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Originally posted by cmplxgal
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I love hearing about players who excel.Now, if you excuse me, I have some Charger memories to suppress.
The Wasted Decade is done.
Build Back Better. -
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You're right, you can find a good kicker from the UDFA but, is a dependable kicker like Tucker worth a fifth round pick? I think they are. If I could get a real dependable kicker with my fifth round pick, I'd pull the trigger!Originally posted by CivilBolt View PostTHE YEAR OF THE FLIP!Comment
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Yep kickers are hit and miss. Keading was a 3rd round pickOriginally posted by CivilBolt View PostComment
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I like that Ekeler is not being overused, especially this early on in the season, although another RB has to step up consistently to make this work as the season goes on. Ekeler is such a dynamic playmaker that he can create problems even when he is not targeted, which opens up things for others.Originally posted by Velo View PostComment
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Yep. Good for Alohi. Nice to see fringe players make an impact. Indicative of decent depthOriginally posted by Formula 21 View PostComment
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Popper’s takeaways from yesterday’s game. Towards the end, he mentions that he’s not as worried about Vizcaro because of the windy conditions yesterday.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chargersimproved to 2-1 with a thrilling 30-24 win over the Chiefs on Sunday afternoon. It was the Chargers’ first win in an AFC West opener since 2014.
Here are my takeaways.
Aggressive coaching decisions
In Week 2 of last season, the Chargers lost a heartbreaker to the Chiefs at SoFi Stadium in Justin Herbert’s NFL debut. Facing a fourth-and-1 from his own 34-yard line in overtime, Anthony Lynn made the now-infamous decision to punt the ball to Kansas City. Patrick Mahomes then led the Chiefs on a game-winning field goal drive.
What a difference a year makes.
There is so much to delve into from this game, and, trust me, we will get into all of it. But I have to start by highlighting two bold, aggressive fourth-down decisions from Brandon Staley — both because they were critical in the Chargers leaving Arrowhead with a win and because they signify a massive shift in philosophy with the team’s new head football coach.
By now, it is obvious what kind of mentality a team needs to compete with and have a chance to beat the Chiefs. Keep the ball out of Mahomes’ hands at all costs. Maintain possession, and turn those possessions into touchdowns. And that means being ultra-aggressive on fourth downs. Field goals will not cut it. Punts can be a death sentence.
This is not a novel point. But seeing it in practice with the Chargers was truly a sight to behold.
The Chargers led 14-0 with 2:30 remaining in the first half. Then the Chiefs went on their run, scoring 17 unanswered points, including two third-quarter touchdowns. It felt like the game was slipping away. Herbert and the offense got the ball back with 3:35 left in the third quarter. They drove 43 yards into Chiefs territory before Keenan Allen was dropped for no gain after a catch in the flat on third-and-4.
The Chargers offense never left the field. On fourth-and-4 from the Kansas City 28-yard line, Herbert split two defenders with a missile to his left to Allen. Two plays later, Herbert connected with Mike Williams on a 20-yard touchdown down the right sideline, and the Chargers took a 21-17 lead, ending the unanswered points spell.
“When they make their run, we got to come together as a team and find our way,” Staley said. “And I felt like that’s what we did a good job of.”
That was a gutsy and necessary call from Staley. But it was far from his gutsiest decision of the afternoon.
Late in the fourth quarter, with the game tied at 24, the Chargers faced another fourth-and-4 from Kansas City territory. Initially, Staley sent Tristan Vizcaino and the field goal team on for a 49-yard attempt. But he took a timeout and changed his mind. Calamity appeared to strike when rookie left tackle Rashawn Slater jumped before the snap for a false start. The penalty moved the Chargers back 5 yards and set up a fourth-and-9.
With 20 mile-per-hour winds swirling at Arrowhead and less than a minute remaining in regulation, most coaches in the NFL would have punted the ball away.
Not Staley.
Herbert took the snap in shotgun formation and threw to Jalen Guyton on a comeback route near the right sideline. Chiefs cornerback DeAndre Baker was grabbing and holding Guyton while the ball was in the air. Pass interference. First down Chargers.
On the next play, Herbert saw Williams in single coverage and floated a back-shoulder ball down the left sideline for a 16-yard gain. Then came the game-winning touchdown on a fade to Williams on a first-and-goal from the 4-yard line.
“We’re not here to participate. We’re here to compete. We’re here to win,” Staley said to his team of the fourth downs after the game, according to a video tweeted by the Chargers team account. “And when you’ve got people that you believe in, it’s the easiest decision in the world.”
“We wanted to put the ball in Justin Herbert’s hand and have him be the decider,” Staley said of the fourth-and-9 in his postgame news conference.
Quite simply, the Chargers do not win this game if Staley is conservative on either of those fourth downs.
