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          Tight playoff race? Raiders one of three seven-win teams -- in AFC West

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          Carr expecting to get every opponents' best (1:21)

          Raiders quarterback Derek Carr talks about his excitement to play on Monday Night Football in Mexico City and his expectation for opponents to give Oakland everything they have. (1:21)

          • Paul Gutierrez, ESPN Staff WriterNov 15, 2016, 12:00 PM
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              Paul Gutierrez joined NFL Nation in 2013 and serves as its Las Vegas Raiders reporter. He has a multi-platform role - writing on ESPN.com, television appearances on NFL Live and SportsCenter, and podcast and radio appearances. Before coming to ESPN, Gutierrez spent three years at CSN Bay Area as a multi-platform reporter, covering the Raiders and Oakland Athletics as well as anchoring the SportsNet Central cable news show. Gutierrez votes for the Baseball Hall of Fame and is also a member of the Professional Football Writers of America and currently serves as the PFWA's Las Vegas chapter president. He is also a member of the California Chicano News Media Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Gutierrez has authored three books: Tommy Davis' Tales from the Dodgers Dugout, 100 Things Raiders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die and If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Raiders Sideline, Locker Room and Press Box with Lincoln Kennedy. You can follow Paul on Twitter @PGutierrezESPN
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          ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Jack Del Rio planned on plopping down on his couch, flipping on the TV and watching some NFL RedZone this past weekend as the Oakland Raiders enjoyed their bye week.

          "It keeps you right in the middle of the action," the Raiders coach said before the team adjourned. "I typically like to have a game on and the RedZone on. Pretty good at watching, but most of the time we're playing, so I don't get to enjoy it like I will this weekend."

          He could not have truly enjoyed what he witnessed, though.

          Because while it was far from a lost weekend for the Raiders, their week off seemed a lot more promising in terms of taking control of the AFC West as the early games entered the fourth quarter on Sunday.

          A near-miraculous, and suspect, finish in New Orleans and reigning NFL MVP Can Newton melting down at home helped tighten the league's best division.

          Throwing in tiebreakers (yes, I realize there are still seven games to go for Oakland, but bear with me on this for the purposes of this exercise), the Kansas City Chiefs (7-2) now lead the AFC West, followed by the Raiders (7-2), courtesy of the Chiefs' 26-10 thumping of the Raiders on Oct. 16, and the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos (7-3), who enjoy their bye this week.

          As such, if the playoffs began tomorrow, Oakland, despite being tied for having the best record in the AFC with the Chiefs and New England Patriots, would be a wild card and the No. 5 seed in the conference, behind No. 1 New England, No. 2 Kansas City, No. 3 Houston (6-3) and No. 4 Baltimore (5-4), with the Broncos at No. 6 (the Texans and Ravens would be seeded higher than the Raiders, who have a better record, due to leading their respective divisions). The Raiders would thus have to travel to Baltimore for a wild-card round game.

          From Oakland's perspective, how much rosier would the Raiders' postseason picture look with the Raiders at 7-2, the Chiefs at 6-3 and the Broncos at 6-4? The Raiders would be the No. 2 seed, behind the Patriots, and have a bye that first weekend.

          And that's how it would have been were it not for the Broncos' and Chiefs' respective late-game heroics in New Orleans and Carolina, respectively. In fact, it still would have looked that way had the Chiefs lost ... but I digress.

          "Talk about a finish, man, both those teams came back and that's just a testament to the division that we play in," Raiders quarterback Derek Carr told ESPN's Chris Berman in a satellite interview during halftime of Monday night's game between the Cincinnati Bengals and New York Giants.

          "I believe it's the toughest in the NFL and it showed, definitely on Sunday, that you can never count them out and they came back and both had some big wins so there's a lot of teams at the top right now in the AFC West."

          The Broncos pulled off a victory as shocking as it was controversial when Justin Simmons leaped over Saints long-snapper Justin Drescher, after Jared Crick pushed him down so Simmons would not make contact with him on his leap, to block Wil Lutz's potentially game-winning point-after attempt with 1:22 remaining.

          Instead, Will Parks picked up the ball and ran it back 85 yards for a two-point score, even as it appeared he may have stepped out of bounds on the return. His white cleats, though, made it tough to tell if he stepped on the sideline. So instead of a 24-23 Saints lead with less than 90 seconds to play, the Broncos held on for the 25-23 victory.

          Meanwhile in Carolina, the defending NFC champion Panthers held a 17-3 lead in the fourth quarter but a 42-yard pick-six of Newton by Eric Berry, two punts after the Panthers' offense stalled and Marcus Peters stripping Kelvin Benjamin after a 14-yard pickup with 20 seconds to play set up Cairo Santos' last-second field goal to give Kansas City the 20-17 victory.

          "We'll take the bye weekend and watch some football and heal up, rest up," Del Rio said. "[We] told our guys, 'Get back here and be ready to go to work, and be smart about the choices you're making while you're gone.' That's what we expect from our guys -- to handle themselves well."

          Flipping between the Broncos and Chiefs games may have caused some unrest, as up for the challenge as the Raiders may be down the stretch.