Rockin/Suckin' Chargerbots (+/-)

Positives:

Take the win and keep going

Bye week at a perfect time

Starks

 

Negatives:

SD seemed to know where the blitzes were coming from and seemed to pick them up every time

Injuries

Lacy looks like he is running in cement

Yeah, something is up with Lacy and it will be good for him to get an extra week of rest to heal the ankle. But, only 15 rushing attempts by our RBs. That's no good. 6 games into the season and we choose this one to offer our most unbalanced attack. Starks was piling up some great yards, early.

 

Started the 3rd Q with two 3 and outs, rushing only one time (Lacy for 3). Our following TD drive on the Jones score was a solid mix, with Starks getting 3 carries in a 7 play drive for 4, 7 and 5 yds. That kind of balance results in points. Just wish we had tried to keep our D off the field by chewing up more clock with a power run game.

 

I see NE is going U-71 with some great success this year. Maybe we should be doing more of that as we go deeper into the season. With the 3 RBs we have, it would be a positive adjustment to make. Just road grade our opponents, keep our D fresh, and keep experienced QBs who can dink and dunk off the field, limiting those opportunities.

Yeah and it'll happen again so toughen up.  

 

That's a blog writer's speculation.  

When Lacy is putting up back to back 1,000 yard seasons in his first two seasons everyone loves him, but as soon as he's slowed by an ankle injury and not producing then it's probably because  he's too fat? Some Packer "fans" are amazing. Michael "Kworst" Rodney seems to be waiting for things to go wrong so he can talk about how he told everyone...

I have a hunch the Coaches couldn't give two ****s what Michael Rodney thinks.

 

 

 

Not listening, but I wonder if the national dopes are praising River's game?

 

 

	Attempts	Completions	Yards	Yards/Attempt	Yards/Completion
Rivers	65	43	503	7.74	11.70
Rodgers	29	16	255	8.79	15.94

 

 

Yeah, saw that stat., even with 500 yards for Rivers,  we still won both the "turn over differential" & the "average yards per pass attempt" stat.

Here is what I think, not that it matters...

 

Lacy needs to be running out of an I formation or at least a single back formation where he is BEHIND the QB.  He is not the type of runner who can take the ball from beside the QB out of the shotgun and be effective.  He needs to get going north and south so he can build up some steam, find his hole, and cut.  And for all the talk of our interior Oline, they really have not been that great at run blocking this year.  No matter who is running the ball, they seem to hit a wall of linemen with no clear holes.

 

I have no clue what is up with Rodgers this year.  Yes, they are down WRs, but I've been told he can make any receiver good.  I suppose maybe the lack of continuity in practice and games can lead to it, but they need to adjust to their personnel on O.  MM and Clements and Rodgers for that matter seem to insist on running this multiple WR, deep passing attack despite NOT having the horses to do it.  They insist on BOMBS AWAY, and again on 3rd and short.

 

What happened on that last drive?  They started working the short passing game like the old West Coast offense to Kuhn and Rodgers, little roll outs to the flat like the extended running plays they are, and they moved the ball.  Too bad it only took our 3 offensive gurus 3 quarters to figure it out.

i like reading rodney's stuff but sometime he gets to be too much even within the game. he was calling for capers head during the game on twitter when the packers were still leading.

 

the defense compltely shut down the chargers running game and rivers was throwing great balls.

 

was the dline getting stuffed.  yes. but cmon the chargers got paid to play as well.

 

if not for hyde not covering his guy at the end of the first half the packers would have blown the game wide open.

 

 

 

+Special teams kick coverage was smothering. Jacoby Jones rarely got out to the 20. 

 

+Chris Banjo played some inspired ball yesterday. 

 

-Sam Shields play yesterday reminded me of Al Harris against Plaxico Burrus -eaten alive

 

-Capers ran base, cross dog blitzes, zone blitzes, Corner blitzes, safety blitzes, etc.... and they still couldn't get there against a weakened SanDiego Oline. I know Phil Rivers has a quick release but there was plenty of blown opportunity there....especially by our D-line.