Staley said all the right things in his media sessions during the spring and summer. He said he was forward thinking. He said he had a desire to lean into analytics. But I always approached these comments with a caveat: What would happen when he was faced with these decisions in actual football games? Actions speak louder than words, of course.
Well, we got our answer Sunday.
It was not just talk.
“Any time you play an offense that’s this historic, when you’re playing against three players, really, that are historic players in the game, you have to be aggressive,” Staley said. “Not reckless, but you have to be aggressive. And I felt like all of our decisions were sound decisions. They weren’t overaggressive, I felt like they were just aggressive.”
Just aggressive enough to beat one of the best teams in football. The wind was a factor, for sure. But so was Staley’s chutzpah.
“Coach, he’s a dog,” Williams said.
An outstanding defensive performance
The Chargers entered this game with a specific defensive game plan, and they more or less executed it to perfection.
Limit explosive plays. Contain Mahomes in the pocket. Force him to drive the ball methodically down the field. Take the ball away.
They achieved all those goals, and that was a major reason they won this game.
The Chiefs only had two passing plays of more than 20 yards — both to Kelce, one for 23 and one for 28. Just as importantly, these completions came in the structure of the play. Mahomes did virtually no damage in off-script situations. That was critical.
The Chargers effectively held Mahomes to only 24 scramble yards, since 21 came on one run late in the fourth quarter with the Chiefs needing a touchdown to tie the game.
“Our rushers, they didn’t just fly up the field and let Mahomes just take off,” safety Derwin James said. “They knew the game plan, they came out and they kept him in the pocket as much as they could.”
The Chiefs had three touchdown drives. Mahomes needed double-digit plays to find the end zone on all three — 12 plays, 10 plays and 12 plays. The Chiefs averaged five minutes, 40 seconds on their touchdown drives. The run defense was far from stellar, and some of the struggles there kept the Chiefs in the game despite four turnovers. Taking away Mahomes’ scramble yards, the Chiefs totaled 141 yards on 26 carries for a 5.4 yards-per-carry average. The Chargers also lost contain on several jet sweeps that were technically passes because Mahomes shoveled it forward. But, as Staley said, “I can live with that (versus) that team.”
The Chargers held Mahomes to 5.9 yards per attempt. It was only the third time Mahomes finished with a YPA under 6.0 in his career.
“Defensively, we kept our composure. We were forcing them to drive the field,” Staley added. “They weren’t knockout punches.”
Finally, there were the turnovers. The Chargers forced four of them. Tevaughn Campbell, who played the star position defending the slot with Chris Harris out, forced two fumbles in the first half. Asante Samuel Jr. had his second interception in as many games in the first quarter, hauling in a tipped ball after a Mahomes no-look throw in the red zone. And Alohi Gilman came down with the first interception of his career with less than two minutes remaining in the game, which set up the game-winning score. Mahomes escaped pressure and overthrew Kelce deep.
The Chargers scored 20 of their 30 points off turnovers.
“You have to take the ball away to beat that team,” James said.
“That’s like a perfect situation,” Staley said of the four takeaways. “They’re just a really tough team to play against if you don’t because they score the ball so prolifically. So to be able to take away some of their turns, create more (opportunities) for your offense and then change the field position, I felt like that was really critical in the ballgame today.”
Campbell is a second-year player. Same with Gilman. Samuel Jr., of course, is a rookie.
“A turnover ain’t got no age on it,” James said.
Mike Williams has career day
I have written plenty about Williams already this season. But he deserves more shine. He just played the game of his life. Seven catches for 122 yards and two fourth-quarter touchdowns.
Williams is playing like one of the best receivers in football. He is tied for sixth in the league in receiving yards with 295. He is tied for fifth in the league with 22 catches. And he is tied for the second in receiving touchdowns with four.
“This guy’s been fantastic,” Staley said.
“Mike Williams changes our offense,” Herbert said.
The connection between Williams and Herbert is blossoming before our eyes.
On his 20-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter, Williams was actually supposed to run a slant. But he beat Chiefs cornerback Mike Hughes so badly with his stutter-step release at the line of scrimmage that he took off down the sideline on a go route. Hughes jumped inside to defend the slant, and that opened the path. Williams threw his hand up immediately. Herbert somehow saw it despite Chris Jones barreling down on him after beating Storm Norton off the edge. He threw a perfect ball before getting walloped.
“Justin found me,” Williams said.
In last week’s mailbag, I wrote about how offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi is incorporating what Herbert called “advantage looks” into the Chargers’ RPO game. The Chargers have a run called at the line of scrimmage, but if Herbert sees one of his receivers in one-on-one coverage, he has the go-ahead to throw a quick pass on a slant, bubble or fade.
It happened on Williams’ touchdown catch against the Cowboys. And it happened again on the game-winner against the Chiefs.
