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Bolts & Dolts: San Diego Chargers top Dallas Cowboys to kick off preseason

Each week, John Gennaro looks through the box score of that week's San Diego Chargers game and picks out the players that performed above, or below, expectations.

By John Gennaro
Stephen Dunn

Bolts

Philip Clemensen - 14/16, 243 yards, 1 TD (0 sacks)

Philip Clemensen is the three-headed QB monster that showed up to face the Dallas Cowboys "defense" yesterday. They looked like an NFL QB at practice, wearing the red jersey. There was no pressure on them, either around the outside or up the middle, so they just went from read to read to read until they found someone that was open. There were some really great throws mixed in there though.

Branden Oliver - 7 carries, 64 rushing yards, 1 rushing TD

First of all, this is a fun tweet from almost a week ago:

Secondly, I told Richard Wade at FanFest that "Chargers fans are going to call him the next Darren Sproles because he's short, shifty, and wears #43." Guess what last night was? A whole bunch of people telling me that Branden Oliver was the next Darren Sproles!

I'm sorry. Branden Oliver is not Darren Sproles. If this were a courtroom, Exhibit A would be the fact that he didn't catch a single pass or run a single route. Then, after explaining Exhibit A, I would shut my briefcase and walk out of the courtroom with the easy victory.

That being said, Branden Oliver has a good game. I am willing to bet it will be his best game of the year. Possibly of his career.

Donald Brown - 3 carries, 22 rushing yards

I'm not entirely sure why such a talented RB decided to sign with a team that already had a starting RB and a third-down RB, but Donald Brown looked great. I love Ryan Mathews, but this team might actually get better the next time he gets injured.

Dontrelle Inman - 3 catches, 107 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD

Bold words from Acee (who isn't always right about these things), but Inman kinda looked like the guy we were hoping Tevin Reese would be this year. There's plenty of value in a guy like that.

Reggie Walker - 6 tackles (4 solo), 0.5 sacks

Richard isn't wrong. Walker is every bit as good as an OLB as he is an ILB or special-teamer. I don't know where those pass-rush skills came from but they're kind of frightening.

Cordarro Law - 3 tackles (2 solo), 0.5 sacks

Looked about as good as Reggie Walker, which is impressive.

Thomas Keiser - 2 tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble

Good game by a guy who probably needs a couple to turn his image around.

Dolts

Ryan Mathews - 5 carries, 19 rushing yards, 1 fumble lost

Hey, stop that. Mathews had 331 touches last year and lost just one fumble. I'm not going to quickly jump back into "Ryan Mathews has a fumbling problem" territory, but I won't let it slide either.

Kerwynn Williams - 6 carries, 10 rushing yards, 1 touchdown

Yes, he got the touchdown, but he was pretty terrible outside of that.

Darrell Stuckey - 5 tackles (3 solo)

Stuckey looked lost on defense. Tons of missed tackles, blown coverage, and getting caught up in traffic around the line of scrimmage. All in all, he looked like the guy that the team was afraid to put on defense for years. I don't think his spot is in jeopardy, but I'd like to see at least one good preseason game to make me feel better about keeping him on the 53-man roster.

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