 

+James Starks made some big time runs when the play broke down and the Oline was stuffed. 

 

 

I'll second the Special Teams play too.  They have performed pretty well this year, even though Ginger has been inconsistent.

 

Packers said that Rivers ran everything from LOS. He motioned Woodhead to determine if Packers were in man or zone & then knew the matchup he wanted to go to. Players said they tried to disguise the coverages but Rivers' did an amazing job of diagnosing the defense & getting the ball out so quickly that the pass rush could not get near him. Packer players were very classy in their praise of Rivers.

Gotta love stats...sometimes. 

 

503 yards passing = 2 TD's.  #win

I thought I remember one of the announcers comment that so many NFL defenses run versions of Dom's packages that it has become easy for offenses to recognize and scheme for?

Re: Lacy

He was completely fine in the pre-season. His ankle isn't right. Stop the lame speculation.

We took the Chargers best shot while we didn't play our best & we still won the game.

It's difficult to win every single week...but guess what? We're 6-0 & everyone else is looking up at us.

One more thing. This game reminded me of the Packer / Niner playoff game where Kaepernicks ran for a billion yards.

Perhaps instead of trying to rush the passer, how about rush 4 & drop 7. At least switch it up instead of pounding your head against a brick wall.

whats worse not playing well and winning or playing ok and losing. i will take the former every day.

 

this team is winning games they would have lost the last few years.  last night is a perfect example.

 

the defense stopped two red zone chances last night and should have stopped a 3rd.

 

we will be getting a lot of key players back soon.  burnett, raji. perry, and adams are all going to be major contributors to the game plan.

 

its not as if they are all on IR.

 

 

Negatives:

 

- After watching San Diego lose to Pittsburgh, I thought for sure the Packers front 7 would dominate the Chargers O-Line forced to play mostly backups.  That didn't happen at all.  In fairness, 2 guys in Raji and Perry who were playing well were out, but geez, the Chargers had 3 backups in there.  Disappointing day for that group.

 

- After watching Starks begin the afternoon so strongly, I thought this was the kind of game we might see a steady dose of a running game.  That didn't happen, and after the injury to Montgomery, the offense seemed to completely dissappear for awhile.

 

- The injury to Montgomery.  I think that was sort of the final straw in turning a receiving corps that was hanging on by a string with Nelson and Adams out to becoming woefully ineffective.  No Nelson, Adams, or Montgomery plus a dinged up Cobb has turned the WR corps into a very very ordinary group.  Let's hope Montgomery is back relatively soon as I think his above average athleticism for a guy his size is something the WR corps needs in overcoming the Nelson injury. 

 

Positives:

 

+ Starks

+ Janis making a couple of big catches

+ As poorly as the Pack played for about 3/4 of the game, somehow they found a way to win.

+ The bye week is here.  This team badly needs it. 

 

Edit:  Oh yeah, 1 final positive.  Randall knocking that pass down at the end won me some money as I had bet the Packers/Chargers UNDER at 50.5 points.  He doesn't knock that pass down and I lose my bet in addition to the Pack being in dire straits!!! 

The other thing the Montgomery injury did was take the "receiver-in-the-backfield" formation out of our playbook for the remainder of the game

Yes, and it seemed like after that happened, the offense looked lost for awhile.  Montgomery is pretty important for this year as he's got some special skills that can make up for Nelson's loss.  He can't go downfield like Nelson, but his size and skill seem to make him a matchup problem for defenses. 