There were only 36 seconds left when the Chargers faced a first-and-goal from the 4-yard line. Lombardi had called a run, but there was a tag on the play for a fade to Williams if he had single coverage to the left. According to Williams, Staley wanted to run the clock down. The Chiefs only had one timeout left. The Chargers could have milked the rest of the time off and kicked the game-winning field goal.
But Herbert saw the look he wanted. Williams was one-on-one. And they completed the fade for the touchdown.
“We wanted to put the ball in our offense’s hands, and so that was a run with a tag for an advantage situation, which we’ve done a really good job with this year,” Staley said. “When you have that good matchup that you like, certainly Mike Williams is one of those guys that we feel confident in.”
“Justin trusted me to go up and make a play,” Williams said, “and I made a play.”
Williams cannot be stopped right now. This is the vision the Chargers had for him when they drafted him with the No. 7 pick in 2017. Credit to Staley, Lombardi and the rest of the Chargers coaching staff for maximizing his immense talent through these first three games.
Herbert outplayed Mahomes
Let’s talk about Justin Herbert’s regression.
I kid.
Jokes aside, it was only a matter of time before Herbert put together a game like this. On film, he was playing like an elite quarterback. The stats were not matching up with the film. But that usually calibrates as the sample grows. And that is exactly what happened Sunday.
Herbert played a perfect game. He finished 26-of-38 passing for 281 yards and four touchdowns. All four touchdowns came on drives into the red zone. The Chargers’ red zone efficiency rebounded. They scored touchdowns on four of their five red zone drives. Herbert was a big part of that. On top of the two Williams touchdowns, Herbert hit Austin Ekeler for a 16-yard touchdown and Allen for a 4-yard touchdown in the first half. He also had a crucial third-down conversion on the game-winning drive on a pinpoint slant to Allen.
“He really played the position at a high level, showed high-level toughness,” Staley said.
Herbert did not turn the ball over. On multiple occasions, he passed on shot plays down the field off play action to play it safe.
“You have to play smart ball against these guys,” Herbert said.
News and notes
• Campbell got the start as the Chargers’ primary slot defender with Harris out. Staley said he wanted speed in the slot to match up with Mecole Hardman and Tyreek Hill. Campbell played a tremendous game. On top of the two forced fumbles, Campbell helped hold Hill to just 56 receiving yards on seven targets — 12 of which came on a jet sweep shovel pass. Hardman only totaled 35 scrimmage yards. “He was really the MVP out there today,” James said of Campbell.
• Linebacker Drue Tranquill played his most defensive snaps of the season and provided a spark. He replaced Kenneth Murray early in the second quarter and stayed in the rotation with Murray and Kyzir White for the remainder of the game. Tranquill finished with half a sack and also sniffed out a screen in the second quarter that led to a Chiefs punt.
• Edge rusher Joey Bosa was questionable for this game with a left ankle sprain. He started but tweaked the ankle in the first quarter. That limited his snaps. But Bosa still came through with a crucial third-down sack in the second quarter. “Joey Bosa exemplified the warrior spirit that you need in order to beat a team like this,” Staley said.
• James left the game briefly with a shoulder injury he suffered when colliding with Kelce. But he returned and finished the game. James said afterward that the injury is not serious. “I’ll be out there,” James said.
• The Chargers committed two more crucial illegal shift penalties, one week after an illegal shift overturned a touchdown in the loss to the Cowboys. One illegal shift came on a fourth-and-4 completion to Allen in the second quarter. The other overturned a touchdown on a play-action boot to fullback Gabe Nabersin the fourth quarter. The Chargers settled for a field goal on that drive. “Motion gives you a great chance to be successful. We want to be a motion team,” Staley said. “But there are some things that are happening out there that are, quite frankly, on me. We got to do a better job practicing, and we will, because we don’t want to have the procedural issues pre-snap. … We have not been clean enough.”
• The wind was vicious at Arrowhead on Sunday, so I am not putting too much stock in Vizcaino’s two missed extra points.
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I don't know why the other running backs aren't getting more snaps, though. Especially Jackson, who had only 7 (and only 2 rushes). Nabers (FB) had 9, Rountree had 11.Originally posted by BoltUp InLA View PostComment
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On the flip side we in the GDT don't like to see posters crying for firings and such after a bad series or play either.Originally posted by Bolt-O View Post
If they can't handle that, don't come in the GDT. They will be called out.Comment
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I guess that’s one upside to having few fans in the building. I do like how the one Chargers fan there was staying clear.Originally posted by UglyTruth View PostComment
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Slater wasn't flagged, it was Feiler.Comment
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Unless Feiler flinched which caused Slater to move the refs just got the number wrong.Originally posted by Bolt-O View PostComment
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