National Football League teams are currently in the process of reporting to training camp, and The Laurinburg Exchange is spending four days reporting on all 32 NFL teams.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we looked at the NFC, and now it's the AFC's turn. Today we'll examine the AFC West and the AFC South. The AFC South teams all have the same starting quarterbacks, and there is only one new head coach; more change occurred in the AFC West, where the San Diego Chargers are the only team that does not feature a different starting quarterback and head coach from Week 1 of the 2008 season.

AFC South

Tennessee Titans (13-3 in 2008): The Titans and Carolina Panthers shared several similarities last season. Carolina went 12-4 and Tennessee went 13-3 as both teams won their divisions. The Panthers featured one of the two most productive running back duos in football with DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart; Tennessee also had two highly productive backs with LenDale White and rookie Chris Johnson.

Both teams also earned a bye week before losing their respective playoff openers. Tennessee was upset at home by Baltimore, 13-10, marking the latest in a series of highly-physical playoff battles between the two former division rivals in the last decade.

Tennessee —second in the NFL in points allowed (14.6 ppg) in 2008 — has a major void to fill with the departure of defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth to Washington. Haynesworth is viewed by some as the best defensive player in the NFL over the past couple of seasons: The attention he demands makes it easier for the other defensive linemen to make plays; it allows the defense to pressure opposing quarterbacks without blitzing; and it makes the secondary better by reducing the amount of time they are forced to cover.

Tennessee is 4-11 since 2004 in games Haynesworth doesn't start. Jason Jones recorded five sacks in limited action as a rookie last year, and the Titans signed Jovan Haye from Tampa Bay in the off-season. These two players are being counted on to provide some semblance of the presence "Fat Albert" gave the Titans on the interior.

Will Vince Young ever get another chance in Tennessee? Young led the Titans to the playoffs in 2007, but lost his job to Kerry Collins last season and may have to be content to watch from the sidelines again this season. The Titans gave Collins a two-year, $15 million contract in the off-season and have already declared him the 2009 starter.

Jacksonville Jaguars (5-11): Can quarterback David Garrard regain his 2007 form? Garrard, an eight-year veteran out of East Carolina, threw 18 touchdowns and just three interceptions in 2007 while leading the Jags all the way to the AFC Championship game, where he played well in a loss to New England.

Last year, he threw 15 TD passes and 13 INTs, and his rating dropped from 102.2 to 81.7. Help was brought in with the signing of former St. Louis Rams receiver Torry Holt, but Holt is 33 and considered to be in the twilight of his career.

Holt had a poor season by his standards in '08 with 64 catches, 796 yards and three touchdowns, and he seems to have lost a step. There is a good chance, however, that he is still better than those numbers suggest, and that he simply did not have the opportunity to make plays on a horrific Rams team.

With Fred Taylor now in New England, can Maurice Jones-Drew carry the load as the Jaguars' featured back? Jones-Drew has carried the ball over 20 times in just five games during his career.

Houston Texans (8-8): The Texans finished strong last season, winning five of their last six games to end their second consecutive season with a .500 record. Houston has still never had a winning season or made the playoffs since coming into the NFL in 2002. To do so this season, the team will have to improve a defense that ranked 22nd in yards allowed (336.6) and 27th in points (24.6) allowed last season.

With defensive end Mario Williams, middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans and cornerback Dunta Robinson, Houston has a major building block at all three levels of its defense. The Texans went out and signed veteran linebacker Cato June from Tampa Bay and defensive end Antonio Smith from the Arizona Cardinals, and No. 15 overall pick Brian Cushing of Southern Cal should start as a rookie at outside linebacker. The Texans look — at least on paper — to have improved on the defensive side of the ball.

Houston had the No. 3 offense in pro football last season, and their offense features one of the top five receivers in the game with Andre Johnson. Johnson led the NFL with 103 reception in 2006, he led the league with 95.6 receiving yards per game in 2007, and last year he led the NFL in catches with 115 and receiving yards with 1,575.

Johnson is sometimes lost in the conversation of the game's best receivers, and also the argument over the wideouts with the most freakish athletic ability. Johnson is 6-foot-3, weighs in the neighborhood of 230 pounds, runs a 4.4 40-yard dash and has a 41-inch vertical leap. There is certainly a place for him in both discussions.

How do players like Steve Slaton slip so far in the NFL draft? Slaton ran for 3,923 yards and 52 touchdowns in three seasons at West Virginia, but slipped into the third round of the 2008 draft due to questions about his size, durability and the fact he played in a spread offense at WVU.