The Chargers have a savvy veteran QB with talented and experienced receivers, it would have been more surprising if they hadn't found ways to get open and move the ball. Their game plan was to dink and dunk their way down the field with short and intermediate throws rather than run the ball. They knew they couldn't run the ball effectively, so they supplemented with a lot of high percentage passes. They hit a few big plays, which shouldn't happen, but the important thing is they didn't come away with points. Their game plan was good and it kept Rodgers on the bench and out of rhythm, but they didn't finish. Rivers completed a lot of passes, but not the ones that mattered. This is how bend/don't break D is supposed to work. The Chargers had them on their heels and they bent, but ultimately they didn't break.

The WR group yesterday started to resemble 2005.

 

When your offense runs A LOT of 3-wide and 4-wide sets, and your active WRs are Cobb, Jones, Janis, and Abby, that should limit effectiveness. And yet... Rodgers had a 107.69 QB rating and the Packers had the better yards per averages.

 

 

+ The Chargers had a great game plan on both sides of the ball and executed it very, very well.

 

And they still lost.

 

- Ha Ha Clinton-Dix: Guy will be writing a check for the headshot on Gordon. He's lucky that wasn't 15 and possibly an ejection. That crap will likely burn them in big games.

I am sure the bend but not break D was put in last week by Dom. 

We should add Starks TD run into our "repertoire".

 

Run hard into the back of one our linemen...get the Dline to crash down and over-react...ballet spin out of it, and hit the daylight on the edge in full gallop. It was a thing of beauty. (Quite a 6th round draft pick by the way....thanks Ted).

 

Perhaps bring back Tauschner for more of a trampoline effect, and really launch that SOB to the edge.

 

 

 

 

 

Add in the fact that it's likely Cobb is still not 100 percent and Lacy is clearly limited and it's impressive they could do anything on offense.

 

They scored 27 points without Jordy Nelson, Davante Adams, Montgomery,  and Quarless and with Lacy and Cobb playing nicked up. That's missing (or in Cobb's case probably being severely limited) your top 4 WRs in preseason, the starting TE (at least the one that can block), and basically not having your all-Pro RB.

 

The way they talked about Jordy yesterday it sounds like rehab is going extremely well. Too bad they didn't designate him for return. He'll be running routes by mid-January.

I have no idea what the defensive game plan was, and should probably stop there.

But...I'm guessing they were told to keep EVERYTHING in front of them. And defensive play-calling was as mysterious as the game plan.  I know that Peppers, Matthews, Neal, and others may have occasional pass coverage responsibilities, but it also takes them away from what they do best. 

And WTH was up with Hyde? He may have had 20 or more passes completed against him. Again, I realize coverage is not necessarily his strong point, but when it reaches the point of being ridiculous, something needs to change. That one guy had 14 (!) receptions before leaving the game!

A lot of Rivers passes (to my eyes) to the sidelines looked so soft and slow, I kept waiting for our DB's to break on the ball for INTs. 

Yeah I agree it seemed like they were okay with surrendering short stuff in an effort to stop the deep passes. They succeeded to some extent, but allowing a 6 yard throw to become a 20 yard gain is not how that should go. Clay got exposed against that fast TE, that's a mismatch. He'd be better off covering Gates and letting a Safety take the fast one. And to Hyde's credit, Gates made a couple really awesome catches when Hyde had solid coverage on him. Sometimes other teams can complete those "impossible to defend" passes we see Rodgers throw so routinely...it's possible to have good coverage and still give up a catch.

 Good news.

 

#Packers WR Ty Montgomery suffered a regular ol’ ankle sprain on Sunday and with the bye week, he hasn’t been ruled out vs. #Broncos yet.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 19, 2015

 

That guy is Keenan Allen & he is a very good WR that Micah Hyde should never be covering alone.

This is what pissed me off about the Wizard & his defense. He doesn't make any adjustment when teams simply attack the weak spot.

They're going to keep attacking until you do something to stop it. Same thing with Packers / Niners in the playoffs. Same thing vs Seattle in playoffs. Same thing yesterday...it's insanity!

