Chargers Game Thoughts

[AZ54]

After spending most of their air time praising the Chargers and giving them credit for fighting through multiple injuries ESPN analysts were lost when talking about the Bears, especially after the game was over. Did you know the Chargers had to play with several backup Oline players? Poor Chargers. Did you see the Chargers were missing two of their top 3 WRs? Blah blah blah... let's play some football!

 

Oline:

Not a whole lot of goodness here with plenty of mistakes all the way around but for the most part the offense was effective enough in the run game and passing game. Ducasse again lined up at LG so he'll be on the bench when Grasu returns leaving Omameh at RG. Kyle Long didn't have a good game.

 

WR:

Jeffrey needed to wake up, maybe the big stage was on his mind early, but way too many drops in the first half. He made up for it later. Cutler didn't want to look at anyone else (except Bennett) most of the game.

 

TE:

Bennett looked more focused this week. Maybe the praise from the coaches this past week regarding his all-around game made him feel better. Zach Miller finally showed up in the passing game in a big way. Need to fix the Oline so we can get him out in space more often.

 

RB: I believe we have seen the future in Langford. Numbers weren't great on the ground but he was consistently productive and he was excellent in receiving. More important were the solid blitz pickups on the road where clearly the Chargers intended to challenge Langford. You'd have a hard time convincing a casual observer who the 1st Rd RB was in this game. I liked what Carey did as well, quick decisive inside running. The offense can survive with these two players as a 1:2 combo, plus we had a brief sighting of Antone Smith.

 

Cutler: Big mistakes early but I believe the jersey pull that Verrett did on Jeffrey's inside shoulder as he made his cut kept him off balance and unable to come back for the ball. Both the QB and WR responded in a big way after that. In the NFL you will face adversity, and bad plays (several from Kyle Long, Slauson, Leno, Jeffrey) but Cutler kept the entire offense focused and fighting late into the game. That's what good teams and leaders do.

 

 

Dline/OLB: McPhee played another good game. He's just all-in on every play. Broken record warning: We still need more pass rush. We had a UPR sighting (Unidentified Pass Rusher): Houston decided he'd had enough watching Willie Young play and made several excellent plays on the Chargers last drive. Not only the two sacks but he was right in Rivers face and forced him to throw the ball down field on their last play or he'd have had a 3rd sack. I hope he learns from this. He's not a finesse pass rusher, he needs to attack OTs physically like McPhee does, and as he did on that last drive. On Houston's first sack Sutton had an excellent bull rush up the middle that kept Rivers from moving up in the pocket. Overall throughout the game the run defense was good and they held Gordon to just 31 yards rushing on 11 attempts, Woodhead OTOH did some damage on a couple plays but giving up just 77 total yards rushing is pretty good.

 

ILB: Anderson needs to get back to the bench. He's slow on every play, lost in his assignments. Not that we shouldn't expect some of this but it's too often. Half the time he's in Jones' way preventing him from making a play. He may be out of shape or just beat down mentally but he wasn't hustling late in the game. It seemed Rivers targeted the ILBs on 80% of their pass plays, and he should have because the routes were wide open. I hope SMC is back soon.

 

CBs: Callahan may end up a good player for us. Kid makes some plays and even when beat recovers quickly. There wasn't much spectacular here but they made some good plays and gave up some plays especially early. Passes defended is slowly trending upward. Again, most of the damage in the passing game was done around the ILBs and the DBs weren't challenged too often.

 

S: Amos keeps on showing up with a couple splash plays each game. I can't believe Woodhead got right up after that hit early in the game. If Amos could trust the ILBs in front of him he might be able to standout more. Rolle, even if he is assignment sound, is just two steps too slow to cover the deep part of the field. While I think bringing in his leadership this year was and is a good thing, I can't see him returning next year. At least not for $3mil and there is no dead money if we cut him.