The 5-foot-9, 190-pound Slaton proved that he is big enough, tough enough and more than a product of the spread as he rushed for 1,282 yards and nine touchdowns while averaging 4.8 yards per tote as a rookie.

Indianapolis Colts (12-4): Peyton Manning was magnificent last season. Coming back from a knee injury that required a second surgery to stop a scary infection that had taken hold in the summer, Manning looked shaky early on, but came on to throw for over 4,000 yards and 27 touchdowns while leading the Colts to wins in their final nine regular-season games and collecting his third MVP trophy.

Indianapolis has a fully healthy Manning going into 2009, and that automatically makes the Colts Super Bowl contenders.

The biggest question surrounding the 2009 Colts is the retirement of Tony Dungy and the transition the team must make to first-year head coach Jim Caldwell. The X's and O's are one thing, but emotionally, how does this team respond to its new coach after having a man in Dungy that was so adored and respected by all of his players for so many years?

With Marvin Harrison gone, Anthony Gonzalez will take over the No. 2 receiver spot, lining up opposite Reggie Wayne. That leaves a likely battle between Pierre Garcon and Roy Hall at the slot receiver; the two have combined for five catches and 32 yards in their NFL careers.

New defensive coordinator Larry Coyer wants to put an emphasis on bigger players and more pressure. Dungy's defenses were always undersized and relied on speed while rarely sending more than the defensive line after the quarterback. It will be interesting to see how this major shift in defensive philosophies plays out in Indy.

AFC West

San Diego Chargers (8-8): Last year in San Diego showed how important one player can be. With the loss of outside linebacker Shawne Merriman — who missed 15 games with a blown PCL and LCL in his left knee — the Chargers dropped from fifth to 15th in points allowed, and from 14th to 25th in total defense.

San Diego's hopes of winning the Super Bowl this season depend on the healthy return of "Lights Out," a player who garnered his nickname while knocking four players unconscious during the first half of a game at Frederick Douglas High School in Maryland.

Football is a game predicated on violence, and nowhere in the NFL can a more violent player than a healthy Merriman be found. He has 39 1/2 sacks and has been an All-Pro and a Pro Bowler in each of his first three full seasons.

San Diego has been referred to as a team with as much talent as anyone by NFL pundits the last four years. There is now the belief that the window of opportunity for this core group of players closes after 2009. Merriman, quarterback Phillip Rivers, running back LaDainian Tomlinson, receiver Vincent Jackson and left tackle Marcus McNeill are all in contract years.

Tomlinson is now 30, and his production slipped considerably last season. Pony-sized Darren Sproles emerged as a key weapon when L.T. was banged up last year, and Tomlinson could be asked to share carries with Sproles this season.

Tomlinson believes Emmitt Smith's all-time rushing record is attainable. Will Tomlinson, regarded as a class act throughout his Hall of Fame-bound career, be willing to accept a reduced role for the good of the team?

Denver Broncos (8-8): Bill Belichick is a modern football genius. He was helping his father, Steve, an assistant coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, break down film by the age of 7. He has won three Super Bowls in an era that was intended to exclude dynasties and level the playing field for all teams. Belichick devised — in Super Bowl XXXVI as head coach of the Patriots, and in Super Bowl XXV as defensive coordinator of the New York Giants — what are arguably the two greatest defensive game plans ever brought into the final game of the season.

Belichick's coaching tree is not quite as impressive. There have been Belichick understudies who have gone on to fail as head coaches. Romeo Crennel in Cleveland, and Eric Mangini and Al Groh (both with the Jets) have all been fired after short and unsuccessful stints as head coaches. Another former Belichick assistant, Charlie Weis, currently finds himself on the hot seat at Notre Dame after failing to revive that once proud program.

New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels landed his first head coaching job with the Denver Broncos this off-season, and the young coach has made plenty of noise before coaching even a preseason game. The Broncos ended up having to trade Jay Cutler after Cutler learned that McDaniels was interested in swapping him for quarterback Matt Cassel, who McDaniels worked with in New England.

Once the Broncos agreed to trade Cutler, McDaniels turned down a proposed deal from the Washington Redskins that would have sent their QB, Jason Campbell, along with draft picks. The Broncos ended up with Kyle Orton, formerly of Chicago, and he is the team's likely starter in '09. We don't know what kind of coach McDaniels will be, but we would be safe in assuming that he thinks more highly of Cassel than he does Cutler, and he believes Orton is a better player than Campbell. I think time will show McDaniels to be very wrong in both of those opinions.

