3 good things from the Chargers victory

How nervous were you? Be honest. You thought the meltdown was coming, didn’t you? I sure as hell did. Either way, the Chargers pulled it off. Lets talks about the 3 good things from tonight.

Rookie class

Drew Kaser didn’t suck!! In fact, he was pretty good. He averaged 47.4 yards a punt and had 4 kicks go inside the 20. He had a booming 60 yarder but best of all, his kicks flipped the field position and that’s all you can ask for.

How about these young dudes. Bosa was great in his debut and continued to play with his hair on fire tonight. He beat his man a few times, looked great looping inside on stunts a couple time, and had a huge stop on 3rd down. Bosa finished the night with 2 QB hits and came soooo close to a sack. He had a play where he completely ran over a blocker. It might not have shown up in the box score, but he was everywhere.

Hunter Henry was targeted 8 times and had 6 catches for 83 yards and a TD. He had another long run after catch showing a little bit of speed. San Diego asked Henry to make some difficult blocks when it came to staying in front of Von Miller and while he was beat a couple times, the fact that they asked him to block Miller 1-on-1 speaks volumes of Henry as a blocker. As a receiver, he’s a dangerous threat and I’m interested to see him continue to build rapport with Philip Rivers the rest of the season.

The star defensively goes to Jatavis Brown. Everywhere. Speeeeeed. Brown was credited for 14 tackles, had a tackle for loss, and on the 2nd to last drive he had a sack and a forced fumble in successive plays. It doesn’t take long to realize players “have it” and Brown is clearly has whatever the hell “it” is. I don’t think it’s me being hyperbolic to say Brown has earned a starting spot moving forward from here on out no matter who is healthy.

Defense

I mentioned 2 big parts of the defense, but as a unit, the defense did a good job of keeping the Broncos out of the end zone. They were put in bad spots and unlike last Sunday, they held and kept Denver to 3 points. Denver had 14 drives and to hold them to only scoring on 3 possessions is pretty impressive. There were times where the tackling was sloppy, but that’s nothing new. There were times where Melvin Ingram and Jerry Attaochu were in coverage, but that’s nothing new. The Chargers stepped it up on defense and forced the Broncos to punt/fumble/safety on 9 possessions. That is how you win football games.

Offensive line

Keeping Rivers upright went along way in how the Chargers were able to build their lead. He was only sacked twice and one came on the very last offensive possession. He had time to scan the field tonight and the offensive line blocking well lead to the team able to 16 first downs. It felt like 12 of them came in the 1st half. Not to mention that gaping hole on the left side that helped Melvin Gordon bust a 48 yard run. You can’t dink and dunk against great defenses if you’re not protecting your QB. The line did that tonight.

Who were you impressed with tonight?