AFC West Week 13 Preview: Raiders-Chargers Round 2
The Denver Broncos were the only AFC West team to lose in Week 12. The Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers each came away with narrow victories, while the Kansas City Chiefs ran the Los Angeles Rams off the field.
The Chiefs still have a comfortable lead in the division, and are proving themselves to yet again be the favorite to win the conference.
The Chargers, meanwhile, keep battling, and not far behind them are the Raiders, who have won two in a row for the first time this season.
Here's what to look for the AFC West in Week 13:
Chargers at Raiders
This rivalry has become one you can almost count on coming down to the wire whenever these division opponents meet.
The suspense between the two teams was at an all-time high after last year's season finale at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas that many regarded as the best regular-season game of the 2021 season.
The two teams faced off in a rematch in Week 1 this season, with Los Angeles prevailing this time around.
Now the second meeting between the division rivals will take place on Las Vegas' home turf in the same stadium in which it defeated the Chargers last January to clinch its first playoff berth since 2016.
While the Raiders have slowly begun to climb back into relevance with their back-to-back overtime victories, they are still in the bottom quarter of the league in passing defense, an area that Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and his offense are more than capable of exposing, having averaged 262.2 passing yards per game this season.
Offensively, though, this is a much better Raiders offense than Los Angeles faced in Week 1.
Expect this rematch to be another close battle that you won't want to miss.
Chiefs at Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals have re-entered the scene as a team to be reckoned with in the AFC.
This will be another must-see match-up in Week 13 and one that is also a rematch of a historic game from last season: the AFC Championship Game, when the Bengals came back to defeat Kansas City in overtime and stamp their ticket to the Super Bowl.
Cincinnati has won four of its last five games and is riding a three-game winning streak.
It will be a showdown of two of the top-four passing offenses in the league and one that could very well end in another close outcome.
Broncos at Baltimore Ravens
Denver doesn't have much good going for it right now, and a road game against the rising Baltimore Ravens is not an ideal scenario for a team looking to get back on track.
Baltimore had won four-straight games until its Week 12 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars when Justin Tucker missed what would have been the game-winning field goal in the final seconds.
The Ravens have an opportunity to redeem themselves at home when they host an inferior Broncos team that has dropped its last three games.
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