Broncos' offseason of upheaval is uplifting for Chargers

So now it's wide receiver Brandon Marshall who wants out of Denver. Great. I don't know what happens to him, but I have a good idea what happens to the Broncos -- and it's not good, Denver fans. Your team no longer is a threat to the Chargers in the AFC West.

For that matter, nobody is. You can call the division now before the early returns are in. San Diego is the runaway winner, not so much because the Bolts are that much better than everyone else but because they're that much better than everyone else in the AFC West.

Brandon Marshall, unstoppable vs. San Diego last season, adds to the Broncos' awful offseason. (Getty Images)

Once upon a time, the division was a tale of two cities, San Diego and Denver, but not anymore. San Diego is a dead-Bolt cinch to win its fourth straight championship, and it doesn't matter if the Chargers stumble to 8-8 again. Nobody catches them.

Which takes me back to Denver. The Broncos should have won the division a year ago, but they failed. And they failed miserably, blowing a three-game lead with three games to go. I don't know how you do that, either, and don't ask Mike Shanahan. The club fired him after seven playoff appearances and two Super Bowls.

So it hires Josh McDaniels, a guy who has never been a head coach, and he launches his new career by alienating the starting quarterback. OK, everyone's entitled to mistakes, but this was a big one and McDaniels couldn't recover. So the Broncos traded Jay Cutler to Chicago for Kyle Orton and draft picks and announced Orton as their starting quarterback.

That's OK if you're playing with a defense comparable to the Bears', but the Broncos defense is closer to the Bad News Bears. It couldn’t stop anyone, and if you look at the string of moves the club made since Shanahan was fired it still won’t stop anyone. It makes you wonder what’s going on.

The Broncos are a team operating without a map. Their defense stinks, so they use their first draft pick on ... a running back? I might be OK with that move -- especially when it's to draft Knowshon Moreno -- if this were a different team than Denver. But this is a club that bought three free-agent running backs to join Ryan Torain and Peyton Hillis, two guys who combined for six touchdowns in their final five games and averaged 5 yards per carry. This is also a team that produced six sacks in its final eight games and allowed more than 200 yards rushing three times, with two to division opponents. I guess what I'm saying is that it made no sense.

• Freeman: Broncos coach alienating stars | Marshall saying goodbyes

The Broncos have as much direction as Roy Riegels, and before they start looking for a defense they better start looking for a rudder. Someone needs to have a plan. All I know is that in a few short months the Broncos have achieved the improbable, which is to make Oakland look like the second-best team in this division.

Now appreciate the enormity of that accomplishment. The past six years the Raiders have gone 24-72, finished last or tied for last in the AFC West five times and last in the league once. They're more than bad; they're a mess, going through five coaches in six years and winning no more than five games in any season. Yet now they look like the second-best team to San Diego, not because they're accumulating talent but because Kansas City and Denver are not.

Look at the Broncos today, and tell me they're a better team than the one that limped home last year. They're not. Marshall was a force on offense, but he was a force with Cutler throwing to him. In fact, he caught 18 passes in his first game last season, and it so happens it was the Broncos' first game with San Diego.

The Bolts spent the season trying to catch Denver, and they succeeded ... but barely. Now the quarterback who beat the Chargers in September is gone; the head coach who beat them seven of their past nine visits to Denver is history; the wide receiver they couldn't stop is miserable and the defense that couldn't stop them is in the repair shop.

•  Report: Broncos will work to fulfill Marshall's request

But cheer up, Denver fans. There's always Kansas City, another club stuck in the mud. The Chiefs made the tough but right call when they went with a youth movement that ushered in guys like Dwayne Bowe, Glenn Dorsey, Derrick Johnson, Branden Albert and Tamba Hali. But then their GM stepped down and they fired their head coach and now ... well, now, they, too, are making moves that, frankly, don't add up.

Instead of staying with young players, they're turning to old ones -- like Mike Vrabel and Zach Thomas and Bobby Engram. Maybe Matt Cassel works out at quarterback, but I wouldn't be so sure. He doesn't have Randy Moss and Wes Welker and Bill Belichick serving as life preservers. However, he does have a $14.65 million paycheck, and keep that in mind if he starts looking like Scott Mitchell.

A league source I trust once told me the only thing in football worse than losing was losing with old players; that if you're going to lose you're better off doing it with young guys, giving them experience that will pay off. The Chiefs might want to keep that in mind.

The bottom line here is that there is nobody for the Chargers to beat in this division ... except, of course, themselves, and they tried that last season. Fortunately, Denver came to the rescue, just as the Broncos have come to the rescue again.

I can't see any way they push San Diego again, and I don't care what happens to Brandon Marshall. The best race -- no, the only race -- in the AFC West is not at the top. It's at the bottom.