The Chargers Fell To The Giants For The First Time In Nearly 3 Decades, Losing Joe Alt In The Process
Over the years, I've been fortunate enough to go to a few Chargers games whenever they make east coast trips. Fortunately, they've won every game I've been too pretty convincingly. Today, I went over the swamps of Metlife to watch my 3-0 Bolts take on the Giants and their brand new QB, Jaxson Dart. I even blogged ahead of time that the Giants were dumb to start him because he would get the shit beat out of him by the Chargers flyin' defense (to be fair, he was sacked 5 times, hit a LOT and also possibly concussed after one run). So I went early and attended Clem's tailgat. Don't worry, I came correct to the many-snacked god and offered tribute of chocolate Entenmann's donuts and donut holes (I searched his twitter to check which ones he liked most). Fantastic time, people and food. Then I went in to MetLife to presumably watch the Chargers coast to 4-0. How wrong I was.
THE BAD: Everything
- Without Joe Alt playing, this is the worst offensive line in football. Per Next Gen stats, The Giants pressured Herbert on 47.7% of dropbacks despite Herbert averaging a 2.63-second time to throw.
- Over the summer, only week removed from signing the biggest offensive line contract in NFL history, Rashawn Slater fell over his teammates leg and ruptured his patella tendon which is a possibly career-ending injury. Today, Joe Alt was injured after his teammate threw a defender into his planted leg. The teammate is same person, Zion Johnson.
- There is no universe where Ladd McConkey or Tarheeb Still should be returning punts/kicks. They are two of the most valuable players on the team and it would be borderline fireable if they got injured doing something as stupid as that.
- The entire WR corps was dropping balls, but this was a particularly bad game for Ladd McConkey. Multiple drops and an OPI call leading to an INT. Real bad.
- The defense had no answer for HB Iso. Helped Skattebo get rolling which helped Dart get going. One of the great things about Jesse Minter is that he fixed something Staley never had a handle on in interior runs. Not the case today.
- Herbert also wasn't great today. Made his typical insane frozen rope touchdown throw and wasn't helped by the drops. There were also a few throws he just didn't have great placement on. I'm not gonna dog him on either interception since one was a freak play by Lawrence and the other was a fuck up by the receivers.
THE GOOD
- Tuli stepped up. 4 sacks, an added hit and a TFL with the continued absence of Mack.
- Omarion Hampton might just be the guy. Even when Slater and Alt were healthy and relieving pressure, this interior line has been absolute mush. So for a downhill guy like Hampton, I figured his success would have to come outside. I think he's shown he can do that, with a bunch of successful runs to the outside including that 50+ yard TD. (all runs inside were absolutely stuffed, though).
THE ANSWER?
Hortiz needs to make some moves. Even if Alt only misses a little bit of time, there is just no way you can keep throwing Herbert out there into 50% pressure rates and expect consistency or winning football. He got the shit beat out of him in two straight games now and I can feel that Burrow-type injury right around the corner. Spend the capital, get some competent linemen from a selling team. As for the defense, I don't really put anything at their feet. They held tall in some big moments and were put in awful spots by the offense. They also, like the offense, are on the tail end of a BRUTAL month of travel and divisional games courtesy of Roger Goodell.
So I hope they rest, reload and prepare for a very different opponent in the Commies. I will also pray that Jayden takes one more week off for good measure so we can have another Oregon bowl.