September 22, 2006

A picture tells a thousand words

Have you ever seen a team more desperate to get a quaterback? That's what the commentators on ESPN's NFL Live program were asking themseleves last night.
Since the Chargers have a bye week, I have some time to fill and what better way to do it than to examine the sad state of the Raiders? This was once a proud franchise and as the Chargers' most bitter rivals, they were games to look up to in the schedule.
Nowadays, the Raiders hardly present a challenge, I'm not complaining mind you, just marvelling along with the rest of the country at how far they've fallen. The Chargers own Oakland with 6 straight wins against them, and it is easy to see why.
Reports out of the Contra Costa Times reveal that With starting quarterback Aaron Brooks out for at least one game with a strained pectoral muscle, the Raiders have inquired about the possibility of signing veteran Tommy Maddox.
Maddox most recently played for Pittsburgh and in the 2005 season, completed 34 of 71 for 406 yards, with two touchdowns and four interceptions. However, Raiders Head Coach Art Shell said he is inclined to go with the players he has on his roster for now, leaving second-year quarterback Andrew Walter as the starter, and Marques Tuiasosopo as the backup.
What the Raiders don't seem to understand or are not admitting to themselves is that their O-line is atrocious! Their defense still ranks #10 among 32 teams after only two weeks played, (contrast that to the Chargers who are #2 behind only Baltimore, their next opponent) but their offense is another story. They have yet to score a touchdown. You can't win games in this league with a terrible offensive line and their unit is just beyond bad at this current point in time. As a former offensive lineman himself, this must be quite disheartening to Shell who surely remembers the old glory days and was brought in by Al Davis to restore the greatness of the Raiders. Ha! What a joke! So the question remains: Even if they acquire Maddox, how many games will Oakland end up winning this year? The lower the number the better of course.
Posted by Chargerweblog at 17:04:09 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

September 19, 2006

Chargers trash Titans 40-7

Well, it was another impressive performance for those San Diego Chargers who after two games this season sit atop the AFC West standings at 2-0. I wasn't so much impressed with our defense, though they had another solid performance, because I was expecting them to play well after the Oakland game. Mostly I was blown away by how well our reserve players performed, in particularly Mike Turner. This scrappy little back was wowing them in pre-season and carried over his stellar game into this contest, amassing over 100 yards backing up the game's best back, Ladanian Tomlinson.

He had such a great game, that it was nice to sit L.T. for most of the 4th quarter while we watched Turner do his thing. How about L.T.? He still managed to get 70 yards and scored 2 touchdowns and almost threw for another!! This guy has always been San diego's go to performer, the difference is now he has other skilled players around him like Turner and Vincent Jackson who caught a TD pass in the romp.

I can't say enough about our defense, Shaun Phillips is doing everything we expected of him since Foley went out and it looks like the entire unit has taken it up a notch. Merriman is brilliant and he continues to play at a Pro Bowl quality level. The only thing that ticks me off is that the Chargers won't get any respect until we defeat a contender such as the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Baltimore Ravens (both upcoming games in our schedule.) The Jacksonville Jaguars just got through beating Pittsburgh on Monday night so it can be done. GO BOLTS!!!!

Posted by Chargerweblog at 17:26:58 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

September 12, 2006

Just Lose Baby: Chargers rout Raiders 27-0

This one wasn't even close. The Chargers own the Raiders as they won their 6th consecutive game against them. This was an impressive season opening victory, made all the more so by the way the Chargers manhandled them in the black hole. L.T. had his usual "A" game which he seems to reserve against the Silver and Black by rolling up over 100 yards rushing before halftime!!

How about our defense? They seem to have dedicated the game to Steve Foley and they managed to sack the quarterback so many times, I lost count. That was just awesome.