 

Coaches: Solid performances on both sides of the ball. They keep getting something out of this roster when a 2-5 team could have easily folded on the road after two big mistakes on offense plus the early drive we gave up to the Chargers. ESPN couldn't do much more to dismiss our team but yet there the analysts were stunned afterwards and praising the coaches for putting these players in a position to win the game. If it weren't for Gould our special teams would have been good today.

[adam]

AZ,

I agree, we were playing with a Guard as a Center (or 3rd String Center), a converted Guard at RT, a backup LT, and backup Guards. So our entire Offensive Line was in new positions from where they were in preseason with multiple backups starting. We were missing Matt Forte who had accounted for over 1/3 of our offense, haven't had White all year and was missing Royal again. To me that was much worse than the O-Line woes of SD and missing Allen.

 

In regards to the game, the O-Line played decent enough to only allow one sack. The penalties were what killed us, but the TV never showed what Long did to get the penalty. The good part is we won with them playing like that, so if we get Grasu back and Ducasse can sit on his Duc-ass, we will be better next game (and will need to with the STL D-Line).

 

WR - Alshon was clearly over-hyped because you can tell by his reactions after the drops. On the Pick-6, there was a lot of contact at the top of the route, and he was actually stumbling backwards when the ball was thrown. A bad throw by Cutler, but without contact, Alshon easily makes a play on the ball. After that he just said throw me the damn ball and started to make plays. I like that mentality from him. Every other WR was non-existent, which is fine until they start rolling coverages.

 

TE - Probably the best all-around game for this group. They were everywhere, in the backfield, in the slot, on the outside, blocking, and making crazy catches. Miller's catch was Biletnikoff-esque, and one of the best catches all year. I love how it takes 3 dudes to take Bennett down.

 

RB - Langford had 4 yards per carry with a make shift line, and had a ridiculous catch himself. He has played numerous positions and can't just see the potential oozing from him. If he keeps this up, this will be Forte's last year as a Bear. Carey looked solid as well. What I liked about both of those guys is they rarely went down on first contact (a lot of spin moves), and almost always fell forward.

 

Cutler - The INT is on him, but like you said, there was contact at the top of the route which moved Alshon off his spot. 345 yards, 67.5% with a few drops, 2 TDs, and an INT is a really good game. INTs are going to happen, but the only play I didn't like is the fumble on the only sack. He needs to practice having his arm hit and how to stick the ball in his gut. Otherwise, he orchestrated some huge drives (80, 93, 80), and was incredibly solid under pressure and in the 4th (again). Lastly, the game could've gotten away easily after the Pick-6 and 13 point deficit, but Cutler didn't seem flustered at all (he wasn't throwing tablets - ala Rodgers, or fighting on the sidelines).

 

DLine - Solid and stepped up when we needed them to. Houston came up big and redeemed himself after the penalty with 2 huge sacks when we needed pressure. The D-Line had a couple of batted balls (Sutton for sure) and only allowed Gordon 2.8 yards per carry. The Chargers only had 2 runs longer than 10 yards (10 and 15).

 

LBs - It is funny that you mention Anderson, he led the team with 11 solo tackles and next closest was Jones with 5. Sure there were a couple of cross up plays, but that will come with more playing time. I know on the Woodhead pass they got picked by Gates on the crossing route. On the Gates long pass, it looks like he was expecting short pass in the flats and didn't follow Gates. Definitely a blown assignment, but again, it is a good learning point to build on. Otherwise, I was totally impressed with the gap discipline on running plays. We rarely lost gap control and there was always an LB or Amos in there to make a play on the ball carrier. Overall a decent game from another young group in the middle. I would like to have seen more from McPhee and Acho.

 

CBs - Porter had a forced fumble and a huge pass defended on that last SD drive. Callahan wasn't get blown away and Fuller continues to make tackles. This group doesn't have much talent, so I would say this was a great game based on the talent level.

