Lightning precedes Thunder followed by Smoke

The 1^st half was mostly a snoozer with the exception of Ronnie Brown fumbling the ball at the goal line out of the end zone for a touchback after Miami ate up the entire field on their opening drive.  Ronnie Brown didn’t take the handoff cleanly and it rolled to the back of the end zone.  Miami was unable to recover the ball and the Bolts got it at their own 20.

It’s good to be lucky.

The Chargers continue to struggle scoring in the red zone.  Kaeding was forced to kick 4 field goals, missing a 41 yarder.  Our only offensive TD came from a Rivers 5 yard scramble up the middle for only his 2^nd career rushing TD.

Norv still insists on running Sproles up the middle into a stacked line.  This is a waste of an offensive play and a down.  I’d much rather see Bennett lined up in the backfield with FB/TE Brandon Manumaleuna.  The Chargers did it on 3^rd and 8 and completed a pass across the middle to Gates for a 1^st down.

Pass 1^st run second, at least until LT and the O-line gets healthier.  Continue utilizing our strengths instead of pounding our head against the wall.  The Sproles to Rivers to Gates pass was pretty sweet.

The defense played incredibly well.  Weddle and Burnett had HUGE games. Burnett led the team with 9 tackles and a sack.  Weddle had 6 tackles and sealed the win intercepting a pass from Chad Henne running it back for a 31 yd TD with 5 minutes to go in the 4^th quarter.

Pennington got KO’d early in the 3^rd quarter.  I watched the play several times and just don’t see a bone jarring hit.  Regardless, Miami is reporting he’s out for the season.

Thanks for comin’ out.

Merriman reinjured his groin and sat out most of the 2^nd half.  Shawne wasn’t very effective in the 1^st half.  It’s a good thing Burnett and English stepped up.

The Bolts have found a way to put together a 2-1 record after 3 games.  We’re off to a better start than ’07 and ’08.  And if we can steal a win from Pittsburgh, we head into our bye week with a 3-1 record.

The Bungles did it, why can’t the Bolts?

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Unfortunately, a 16oz light beer still costs more than a 6-pack.  I guess ownership didn’t get the memo on the state of the economy.

There was an abundance of energy at Qualcomm for the home opener as expected.

The crowd was loud and excited to see our Bolts put the hurt on Baltimore.  After squeaking out a win in Oakland, I anticipated another close game hoping Norv and Rivera would open up the playbook.

Well, that’s what we got.

Rivers threw for a career high 436 yards.  Our make shift OL held together long enough to let Philip do his thing.  He did get sacked twice and threw 2 ints but IMO the OL did much better than expected.

Unfortunately, some of the play calling in critical situations was suspect as well as the officiating.

I can’t agree with kicking a FG on 3rd down with 10 secs left on the clock before halftime.  With the height advantage our receivers had over the Ravens CB’s I expected to see at least one or two fade routes to the corner of the end zone, never happened. Instead, Norv decided to play it safe and kick the FG on 3rd down. And the call to hand off to Sproles on 4th and 2 to end the game was atrocious.  Darren had minimal success running against the Ravens Sunday, 10 rushes for 26 yds.   Ray Lewis seemed to know exactly what to expect and stuffed Sprolesy behind the line of scrimmage for a bitter end to the game.

Play to win Norv, not to lose.

Missing Jamal Williams is def hurting the rush defense big time.  McGahee ran all over the Bolts for 79 yds and 2 TD’s.  There were a ton of missed tackles by our LB’s.  Our safety Eric Weddle had 9 tackles to lead the team.  That is not a good thing.

Luis Castillo had our only sack and played a great game.  Merriman is still without a sack on the year but forced Flacco to throw an INT to Cason.

Vincent Jackson is a stud.  He continues to show it every week.  Chambers has been a disappointment so far this year.  He dropped a pass that hit his  hands for what would’ve been a 3rd down conversion.  I’d much rather see Malcom Floyd in there as our number 2 receiver.  He seems to have softer hands and actually tries to make a play for the ball instead of giving up on passes like Chambers.

