Surge or Static: Cards fired one person for each Bosa sack

Oh yeah, I definitely missed this Victory Monday feeling. And it wasn’t just any old victory. It was a complete and utter tail-whipping of the Arizona Cardinals in front of a home(?) crowd at StubHub Center.

Philip Rivers did some amazing, historic things and was the premium gas that unlocked the Chargers offense to the tune of 45 points, their highest output of the season.

The defense got the juice back with Joey Bosa getting back to his ways, as well. It was awesome to see defensive coordinator Gus Bradley get back to lining him and Melvin Ingram up on the same side in order to give the opposing offensive line fits. It was exactly as I remembered it from last year.

(Kisses fingers) Muah. It was a thing of beauty.

Without getting ahead of myself and delving too much into the finer details of Sunday evening, let’s go ahead and get right to the good stuff.

Ladies ans Gentlemen, your Surge or Static players from this week.

Surge

QB Philip Rivers

It really couldn’t have gotten much better for Rivers against the Cardinals unless, you know, he was able to complete that single pass to RB Austin Ekeler in the middle of the third quarter.

Still, 28-of-29 was still good enough to BREAK THE NFL RECORD FOR COMPLETION PERCENTAGE IN A SINGLE GAME WITH 96.6%!

As Rivers would say, “Shoot. that’s pretty dang good.”

Rivers did exactly what he needed to do in this game to really shake off all of the bad juju following his first multi-interception game last week. Especially during this final stretch through the month of December, Rivers is going to have stretch to make sure he is capable of carrying this team to the playoffs.

DE Joey Bosa

Man, it is so great to have the big bear back on the field for the Bolts. After his season-debut against the Denver Broncos last Sunday, many were likely letdown by a performance that saw him fail to record a single TFL or sack on the evening.

However, in his first game in which he accrued his normal snap-share, Bosa found himself picking up right where he left off in 2017. The defensive end took down rookie quarterback Josh Rosen on two seperate occasions for the Chargers’ only two sacks of the evening.

He also collected five total tackles, good for third on the team, two other tackles-for-loss, and two quarterback hits.

Welcome back, Joey.

S Derwin James

Oh, is this a third player included in the Surge section? You better believe it. And why not, especially after a game in which so much good took place?

James led the team in tackles once again with seven while also adding a pair of passes defensed and his second interception of the season. He currently leads the team in tackles by a mile with 78. Linebacker Jatavis Brown sits behind him with a respectable 60.

Although it may seem that James has calmed down since his hot start to the season, he still has a massive impact on each game, regardless if he is registering sacks and interceptions each week. The rookie is all over the field and has been about as consistent as anyone on the entire team.

Static

The coaching staff

Really, there wasn’t too much “bad” from this game involving individual players. If anything, the only negative news that found it’s way out of the Chargers lopsided win was that Gordon was hurt during a trick-play in the third quarter while the team was already up 28-10.

It obviously adds a little insult to injury (pun intended) when Gordon had an injury designation coming into the game, in the first place.

But this is all really tough. On one hand, the New Orleans Saints have been throttling teams and they haven’t done much in the way of benching starters when things get out of hand, they usually keep the pedal to the metal.

I don’t see anything wrong with Lynn and co. deciding to keep Gordon on the field but I believe it was in bad taste to try a double-reverse with your best player given the surrounding circumstances.

They should all be thanking their lucky stars that the injury was not season-ending in nature and should allow Gordon to return prior to the post season and, in case of a meltdown, help the Chargers secure a playoff spot if it comes down to winning the last few games of the season.