The NFL released all of the schedules for the 2022 season on Thursday and while the LA Chargers definitely won the schedule release day with a hilarious anime video, there are more takeaways for the Bolts than just their own schedule.
The AFC West is a loaded division this year and it is going to be a slugfest all season. It is better for the Chargers if their AFC West foes have tougher schedules with travel and other aspects, making those three schedules just as important as the Chargers'.
While we are not going to go through and predict the outcome of every game for the AFC West foes as we did with the Chargers, we do have takeaways about the other AFC West schedules in 2022.
Here is one key takeaway the Chargers might have about each AFC West foes' schedule:
Kansas City Chiefs: The 2022 schedule is even tougher than initially thought
If we use Warren Sharp's method of predicting strength of schedule (which is absolutely the right way as it uses projected win totals for 2022 instead of 2021 record) then the Chiefs had the hardest strength of schedule in the league and it really was not even close. There is a bigger gap between the Chiefs and the second-hardest LA Rams than any other gap between teams.
We already knew that the Chiefs had a very tough schedule with a worse overall team and the NFL did not do the team any favors when it comes to their schedule, which should be music to the Chargers' ears.
First of all, the Chiefs' pre-bye week schedule is horrible. In the first month of the season they have just one home game, which is the Thursday Night Football game against the Chargers. Three of the Chiefs' first four games are on the road and the only home game is on a short week.
They have to start the season against the Arizona Cardinals, who are always better at the beginning of the season than the end, host the Chargers, then are on the road against the Colts and Buccaneers. KC then returns home for the Raiders and Bills before going into the bye. There is a world in which the Chiefs are 2-4 heading into the bye.
It gets a bit easier after the bye but the Chiefs have to play the LA teams in back-to-back weeks in Week 11 and 12 and then have three straight road games from Week 13 through 15 where they play the Bengals, Broncos and Texans. The Texans are obviously a pushover, but that travel is tough.