New Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce has not been shy about his mentality as he molds the team in his image. “Ill intent” is a phrase that Pierce has tossed around and it sums up the way the Raiders finished last season pretty well.
The offense under Pierce immediately focused on the running game, and he coined running back Josh Jacobs, one of the team's leaders. Unfortunately, the former First-Team All-Pro and NFL rushing champ left for the Packers in free agency this off-season. Still, the Raiders will no doubt continue to make the ground game a huge part of the offense.
Elsewhere in the division, this mentality is shared with another coaching staff. New Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh has long been known for his ground attack and just won a national championship at Michigan with it.
The Broncos will likely be starting a rookie quarterback and Sean Payton is expected to use the ground game often to lighten his load. As he did in New Orleans with Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, expect a split workload with heavy usage.
Finally, Kansas City just won another Super Bowl by reinventing themselves into a much more physical team up front with bulldozing running back Isiah Pacheco. As an old-school disciple of the West Coast offense, this has to make head coach Andy Reid quite happy.
With the ground game expected to be such a large part of this division next season, who has the best group of ball carriers?