Tomlinson carried 31 times for 131 yards and one touchdown

Rivers went 8-for-11 for 108 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Gates in the fourth quarter that made it 20-0, but his best pass may have been a completion to Eric Parker where he took a shot from Warren Sapp and still completed the pass and then talked some trash to Warren about it! (They say a picture says a thousand words and that's certainly the case here in this AP photo of a dejected Raiders sideline after being dismantled by the Chargers)

Are the Chargers this good or are the Raiders this lousy? Well, it's only one game, but I believe it's a little bit of both.

One thing I am convinced of, our defense is pretty damn good and will carry us through a lot of games this season.

I do have one criticism of Marty's game plan and that is I thought it was way too conservative for my taste. I understand the thinking of not wanting your young QB to do too much or committing turnovers, but I thought it was weird to run L.T. so much and not to take some shots downfield, especially in third down situations, but that's just me. It seemed Marty didn't allow for opening up the offense, until the game was well in hand, and that is OK, but Rivers is going to have to throw a hell of a lot more than that against some very solid NFL defenses so he has to grow up in a hurry. Overall though, that is a very small nit to pick in a solid performace against our bitter rivals. Enjoy this one Chargers fans! Go Bolts!!

Posted by Chargerweblog at 07:30:48 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

September 04, 2006

Foley shot by off-duty Cop. Phillips to replace him

The weekend reports bring the tragic story of Chargers OLB Steve Foley being shot by an off-duty cop. Apparently Foley was suspected of drunk driving with reports of his car going 90 MPH in a highway according to the Sherriff's officials. You can read the full story here. Why does it feel that we are cursed going into this season? First Sproles goes down for the season in an exhibition game and now this, a little more than a week before our opener against the Raiders on Monday night.

When I read this story I was angry. I don't know if the reports of Foley's drunk driving are accurate, if they are then he probably won't be with the San Diego Chargers very much longer because I doubt the team will tolerate such behavior, but I tend to believe it was more a case of the cop being confused and trigger happy.

The reason I side with Foley, until proven otherwise, is the cops have a bad record of racial profiling and hassling mimorities. For all we know, the reports have been exaggerated and Foley wasn't drunk driving at all. You have to draw your own conclusions. At any rate, Foley will be replaced by Shaun Phillips until (if) he recovers from his injuries which were not supposed to be life threatening. Discussions continue about this topic on the chargers' forum.

Posted by Chargerweblog at 16:47:45 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

September 02, 2006

Chargers drop final pre-season game to 49ers 23-14

So who cares right? Their scrubs beat ours. I mean we are talking about a game in which most of the starters were more than happy to sit out to avoid risking injury. Well there are some points we can make for the sake of being completists about this final preseason game.
The Good: Donnie Edwards, (seen here) hampered in training camp and the pre-season by a nagging back injury is back and had an impact early with a fumble recovery which led to one of the two Chargers touchdowns.
Ray Perkins, the leading rusher in the NFL in the pre-season up until this game fared well again. He has a chance to showcase his skills thanks to the season ending injury suffered by Darren Sproles. Tyrone Gross also did a solid job of running the football in the second half but may not have done enought to make the team.
The bad: Turnovers! too many which led to too many scores for the guys wearing the red jerseys.
The O line didn't look as effective opening holes for the running backs until the 4th quarter which may be a credit to the defense the 49ers were employing throughout.
The 49er offense kept exploiting the middle of the field and successfully completing short passes against the defense.
Penalties- Amassed 50+ yards of penalties in one half and that's a lot, but you gotta believe that number will come down once the regulars take the field next week.
The disruptive pass rush from the last few weeks evaporated, mostly because of some offensive adjustments made by the 49ers and rushing of the football and running short screens and passes.
Cletis Gordon may have been on the bubble prior to this final pre-season game but may have made the roster with a nice 85-yard interception return for a TD in a losing effort.
So ready or not, next week we tee off for real in the black hole against the Raiders. Phew...doesn't it seem like it's taken forever??
Posted by Chargerweblog at 06:14:50 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |