Posted by ESPN.com's Bill Williamson
Over the course of the next few hours, I will explain why I picked the AFC West teams, teams I cover for ESPN.com, in the spots I did in our NFL power rankings. I will go from the top team down and in the AFC West it is a fast and hard slide down the rankings.
We start with San Diego. In the power rankings, we have the Chargers ranked No. 3. I ranked them No. 4. It's no slight to the Chargers. Anytime, anyone picks a team in the top five, it means the thought is 'this can be a Super Bowl team' and there's no doubt, I think the Chargers can be a Super Bowl team.
I was at San Diego's minicamp May 2-4 and this team is as loaded on the field as it is on paper. I often rank on the past in my preseason polls. Why? Because it is all we have to look at. Once the season starts, we have previous games to gage. On May 12, all we have is previous seasons. I thought the Giants, Patriots and Colts (even though San Diego beat them in the playoffs) had better overall seasons last season and they didn't do anything drastic in the offseason to become a lesser threat. So, the Chargers are fourth in my book. Again, it's No. 4 with a bullet.
