Remember in the offseason, right after Eric Weddle agreed to stay with the San Diego Chargers and signed a 5-year $40-million contract, when anonymous sources from around the league were saying that the Bolts had grossly overpaid? I do. I'm sure Eric does.

At the time, I was more concerned with correcting people than anything else. Everybody kept screaming about Weddle being made the "highest paid safety in NFL history". I, along with my lovely staff of sentinels, was quick to point out that Weddle was not the highest paid safety in history, or this year, or in the AFC West. That title goes to Eric Berry, who the Chiefs gave a 6-year $60-million contract to before ever seeing him play a snap in the NFL. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Weddle's deal has more guaranteed money, but that's hardly the point.

The Chargers front office replied to these criticisms the same way they reply to all criticisms: faith and arrogance. Actually, I wish they would put a banner up at Chargers Park where the giant Antonio Cromartie poster used to be that said "San Diego Chargers: Faith and Arrogance". Anyway, A.J. Smith and others said that they were not paying Mr. Weddle for the player that he had been, but rather for the player they believe he could be. It's a philosophy that didn't quite work out with Jyles Tucker, but there were plenty of signs that Weddle was right on the cusp of becoming something special.

So how did his first season with this new contract stack up against other Safeties around the league? Pretty good, actually.

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Because of an animated exchange between Philip Rivers and Jay Cutler back in 2007 that added some fuel to the fire of the Chargers/Broncos rivalry, these two QBs continue to be linked to each other. Since Cutler was traded to the Chicago Bears prior to the 2009 NFL season, this is the first meeting between Rivers and Cutler since 2008.

Another reason that these two QBs have been compared to one another is that their careers started in the same division in the same season. Rivers became the Chargers starting QB in 2006, and Cutler took the starting job away from Jake Plummer in Denver halfway through the 2006 season. One key difference is that Rivers had two years to learn on the sidelines while Cutler was just a rookie (and therefore, is two years younger than El Capitan).

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This Sunday, the San Diego Chargers will travel to the windy city of Chicago to take on the Bears. The weather men and women have predicted a high of 44 degrees on Sunday, and it'll probably be colder than that with a local start time of 3pm (meaning it will be dark by time the game ends). The Chargers typically play poorly in cold weather.

Oh, you want more reasons to be certain that the deck is stacked against San Diego this weekend? Okay. How about this? The Chargers are 1-3 on the road this season, only narrowly edging out the Broncos in Denver after John Fox put Tim Tebow in too late. They've lost to the Patriots, Chiefs and Jets away from San Diego.

The Chargers defense, which is not very good, allows 23.8 points in home games. Nor surprisingly, they allow almost 3 more points per game when playing on the road. As bad as Philip Rivers has been this season, he's been worse on the road than he has been at home. His QB rating drops almost 5 points when you compare home/away splits, and his interception rate is much higher (4.9% of throws going for INT against 3.8%).

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The last time the San Diego Chargers took on the Kansas City Chiefs was the first time I wrote a post about the Chargers losing the game. A lot of people were wondering if I was sincere or not, but missed the point. The title of these posts don't really matter, I'm not actually calling my shot that San Diego will lose the game. The point of these posts is to point out that I have zero confidence in the Chargers to win the upcoming game, because they're much more likely to shoot themselves in the foot than they are to play their best.

Are the Chargers a more talented team than the Chiefs? Absolutely. Philip Rivers is a better QB than Matt Cassel when he's not in a funk of turning the ball over. Ryan Mathews and Mike Tolbert are better than Jackie Battle and Dexter McCluster when they're not fumbling the ball. Antonio Gates and Vincent Jackson are better than any pair of receivers on the Chiefs when they're healthy. Shaun Phillips is probably better than Tamba Hali.

