’re trying to win. Every game, you’re trying to win. There’s no seasons where you’re going out there and saying ‘This one doesn’t really matter.’ They all matter. And I think everybody in this organization wants to do that, and that’s what we’re going to be hard at work to do.”

Post Views: 15