San Diego Chargers Lose to Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 34-24

The only thing that worked for the San Diego Chargers in the first half was their passing offense. Everything else seemed....off. In the fourth quarter, Philip Rivers took care of that by throwing two ugly interceptions (one returned for a TD).

Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos (who will be two games ahead of San Diego heading into their matchup next week) spent their afternoon terrorizing Cam Newton and are on their way to an easy blowout win.

The running game for San Diego didn't do much today (3.2 YPC), the offensive line was mediocre against a really bad defensive line, the secondary gave up big catches to everyone in red and the pass-rush didn't exist (Freeman was sacked just once). On top of that, special teams allowed a blocked punt and Mike Scifres probably won't be healthy enough to punt next week.

I guess, since the defense only gave up 20 points, you could maybe argue that they weren't awful. To that I would respond "The defense gave up 4 scores while forcing just 3 punts". That's not a great stat if you're trying to make the defense look good.

The Chargers are not good enough to beat the Broncos next week in Denver. After that game, they have the Ravens (currently destroying the Raiders), Bengals (currently destroying the Giants) and the Steelers (destroyed the Giants last week) in Pittsburgh. This Tampa Bay game had the be the beginning of something for Norv's crew, but instead it's another embarrassing loss in a string of embarrassing losses this year. Maybe, instead, it should signify the end for the team's Head Coach and General Manager.

At this point, the only reason the Chargers are not last place in their division is because they play in the league's worst division.