The Los Angeles Chargers opened the Jim Harbaugh era in Week 1 with a win over the Las Vegas Raiders, 22-10. While it wasn’t an entirely pretty win, it was a win nonetheless, as the team got some measure of revenge for the 63-21 beat-down last season. The team still has some kinks to work out – more so on the offense – but it was enough against the Raiders, who are likely to be competing with the Broncos for last place in the division. Ultimately, it was the Chargers defense that carried the load to get them the win.
Chargers Defense Leads Team to Win in Season Opener
Fearsome Front Seven
Most of the heavy lifting came from the defensive line and linebackers. This is an area that struggled a lot in the Brandon Staley era – the run defense was always a problem, and the linebacker play was inconsistent at best. The pass-rushing was the main bright spot from the front seven. Here we saw all of those facets contribute.
The Raiders were held to 71 yards on the ground at 3.2 yards per carry, with only one rush over 10 yards. The Chargers in particular held strong against the run in short-yardage situations. They put good pressure on Gardner Minshew as well, sacking him four times along with several quarterback hits. One of the few good ideas Staley and company had last year on defense was running situational defensive sets with three pass-rushers – in this game, we saw a similar situational set with all four of them.
The defensive line sealed the game as well. Late in the game when the Raiders were driving down two scores with no timeouts, Khalil Mack (who came to play hard as usual against his former team) deflected a pass from Minshew, which was then caught by Poona Ford for his first career interception. This sealed the game and the Chargers were able to kneel the clock out after that.
Room for Improvement in the Secondary
The cornerback position was a concern going into the season, as it was the one area on defense they weren’t able to improve much on in the off-season. It showed against the Raiders – Minshew was able to go 25-for-33 with 257 yards, and starters Asante Samuel Jr and Kristian Fulton both had multiple missed tackles. The most egregious one was when Samuel Jr missed a tackle on an Alexander Mattison catch near the sideline and it led to the only Raiders touchdown of the game.
The rest of the defense was good enough that it didn’t matter too much, and the Raiders were still held to only 10 points. It is a potential concern for games against tougher opponents – outside of Davante Adams, the Raiders receiving corps is not exactly star-studded. And a better quarterback than Minshew could pick apart that weakness more easily too.
This isn’t going to be much of a concern against next week’s opponent, the Carolina Panthers – who are the worst team in the league if Week 1 is any indication. But down the road, unless they are able to improve, the Chargers defense will have to rely even more on that front seven – and their safety duo of Derwin James and Alohi Gilman – to do the heavy lifting.
In Conclusion
As stated, there is room for improvement – on both sides of the ball. But a win is a win, and opening a new era was important, especially after how catastrophically the last one ended. And much of what we did see was quite encouraging. The difference on the defensive line and even the linebacker corps is telling. Now the question will be if they can keep this up against tougher opponents – which, fortunately, they don’t have to worry about for at least a couple of weeks.
Main Photo: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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