I've watched every Chargers game this season. This is the first one I turned off early.
The offense is one thing, but we can clearly draw a line between how it is playing and the offensive line. There's a logical, understandable reason why they are having a tough time.
But the defense… I just don't have enough ball knowledge to diagnose what is happening. How do they get completely beat up physically all over the place against the Jags after being such an imposing, physical force against the Steelers? It just doesn't make sense.
Is it just scheme? Is it mental errors? Why didn't Perryman and Daiyan do much of anything today? Last time they looked bad Khalil and a few others were out. Not this time.
Any given Sunday for sure, but anyone have ideas of why we're seeing such massive swings in defensive outcomes from week to week?
Please high quality takes preferred. Like don't use this as a complaint thread we have places for that.
29 comments
I’m gunna say it’s a couple things:
The whole team looked lethargic today, and we have on almost every 10am east coast game.
The jags run game knew exactly how to exploit our tendencies. We were guessing wrong a lot.
Similar story in the passing game. Jags WRs knew where to find holes in our zones and sat in them
We lack talent, and run a scheme that requires talent up front.
We consistently play with 5/6 guys in the box and don’t blitz. The defensive tackles on our roster are mostly mediocre. Daiyan is our only really good LB and he’s undersized to be taking on blocks. We need two new defensive tackles and another LB to complement Daiyan to make the run defense work with this scheme.
It works against teams that don’t have the ability to take advantage of the light boxes but strong rushing teams are our kryptonite until we can fix the talent deficiency.
Well you see when you play the Titans, Vikings or Steelers you have to play solid, tough defense but when you play the Jags or colts you have to play bad enough to keep Minter from getting
I’ve noticed that for some reason we’re very good with QBs that stay in the pocket but once we go against someone who can be a threat to run the whole defense is lost and confused.
It’s weird lol.
The Jags essentially did Roman’s game and controlled TOP via the run game. Etienne and Tuten made the D respect the run game, tired out the D, while keeping herb and the O off the field. No O on the field, no rhythm/ momentum to build off of.
Heres your answer: Minter cannot successfully scheme against decent QB’s.
Our last 5 losses: Lawrence, Dart, Jayden Daniels, Daniel Jones, Stroud. None of these are top 5 QB’s. Theyre guys who are under the Top 7 but still considered solid and respectable franchise QB’s.
Yes, we beat Aaron Rodgers, but father time defeated him years ago. We also beat Mahomes but hes an AFCW opponent and anything can happen, and honestly it was a rare one-off win considering Chiefs always sweep us.
Don’t underestimate the players looking forward to the bye. Yes, they’re professionals, but they’re human. Season is too long and they checked out early.
ETA: Lifelong Harbaugh fan, very much pulling for the Bolts this year
Chargers have never prided themselves on a good defense. Go back all through their history man it plagued their good teams in the 80s, 90s, 00s it was never good at any point in the 10s. Just not how they get down man thats something you start to notice regardless of who a team hires to coach offense defense whatever, some things never change because each organization has its core philosophies, motives, goals etc. Those things are adopted by anyone who joins the organization not the other way around. On a game to game basis things may play out differently but if you watch for years and know their history you notice patterns that give you an idea how they really operate
Honestly, I think mentally this entire team was ready for the bye week and was already there. I think a lot of that is on coaches and not having them ready for one more before the break. They came out flat and stayed that way the entire game.
Football is about matchups
I think it’s starts with our heavy zone usage.
Liam Coen just kinda owns Jesse Minter. He did the same thing to us when he was OC of the bucs.
it’s obviously bait to make sure nobody intervenes minter
Hard for the defense to make stops or have momentum when they’re constantly on the field because the offense can’t move the ball or maintain possession.
When it’s a bad offense, they look good. When it is an average or better offense, they look bad
I believe that Minter is a talented, hardworking and creative Coach and he schemes to the talent that he has to work with. I also think (no proof) Minter gives them the foundational tools of schemes yet, also, gives the “Captains” a wide berth for them to make on-field decisions. If they show up, good. Today, it seems a few of them were absent, at least in spirit. Don’t remember Oweh, or Perryman, for instance. And I don’t remember that Daiyan was ever so quiet as he’s been since just before the Giants game and onward. Today they seemed to play similar to the way they did in the Giants, Colts and Commanders games. Had a kind of Staley game defense feel where the mid field was opportunistically taken advantage of by Offense. Coach has some work to do.
Very concerning that they didn’t compete at all!
If we can’t stop the run we are cooked. Pretty simple tbh
It seems to me that on some of these road games players are relying on someone else to make a play to get things started. Everything looks slow and I imagine it’s hard to be the spark when everyone around you is also waiting and looking for someone to get it started. It has to be difficult to get fully amped for 10am if your a 5pm type of player.
Its a top down mentality. Head coach to position coaches to leaders to role players. If the top doesnt light a fire it won’t be hot at the bottom.
Let’s see…can’t run the ball ✔️ can’t protect Herbert or give him more than 1 second✔️ can’t stop the run ✔️ let the trash WRs for Jax get to the soft spots in coverage ✔️ stupid penalties ✔️ ST is pretty much a non factor on either side ✔️ forgetting the bye week is next week not this week ✔️ Goodbye to any chance of winning the division because Chargers gonna Charger ✔️✔️✔️
The defense got bad eyes this game.
Jessie Minter
Same first game ive ever turned off of the chargers! No clue wtf happened loool
Honestly felt like the defense played the entire game so I can’t put this on them
Lol and I was downvoted for saying that the defense last week wasn’t as good as it appeared to be because Aaron Rodgers was horrible.
Combination of human elements. First the amount of time that they were on the field was way too much. Part of it is the scheme they run. They place a lot of pressure on the IDL to eat double teams and kill blocks to disrupt timing and lanes and so the second level (Derwin, Henley, other LBs) can shoot gaps. They just didn’t play that well today. That happens. Any given Sunday isn’t just like loading up madden and a given player plays to such overall. There is variance in human performance within sports. The offence didn’t help relieve pressure by holding onto the ball creating long possessions. I also think the bipolar nature is also a bi product of the lack in talent on the defence.
I feel like this whole scheme of “keeping everything in front of us” kinda bit them in the ass yesterday. I don’t recall too many explosive Jags plays as in deep passes, they killed us by running the ball effectively, and death by a thousand cuts with <12yd passes.
Built to play with the lead not from behind.
It’s my fault. I was at both the playoff game and the game yesterday.