That’s why, if a team isn’t actively getting better in the offseason – through guys returning from injury, free agency, draft, etc. – chances are they’re getting worse. Such is the case in Denver and Kansas City. Meanwhile after a bountiful offseason the Raiders have not only caught the rest of their division, they’ve surpassed it.

Oakland deserves to be the favorite in the AFC West and it’s up to the Chiefs and Broncos to prove they can overcome significant losses.

Here is a look at the two ways in which the Raiders have built a roster that makes them the team to beat in the AFC West this season.

Free Agency

I’m sure you’ve heard it time and time again: smart teams don’t build through free agency. Just don’t tell that to the Broncos, who would not have won Super Bowl 50 without the contributions of Peyton Manning, Emmanuel Sanders, Aqib Talib, T.J. Ward, Owen Daniels, Evan Mathis and DeMarcus Ware. The fact of the matter is the single most difficult thing to do in the NFL is acquire talent. The Titans, Browns and Chargers didn’t have the three worst records in the league last year because they couldn’t re-sign all their best players. They simply were never able to find those talented players in the first place.

Enter Oakland and its offseason spending spree. In PFF’s grading system from 2015, they added three new starters who graded out among the top 20 at their position — guard Kelechi Osemele, cornerback Sean Smith and safety Reggie Nelson — along with another who graded out above average three straight years (linebacker Bruce Irvin). That is a ton of talent to add while only losing one major contributor over the offseason in Charles Woodson.

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That kind of attrition pales in comparison to what was suffered by the other powerhouses in the division. The division-winning Broncos lost starters in Manning, Malik Jackson, Evan Mathis and Danny Trevathan. Their key additions in the Broncos’ offseason were Russell Okung, Jared Crick, and Donald Stephenson – none of whom graded positively a season ago. The Chiefs offseason strategy was to make sure their defensive core stayed intact, but they still couldn’t re-sign their top cornerback, Sean Smith, or their highest graded offensive lineman in Jeff Allen. They at least got an impact player through free agency though in right tackle Mitchell Schwartz. When you add the numbers up, it’s easy to see why on paper the Raiders made up a ton of ground through free agency.

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Draft and Develop

If a team doesn’t actively add NFL-ready talent through free agency or the draft, then it must bank on development from their young players to improve year-to-year. While the Raiders have been major players in free agency during general manager Reggie McKenzie’s tenure, they’ve also hit home runs on multiple high draft picks. The result: No team in the AFC West has a more promising and productive young corps than the Raiders.

Derek Carr (11th-ranked QB in 2015), Amari Cooper (72nd-ranked WR), Mario Edwards Jr. (57th-ranked DT), Gabe Jackson (14th-ranked G), and Khalil Mack (top-ranked DE) are already extremely productive players and all are still on their rookie contracts. No one in the division – nor NFL for that matter – can come close to matching that.

This doesn’t even factor in the 2016 draft where the Raiders once again had more draft capital than the Chiefs or Broncos (as is to be expected based on their records). With the amount of young talent on the roster, it’s not unrealistic to assume continued progression from each. So even looking purely at the draft-and-develop approach, the Raiders should again have an edge based on in year-over-year gains.

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It’s clear that while the two playoff teams in the AFC West had a net loss of playmakers, the Raiders had a net gain. In PFF’s grading system we award pluses and minuses to every player on every play. An average graded defensive end, like the Jaguars’ Jared Odrick, will impact around 92 plays positively and 51 plays negatively over the course of the season. Khalil Mack, an elite edge defender, impacted 192 plays positively and only 24 plays negatively last season.