This hasn't been the first game. Hyde is being targeted, plain and simple. QBs are looking for 33 and whoever he's covering becomes the first option.

few things I noticed rewaching this game:

 

• What’s eating Eddie? I’m assuming it’s the ankle, but whatever the case may be, he has not looked like himself these past few weeks. Offensive line seems to be opening up holes but Lacy just seems hesitant and indecisive at times. I’m hoping the bye does him some good.

• James Starks did a great job picking up the slack. 112 yards on 10 carries, most of them coming on that beautiful 65 yard TD. Starks is a very fluid, powerful runner. It’s invaluable to have an RB2 like this to pick things up when Lacy is not 100%

• The offense overall looked strong in the first half. The one exception being the drive after the Melvin Gordon fumble, which was really quite terrible. To get the ball at the 35 and not even get 3 points…this offense is known for being ridiculously efficient, but that wasn’t the case there. The inefficiency carried over into the second half. Started their opening drive at the 40 yard line. Lacy runs right for 3 yards, Rodgers pass incomplete, Rodgers sacked. Punt.

• San Diego’s expected point total was 20 points and that’s exactly what they got. The passing yardage numbers are ugly for the defense but in the end it didn’t really amount to that many points. The only time the defense looked totally overwhelmed was on San Diego’s first drive of the second half. Other than that it was missed tackles, a lack of turnovers and creative play design by San Diego.

• The run defense was solid (21 carries, 60 yards).

• Pass rush didn’t stand out but honestly never really had a chance to get going. San Diego knew their offensive line would struggle and game planned accordingly. GB still got 3 sacks and hit Rivers 13 times. It got frustrating when Dom kept blitzing only to see the blitzer almost get there before Rivers dumped it off to Woodhead or some ****. Would’ve liked fewer blitzers and more guys in coverage.

• Tackling was very poor. I swear to god Danny Woodcock averaged 3 or 4 broken tackles every time he touched the ball. With the exception of San Diego’s first drive of the 2^nd half, it was all quick, short, dink and dunk passes with a couple broken tackles.

• The lack of takeaways, or at least the missed opportunities for a takeaway, was very frustrating. The first time Melvin Gordon fumbled GB should’ve been all over it, no idea how they didn’t come up with that. I also counted at least 3 other times that Rivers should/could have been picked off. I kept think to myself “okay, here comes the INT, here it comes” and they kept barley missing it.

• A perfect microcosm of all of these aspects was the Chargers’ drive at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Chargers are dinking and dunking their way down the field.

  • 4Q 13:27 – 3^rd and five, Woodhead matched up on Mike Neal (WTF), breaks a tackle and scampers downfield for about 25 yards

  • 4Q 12:49 – Rivers holds the ball and gets sacked

  • 4Q 12:04 – Pass rush gets to Rivers again, Joe Thomas and Mike Daniels both miss a tackle on Phillip Rivers, Rivers throws it up to Floyd for 17 yards

  • 4Q 11:19 – 3^rd down, Rivers throws up another one, Shields drops an easy INT, SD would’ve gotten 0 points instead of 3; game changer

• These types of plays happened all game at different times. Creative play design by SD, missed tackles, and a lack of takeaways. Very unfortunate.

• How about JC Tretter making the catch on that pooch kick? I remember turning to my dog, Alice, before that kick off and saying, “I bet they try something here”; onside kick maybe. Not sure I’d call that an onside kick but they weren’t definitely trying to cause a mistake by the return team. Nice job by Tretter making the catch. Overall, I thought the special teams did a very nice job this game.

• Setting Da’tone. I thought Datone Jones had a very nice game. Had a crucial sack on Rivers at a very important point in the game and made another nice play, wrapping up Woodhead on that goal line stand. Nice to see him stepping up this year.

