The Good the Bad and the Ugly…
The Chargers lost their season opener in Arizona, (18-17). A stomach churning, gut wrenching defeat, filled with mistakes and more mistakes. What should have been a win-turns into a loss.-.
It was the “Good-Bad-Ugly”, a terrible game to watch, and an awful ending in a game they will regret losing before the season is over.
GOOD…The young players showed up and held up well. CB-Jason Verrett had 4-passes defended, made strong open field tackles, and was not overwhelmed. Linebacker Jerry Attaochu had a quarterback sack, a forced fumble, and a blocked punt, and was really active.
Dwight Freeney, a year removed from playing, had five QB-pressures, and two near sacks, though ran out of gas late in the game. Corey Liuget had 2-tackles early and a sack but disappeared in the second half too..
Ryan Mathews kept plugging away and broke off a couple of good runs. Malcom Floyd and Antonio Gates played exceptionally well.
BAD…This year’s pass defense looked like last year’s 29th ranked pass defense. They bracketed star WR-Larry Fitzgerald, containing him till late in the 4th quarter, but everyone else caught passes.
The Bolts secondary have 4-pass defense penalties that resulted in lst downs. That secondary gave up 16-plays of 11-yards or more, and by the time the damage was done, they had allowed (409Y) of Cardinal offense. Arizona hit big plays of 20-25 and 63-yards.
The wide receiver group had 4-dropped passes. The offensive line got beat time and time again at the point of attack, and lost OC-Nick Hardwick with an ankle problem early.
QB Philip Rivers bore the brunt of 4-big time hits in the pocket. He had his own personal nightmare, mishandling a shotgun snap, throwing one pick and a second likely one that was voided by a bogus pass interference call. He was pressured and not very accurate over the course of the evening. His offensive line had a poor outing.
The debut of new offensive coordinator Frank Reich was shaky, in terms of getting the calls in, and having Rivers call plays in the noise at the line of scrimmage. The Bolts had just 2-series where they looked like the offense of a year ago.
UGLY…How this ended up with dropped passes, a couple of wasted possessions late, and the likely regret, though this only counts as one loss in the standings, they may regret not stealing this win.
Arizona won ugly and the Chargers played ugly, and it was a likely win turned into a loss.
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Very disappointing performance across the board. Verrett did look good.Reich doesn’t know how to adjust or use his weapons.