Pro Football Focus Grades Chargers Win

The Chargers rookies made a huge impact this week based on the eye test. They did really well in Pro Football Focus ratings too, with Jatavis Brown leading the team with a grade of 85.5. Korey Toomer, an ILB who has been on 4 teams in as many years, had his second solid game in a row. Last week, it was a bit of a puzzle that he was starting the game in place of an injured Denzel Perryman (opposed to Joshua Perry) considering he had only been signed 3 days prior. He has rewarded the Chargers with their faith, and might keep the starting job when Denzel Perryman fully recovers. He was all over the field today, and ended up with 5 tackles, a forced fumble for the 2nd week in a row, and a sack.

Melvin Ingram also had a good game, constantly getting pressure, but would have graded higher if Pagano kept him out of coverage, which is laughable. Although he didn’t register a sack, he ended with 6 tackles.

If one was to look at the statistics, they wouldn’t believe that Joey Bosa and Brandon Mebane had good games. According to PFF, all 5 of the Chargers top defenders played better than every Broncos defender not named Brandon Marshall or Von Miller (who himself didn’t play as well as Toomer or Brown). Joey Bosa only ended the game with 1 tackle, and Mebane only ended with 2, but Mebane did a good job setting the tone for the run defense through most of the game, and Bosa was constantly giving the Broncos tackles a hard time. One thing I did notice about Joey Bosa is that he almost tried too hard on a lot of plays. He would rush right by the tackle, but would have to turn around to come back at the quarterback most of time, which limited his effectiveness in the statistics, but was accounted for in PFF’s grading. They gave him the grade based on his 5 hurries and one hit.

All 5 of the Chargers top defenders played better than any of the players on offense for the Chargers, and that is obvious why. King Dunlap had a solid game against a great pass rush, and ended his day with a 78.4 rating. Hunter Henry struggled in pass protection, but considering he was trying to defend Von Miller, he did an admirable job. He stole the show in the passing game, and ended with a 73.1 rating, catching for a TD and more yards than his previous career high. Joe Barksdale was able to have a solid game as well, and the whole line only allowed one sack on Philip Rivers today, which helped Barksdale receive a 71.7 rating.

Melvin Gordon received a 68.1 rating, which would have been a lot lower had it not been for his 48 yard run, which accounted for more yards than his other 26 carries, combined. He ended the day with 27 carries for 94 yards, and he earned every single one of those yards. Unfortunately, his touchdown streak did end, but he’ll look to “rebound” on that front next week.

Philip Rivers had a solid day. He didn’t make many mistakes, but missed a few open receivers during the game. As I predicted in my fantasy writeup, he threw for 1TD, and was limited through the air. His rating was a 67.9.

Read the whole PFF article here.