Unfortunately, none of those ratings actually matter. What matters is coaching, which team has the best game plan on both sides of the ball, and playing mistake-free football. The Chargers have won the turnover battle just once this year, against the Miami Dolphins, while the Chiefs haven't lost a turnover battle since Week 2. Want to know how a team as decimated-by-injuries as the Chiefs can go on a 3 game winning streak? They've learned how to eliminate mistakes.

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We know that after 5 games the San Diego Chargers are 4-1, a step up from their usual 2-3 under Norv Turner. However, do we really know how much better this year's team has been as opposed to those 2-3 squads? I want to do a comparison of more than just records, using this year's team against last year's team that finished 9-7.

Points Scored
2010: 140
2011: 120

Points Allowed
2010: 106
2011: 109

It would only make sense that the Chargers, with all of the red zone troubles without Antonio Gates this season, would've scored more points in 2010. What's a little shocking is that the defense hasn't seemed to change much, despite new personnel and a new Defensive Coordinator.

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Norv continues to roll out new aspects to the 2011 version of his offense as if he's slow playing a pair of pocket aces.  We haven't yet seen much come from previous token use of WR play fakes, four wide receiver sets, or jumbo three-TE personnel using Tyronne Green.  What we did get a new taste of this week, was Ryan Mathews and Mike Tolbert in the backfield together at last.  The combination of Mathews and Tolbert was used 6 times, mostly with a no TE's "20" personnel grouping; with Vincent Jackson, Malcom Floyd, and Vincent Brown as WRs.  The pairing of halfbacks resulted in 5.3 yards per play (6.4 if you throw out the lone in-completion).  Continuing last week's theme of multiple formations with the same personnel group, Norv gave the defense 5 completely different looks with the combo.  I tried hassling @mathews24, @randymac81, and @jacobhester22 for a name of the pairing, but got no response.  I also tried to coax @sdutChargers into asking Norv about it.  Since I'm good for nothing, help us out by suggesting a nickname for the Mathews and Tolbert combo.

Pull up this week's log and read along at home for more on this combination and our usual batch of offensive analysis.

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The Chargers offense ran 68 plays against the Chiefs over nine drives, totaling 28 runs versus 40 called passing plays (41% run / 59% pass).  The offense log I kept is available for your own rummaging (with the other two games filtered out, but available if you download it).  Out of those nine possessions, only five (drives 1, 2, 5, 7 and 8) were subjectively successful at moving the ball, with the opening drive being debatable for that distinction.  Drive 5 was an two minute drill affair before halftime that scored a figgie.  Drive 7 was rather un-Norv like; with a couple of passes to start, a big "11" personnel run, and two empty backfield shotgun sets out of "21" personnel (more on that later).

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In week one, the Chargers ran an exhausting 76 plays, with a total of 24 runs to 52 passes.  The more I stare at the log, the more I appreciate that this was a beautifully called game by Norv Turner.  This is because the obvious tendencies of the pre season were less present, there was just enough new stuff to leave plenty of room to progress throughout the season, and the running game was not stubbornly imposed as often. 

After the all too familiar run-for-one-yard, run-for-one-yard, in-completion three and out to open the game, the offense didn't have a dud possession the rest of the game.  Philip Rivers spent over half the game in shotgun formation (40 plays), but Norv departed from pre season form by running out of shotgun five times (for 8.4 YPC!).  Another new wrinkle that we didn't see in the pre season was the use of three TE personnel on four plays.  I think everyone paying close attention already recognizes that the emphasis for attacking the conservative Tampa 2 defense was to complete a lot of passes to RB's and TE's.

Here's the link for the week 1 play log.  Hopefully this is the start of a full season's worth of data.  Please dig around and see if you can find something interesting that I haven't pointed out. New features added since the pre season include an indicator for which plays led to 1st downs, and whether San Diego was Leading (L), Behind (B), or Tied(T). (Personnel explanation here)

Norv was actually fairly balanced on first down, but leaned very pass heavy for every other down.  It turns out, of 25 first downs earned, 21 were the result of passing plays.

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