Gates is looking good, like Gates of old.  Get more throws to Gates.

LT missed the game and hasn’t practiced all week.  While LT is sorely missed, I’m completely comfortable with Michael Bennett and Sprolesy in the backfield.  But, Norv has to use Bennett for a bulk of the running and use Sproles for short passes out of the backfield.

The Bolts are home again this week to meet Miami.  The fish lost a close one Monday night to the Colts and travel cross country with an 0-2 record.

Let’s hope the defense isn’t confused with Miami’s gimmicky wild cat and are able to avenge last year’s loss so we can head into Pittsburgh next week with a 2-1 record.

The Chargers are 6 point favorites.

Fish fry!

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A win is a win right?  Most of the game was pretty fugly especially the 1st half.  The Raiders were able to run all over the Chargers and the Bolts seemed unable to do much about it.  Somehow we still went into the locker room 10-10 at the half.

Then the Bolts got caught with the injury bug in the 2nd half with LT standing on the sideline with a high ankle sprain.  Our offensive line was held together with duct tape after Hardwick and Vasquez left with injuries in the 3rd quarter.  Hardwick’s injury happened on a play that was blown dead on a false start penalty.

Rivers, Naanee and Gates were heroes on offense and Sproles on special teams.  Shaun Phillips had a great game but no sacks.  In fact, the defense only had one sack while  the Raiders were all over Rivers sacking him 3x including two sacks from Richard Seymour who’s only been with the Raiders for 2 freakin days.  Our secondary gave up a huge 57 yd pass play from Russell to rookie Louis Murphy on 4th and 14 to take a 3 point lead with 2:34 left in the 4th quarter.  That shit cannot happen.

A very disappointing performance by the Charger defense.

But, the Chargers offense dug deep and came through with a scoring drive in the final 2 minutes of the game to escape the black hole with a 24-20 win.  It wasn’t pretty but i’ll take it.  The Chargers have a lot of questions to be answered before they suit up against the Ravens this Sunday.

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The Bolts got through camp and pre-season healthy.  Gates and LT are 100% and from all the twittering and media reports i’ve read, the team is hungry for a championship run.  They have the talent and demonstrated some success in the post-season the last couple of years.  Several starters are in the last year of their contracts.  It’s time to get it done.

This is our year.

The Chargers CANNOT afford to get off to a slow start.  While 8-8 may be good enough to make the playoffs, it’s not a good way to head into the playoffs. A 1^st round bye and even home field advantage is what the Bolts should be striving for.  Enough talk and hype, positive results are what matters now.

We’re facing three playoff teams including the defending champs on the road in our 1^st four games:

@ Oakland Sept 14^th on MNF (current sports gambling line is SD -9.5)
Baltimore @ SD Sept 20^th
Miami @ SD Sept 27^th
SD @ Pittsburgh Oct 4^th on SNF

This might sound overly optimistic but I don’t see why SD can’t finish our first four games 3-1.  Oakland should be a blowout.  The Ravens in SD for our home opener should be a tough, close win.  Miami traveling cross-country should also be a win for the Bolts especially after winning a close one against the Ravens, giving us some added confidence going into the Dolphins game.  Pittsburgh is really the only game that worries me.  Their defense is tough and they seem to hang around and win the close ones even though Big Ben may be on his ass for a good part of the game.

After those 4 games, we have back2back2back division games against Denver in SD, KC on the road and Oakland at home.  Let’s capitalize on our weak ass division foes and pad our schedule with three more ass stomping W’s during that stretch.  We run into Philly and the Giants in weeks 9-10.

Re: Merriman/Tequila debacle.  Shawne dodged a bullet putting himself in a bad situation.  The Chargers don’t need off-field distractions; focus on football and not attention-craved ho’s.

SD is long overdue for a Championship, make it happen Chargers.

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