 

S - Amos is legit and getting him a partner will be one of the top priorities in the offseason. Rolle is there for leadership and was not a liability from what I saw. Yeah, you know Woodhead is feeling that hit today.

 

Special Teams - Gould was off, hopefully that is his only bad game of the year, because we can't afford to leave points of the board. Other than those missed kicks, a decent day covering kicks and Mariani actually had some positive returns. Also, I believe we didn't have any penalties on Special Teams, which helped keep field position.

 

Coaching - All around great game plan. I believe the game was not as close as the score indicates. Defense only allowed 13 points on the road. Offense scored 22 with 2 missed FG's. Pick-6 killed another potential scoring drive, and Long's penalty took us out of FG range on another drive. So that is a 15 point swing and makes it potentially an 18 point win. Over 33 minutes of possession, 58/42 Pass/Run split, 9/15 on 3rd Downs, only 6 penalties.

 

This team is very hard to read this year. The last 5 games have all been decided by 3 pts or less and we can be 5-3 just as easily as we can be 0-8. After seeing GB struggling of late, how Denver looked against IND, I think we can be competitive in every remaining game (though we will probably only win 3 or 4 of them).

 

Good team win, hopefully we can use this as a building block and string together a couple of wins.

[AZ54]

On Anderson ... sometimes a player leads in tackles because the other team keeps coming their way.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

On Anderson ... sometimes a player leads in tackles because the other team keeps coming their way.

They kept coming at him, but only 77 yds of rushing. Held 1st round pick Gordon to 31 yds and Woodhead to 33. That is good considering SD was missing nearly all of their starting WRs. Anderson was not drafted and playing as a rookie. It may take him a year to get accumulated to everything and we may have a solid/cheaper option when negotiating with Shea.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

They kept coming at him, but only 77 yds of rushing. Held 1st round pick Gordon to 31 yds and Woodhead to 33. That is good considering SD was missing nearly all of their starting WRs. Anderson was not drafted and playing as a rookie. It may take him a year to get accumulated to everything and we may have a solid/cheaper option when negotiating with Shea.

 

Very good point. And they made similar comments about Bryce Callahan and how well he played despite his background. I'm encouraged for the teams future based on what I'm seeing thus far. Reminds me a little of how Seattle built itself up about 4-5 years ago.

 

And at the risk of being burned (Jason), I'd like to see more of Mariani playing out of the slot. He may not be all that flashy in the return game but he made some nice catches last night and certainly looks like he could play the Amendola,Welker, Edelman role in the slot.

 

Speaking of return men, when are they going to give Smith a shot at it?

[AZ54]

They kept coming at him, but only 77 yds of rushing. Held 1st round pick Gordon to 31 yds and Woodhead to 33. That is good considering SD was missing nearly all of their starting WRs. Anderson was not drafted and playing as a rookie. It may take him a year to get accumulated to everything and we may have a solid/cheaper option when negotiating with Shea.

 

Run defense was ok, passing defense not so good. He is young and I'm not giving up on him he just needs more time to learn.

[jason]

Very good point. And they made similar comments about Bryce Callahan and how well he played despite his background. I'm encouraged for the teams future based on what I'm seeing thus far. Reminds me a little of how Seattle built itself up about 4-5 years ago.

 

And at the risk of being burned (Jason), I'd like to see more of Mariani playing out of the slot. He may not be all that flashy in the return game but he made some nice catches last night and certainly looks like he could play the Amendola,Welker, Edelman role in the slot.

 

Speaking of return men, when are they going to give Smith a shot at it?

 

Don't get me wrong. I hate, HATE, LOATHE Mariani as a return man. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have WR abilities. That remains to be seen of course, but those two skills are different. If he's kept around as a WR, and he can prove to get out of breaks without DBs drenched all over him, then more power to him. The Bears need WRs who can get open. Period. It's why I've wanted Welker the entire year. I don't care how tall or fast someone is. All I care about is whether they can get open and catch the ball.