With Bosa out, the Chargers defense didn’t look the same, and from the start of the game the Chargers were playing from behind. Tyreek Hill retuned the Chargers first punt of the game 95 yards for a TD. Hill then proceeded to catch a slant route and broke a tackle and took it for a 60+ yard TD. The storyline of the day was Tyreek Hill’s monster day, he put up 7 receptions, 169 receiving yards, and 3 total TDs. I had hoped that the loss of Marcus Peters would fix the woes of the Chargers, but a new beast appeared, and he seems to be an even more formidable foe to the Chargers playoff aspirations.
The Chargers offense started slow, but once Gordon got moving they looked like a well-oiled machine. The use of the RB tandem in Gordon and Ekeler became lethal in the second half, in the receiving game they combined for 14 receptions, 189 yards and 1 TD, while combining for 103 rushing yards. The passing game is where the Chargers shined, Rivers had 424 passing yards to go with 3 TDs and 1 Int, he spread the ball well. Mike Williams managed to get 5 catches, it was nice to see him get some production. On the other hand, Chargers receivers cost the Chargers this game, there were 6 drops during the game, but only 2 very significant ones. Tyrell Williams dropped a wide open TD in the end-zone in Q2, and Travis Benjamin dropped a open deep post route in Q3, both of those plays would have been TDs. The offensive line struggled, with Lamp still inactive and Barksdale getting hurt early in the game, Rivers had to deal with a lot of pressure from the Chiefs.
The defense struggled yesterday, they had a hard time figuring out the Chiefs advanced offense. As I saw on twitter, “Gus Bradley prepares for Chocolate and vanilla, and Andy Reid comes with all 31 flavors of offense”. I found this to be accurate, the Chiefs had the Chargers on their heels all day, running exotic packages for Hill and Kelce. One of the bright spots was that the Chargers held Kelce to 1 catch and held Hunt to 49 rushing yards with a 3.1 YPC. From what I saw, Kyzir White was covering Kelce most of the game, which lead to him keeping Kelce quiet. Derwin James was a difference maker on the field, in one drive he broke up a TD pass from Mahomes, and got his first career sack. He played all over the field, making plays all game. Isaac Rochell filled in nicely for Bosa, those are hard shoes to fill, and he made a lot of plays in stopping the running game. The Chargers as a whole struggled to get to Mahomes, in fact the only sack of the game was a blitz from Derwin James. Mahomes showed off his athleticism and made moves to get out of the pocket and avoid pressure.
Chargers move on to the Buffalo Bills, who just lost 47-3 to the Ravens, so it should be a favorable matchup. The Chargers have a lot of mistakes to clean up, and they learned a lot from this game. It doesn’t matter how much the national media hypes the Chargers up, they are gonna have to prove it on the field.
