Raiders Set To Climb Back Up The AFC West Mountain

The Oakland Raiders have lived too long at the bottom of the AFC West standings. Though they may shared this at times with Kansas City, Oakland's recent history against their divisional opponents has been basically awful!

When the Raiders have been good, and dominating the league, they would take it to the Broncos, Chiefs, and yes even the Chargers. I know it is hard to believe but yes, the Raiders used to be very competitive and at least split the season series with the Chargers.

After their disappointing finish to the 2002 season with a Super Bowl flameout in San Diego (maybe it was a harbinger of bad things to come regarding San Diego), the Raiders have not had a winning season against any of their division foes.

Of course they have not had a winning season period since 2002, but their play against the division has been especially poor. Any and all attempts to get back to respectability have to start with improved play against the Broncos, Chiefs, and Chargers.

Since 2002, the Raiders record against Denver is four wins and ten losses, against the Chiefs it is 3 wins and 11 losses, and versus the Chargers (you may want to close your eyes) it is one win and thirteen losses! Ouch...

That win against the Chargers came back in 2003, since then it has been 0-for Southern California. Maybe now with LaDainian Tomlinson gone the curse of the Bolts will be lifted!

The Raiders have to turn things around, and they need to start doing it this season. Any loss is hard, but getting beat up by your divisional opponents as the Raiders have just makes losing that much more difficult to take.

The last few years the Raiders have split with the Broncos and Chiefs, now Oakland needs to start sweeping these two teams as they march back up the AFC West standings.

More importantly, the Raiders have to begin to at least split games with San Diego, and that has to start this season. No exceptions. San Diego is good, but they can be beat. Oakland had a very good chance of doing this opening night last season. This season there can be no excuses, San Diego must go down; and they must go down hard!

As the Raiders climb back up that mountain of respectability, which AFC West team do you look forward to Oakland beating the most? Any win is nice in the NFL. Any division win is icing on the cake. Here's hoping the Raiders have a lot of icing on the cake in the 2010 season.