• In the end, Rodgers still had a higher passer rating than Rivers and the Packers still had more points than their opponent. Bring on the bye week

And let's face it, the ball was coming out of Rivers' hand very quickly, by design. There were occasions where the Packers had a pass rusher running free and the ball was still gone by the time they got to Rivers. They used a lot of motion to try and make the Packers tip their coverage hand and he was basically throwing a slant to whomever had the opening.

Good stuff: 4 downs, Pete Dougherty

 

 

65 attempts is the most for passers with 500 yards games. There have been 17 500+ passing yard games, those QBs are 9-8 in the W/L.

 

 

I think the point of the blitzing was to get pressure on Rivers and make him throw it earlier than he wanted to. He's a guy, like Matt Stafford, who gets rattled pretty easily with pressure in his face. When he was completely clean, he made all the throws, but when he got pressured or flushed he couldn't get the ball there. When the 4 or 5 man rush isn't getting it done, bring another guy.

The frustrating thing for me was the routes that San Diego was running. It's the same crap San Fran did in the playoffs...slants, drag routes, etc. with veteran receivers finding the hole in the zone and exploiting it. Half the time I was calling out the passes before the snap, if I can see it then I know the DBs know what's going. All it would have taken was Clay showing blitz and dropping back or a Zone Blitz with Peppers dropping back or even a DB just jumping the route to make them think twice about throwing those Slants. I feel like Allen chewed up a lot of YAC on those short/intermediate routes.

Stafford and Rivers are not remotely close on the "rattled" scale. Rivers knows how to read a defense. He set's damn near everything pre snap. He know's who's coming and where they're coming from. It's really, really hard to disguise things from Rivers. He may not execute all the throws, but he knows exactly what he's doing. And he does not rattle easily. If anything getting hit fires him up. 

 

Stafford is a dumbass. He can't read Green Egg's and Ham without help. 

I thought they had more problems with Oliver than Woodhead.

Tretter was a QB in high school & was also a good basketball player, good athlete.

Great point. We are winning those games we normally would have blown. What I find interesting, is we didn't play poorly. This was a very good SD team, one that I had underestimated entirely. Scheme played a big part in how we fared both on O and on D.

 

Dom's scheme was indeed bend but don't break. For the most part, that is what we did. With as quickly as Rivers was getting the ball out, we still had 4 sacks, 9 QB hits and 13 hurries. We ought to have had at least 3 INTs. We had one FF and 1 FR, should have had 2. Their receivers had career days, as did Rivers, and we still kept them from scoring when it counted. Our defenders pretty much kept it all in front of them.

 

Our O seemed pathetic, in some respects, mostly in terms of play calling. Their D forced Rodgers into pressure situations, and they played good ball. But, the Packers are just a better team, and we did enough, scored enough to win the game. "Pathetic" is a relative term, because we have been spoiled in seeing near perfection so many times throughout Rodgers' career. In reality, our O played a decent game. Starks had over 100 yds rushing and 2 TDs. Rodgers had 2 TDs, no INTs and a 107 QB rating. We won this game without 2 of our top 3 WRs, and lost our #4 or 5 WR, compounding matters a bit with Montgomery's ankle injury. Yet, Rodgers was able to make completions to 9 different receivers.

 

The two goal line stands were remarkable. That is the mark of a good defense, when you can shut an O of SD's calibre out, especially with Gates and Rivers hotter than hell.

 

All told, it wasn't our best, but it was still pretty good, and we nabbed the W.

Dare I say Quarless is missed? Yes we've talked about him in the run game but Packer formation flexibility, always a strength under MM, is suffering.

- Ha Ha Clinton-Dix: Guy will be writing a check for the headshot on Gordon. He's lucky that wasn't 15 and possibly an ejection. That crap will likely burn them in big games.

 

Yeah..  He's a head hunter and it's going to cost us at some point.   Coaches need to nip that bud.  

 

How about JC Tretter making the catch on that pooch kick?

 

 

Chargers got just what they wanted, an O linemen sprinting up field trying to catch a KO on the run.   Tretter spoiled it.   Huge play.