I mean, OK, the Faders are living up to their name, the Bolts will probably dismantle their team starting with the GM and working down and the Chiefs started 0-4, just fired their coach and started Orton. And, of course, many people consider our 8 wins a literal act of God. Yet... the LAST place AFC West team is 6-8 and just gave the defending SB Champs their first loss in 364 days.
Every other Division cellar dweller would kill for records that good (Shannys 'Skins are closest, but needed an upset against the Giants yesterday to reach 5 wins.) 10 other teams have worse records (and an eleventh, Philly, has an equal record; the NFC East has a similar level of parity every year, and playing each other 6 times means they're always better than their records.) The rest of the Division has records as good as or better than 16 other teams (i.e. is by definition no worse than average.) The Bolts are third place in the West, but would be tied for second in three other Divisions (admittedly, one of those is the always awful NFC West and the other is the NFC East.)
http://espn.go.com/nfl/standings
This years scheduling pit the AFC West against itself, the NFC North, AFC East and a team each from the AFC North and South. That's 3 of the 4 teams in the last Conference Championships, plus the Pats and Lions. In addition, we played Cincy, Chokeland played Houston, SD played Baltimore and KC played GB. The AFC West team won all but one of those games.
Compare that to:
NFC West vs. NFC East (Dallas and the Giants) and AFC North (Pitt, Baltimore and Cincy.)
NFC North vs. NFC South (NO and Atlanta) and AFC West (us.)
NFC South vs. NFC North (GB, Chicago and Detroit) and AFC South (Houston.)
NFC East vs. NFC West (SF) and AFC East (NE and the Jets)
AFC North vs. AFC South (Houston) and NFC West (SF.)
AFC South vs. AFC North (Baltimore, Pitt and Cincy) and NFC South (NO and Atlanta.)
The AFC South and NFC West actually had a fairly tough schedule (I might have to take SF seriously) but otherwise every Division had an easier time than the AFC West. You have to ask yourself if the NFC (and AFC) North is really that good, or simply benefits from the fact its only hard games are against itself.
Regardless, and however our own season ends, it seems like the AFC West may not be great, but isn't too bad either. Note that that's not really good news for Denver; we have to play six games against those teams next year, half of them on the road, and compete with all of them for the Division title.