Knowshon Moreno ran disappointing 40-yard dash times of 4.6 seconds leading into the draft. Moreno looked like a 4.4 or even a 4.3 guy during two spectacular years at Georgia, and the Broncos might have their best running back since Terrell Davis' career was cut short by a catastrophic knee injury.

Denver's switch to a 3-4 defense is likely to be a failure this season. The Broncos simply do not have the personnel necessary to succeed in a 3-4 as of now. Denver will be depending heavily on rookie Robert Ayers (the 18th overall pick) to make an impact. Ayers — who played his high school football right down the road at Marlboro High School — played defensive end at Tennessee, and is making the switch to outside linebacker in the NFL.

Oakland (5-11): How badly did Oakland mess up in the first round of this year's draft? By taking Maryland's Darrius Heyward-Bey at No. 7, three picks ahead of Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree and 15 spots ahead of Florida's Percy Harvin, the Raiders proved once again why they're in a perennial struggle with the Cincinnati Bengals for the title of NFL's most poorly run team.

Heyward-Bey, a workout wonder who barely made a peep in three seasons at Maryland, seems destined to show again why putting a kid in track clothes and having him run in a straight line does little to show what type of football player he is. The Oakland rookie reportedly struggled in mini-camp workouts, showing the inconsistent hands that every other NFL team besides Oakland probably knew about heading into the draft.

The older owner Al Davis gets, the more strange things become in Oakland. One thing I noticed during Davis' press conference announcing the firing of Lane Kiffin last season was how Davis unintentionally threw some of his own players under the bus by saying that Kiffin was in favor of acquiring certain players, and he should have been able to own up to that fact after the players under-performed. Davis listed the players by name; if you can put two and two together, it's pretty unbelievable what Davis was saying in this press conference.

Last season, former Raider Warren Sapp, retired and working for the NFL Network, stated that he knew for a fact that Davis called down plays to the coaches from the owner's box in his last two seasons in Oakland. Again, unbelievable.

The Raiders ranked second-to-last in the NFL against the run (159.7 ypg) last season, and they return the same front seven this season, with the exception of Greg Ellis, who was more of a pass rush specialist in his first 11 NFL seasons with Dallas.

Ellis complained constantly over money and playing time his last three years with the Cowboys. He should be happy now, since the Raiders have paid him and promised him an every-down role. Ellis is returning to his natural position of defensive end, three years after former Dallas coach Bill Parcells turned him into a 3-4 outside linebacker.

Kansas City (2-14): Is Matt Cassel the real deal? Kansas City thinks so. The Chiefs traded for Cassel and gave him a six-year, $60 million contract extension this off-season, this after Cassel filled in for the injured Tom Brady in New England by throwing for 3,693 yards, 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

One thing to keep in mind: This is Kansas City, not New England, and the talent is not the same. Cassel's numbers from last year look good, until compared to Tom Brady's in 2007. Running the same exact offense with virtually the same supporting cast, Brady completed 398-for-578 pass attempts for 4,806 yards (third best all-time) and 50 touchdowns (best all-time) versus only eight interceptions, and a 117.2 passer rating (second best all-time).

Kansas City's defense was 31st in yards allowed (393.2) last season, and the Chiefs have become yet another team to switch to a 3-4 defense. The Chiefs used their first three picks in this year's draft on defense, taking LSU defensive end Tyson Jackson third overall before getting Purdue defensive end Alex Magee in the third round and Ohio State cornerback Donald Washington in the fourth round.

K.C. also brought in three veterans to the defense: safety Mike Brown (10th year) from Chicago, linebacker Zach Thomas (14th year) from Dallas, and New England Patriot linebacker Mike Vrabel (13th year).

Running backs who are used too often early in their careers usually don't last long, particularly the more physical backs. Larry Johnson set an NFL record with 416 carries in 2006, rushing for 1,789 yards and 17 touchdowns that year.

In the two seasons since? Johnson has less carries (351), yards (1,433) and touchdowns (eight), by far, then he did in 2006 alone.

Coming up on Friday: We'll complete our preseason look at the NFL by breaking down the AFC North and the AFC East divisions.

Michael Gilliland is sports editor of The Laurinburg Exchange. Write to him at mgilliland@laurinburgexchange.com.