Tag Archives: Philip Rivers

Take a Breath Before You Panic

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

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18-09-12 Lions

Image Credit: eu.freep.com

The week one games are in the book and so after this first flurry of games the natural next step is to react and thanks to a combination of modern media and the small number of games ever result is either a triumph or a disaster. So before we continue, remember to take a breath and not to read too much into the result for you team in their first game, unless you need to panic and given that all seven new head coaches lost this week perhaps you might.

Having seen both teams in the pre-season I wasn’t convinced by either the Bills or the Lions but both were on the wrong side of score lines over forty points. I can see how the Bills got themselves into the mess they are in, and they think they have their quarterback of the future so Josh Allen but given the moves they made to get him the young quarterback needs to work out. Poor Nathan Peterman didn’t stand much chance behind the Bills’ reworked offensive line . I’m not going to pretend that I’m a good enough judge of talent to say whether he does or doesn’t belong in the NFL, but he’s had two disastrous starts for the Bills now, and it throws the decision to trade away AJ McCarron into sharp relief as Allen is now starting next week despite not being ready four days ago. The Lions meanwhile managed to lose at home to a rookie quarterback in his first start on the road and this only furthers reinforces the poor impression I got from them in pre-season. It is going to take a number of wins to wipe the memory of that start from the fans who were in attendance.

The reason that they and the other teams who lost in week one might need to panic is that while roughly half of the teams that go 2-0 make the playoffs, only around ten percent of teams who start 0-2 make the playoffs. Now for some being competitive and winning some games (I’m looking at you Browns) would be an improvement in line with expectations as there are plenty of teams who see a return to competitiveness as a marked improvement. The Saints were not expected to lose to the Buccaneers, but if Ryan Fitzpatrick keeps playing like he did in the first game perhaps Jameis Winston won’t walk straight back into the starting role. The defence for the Saints no showed in the home opener against a divisional opponent, which is a real worry for a team that plays decidedly better in their dome so they will be looking to bounce back against the Browns on Sunday.

Now the Cleveland Browns reached peak Browns by avoiding losing their opening game in a tie and failing to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers despite generating six turnovers – plus Myles Garrett looked like a monster. It feels like there’s a lot more talent on this year’s roster but I think everyone is doubting whether the coaching staff can pull it together in Cleveland and stuff like this really doesn’t help.

Another team that will be ruing a missed opportunity is the Chicago Bears who had the Packers on the ropes in the first in Green Bay before Aaron Rodgers pulled off another miracle, firstly by getting back on the field having been carted off and then by leading a comeback from 20-0 down in the third quarter. The Bears will draw a little comfort from the fact that we all know Rodgers is, to quote Robert May, ‘…a f#*@ing dragon!’ but they got conservative in the second half on offence whilst the defence failed to cope when the Packers adjusted and got the ball out of Rodgers’ hands quickly. This was not helped by the lack of pre-season showing up for Khalil Mack who looked unstoppable early in the game but was on a rep count and couldn’t help late. The question for fans of the Bears is does the promise displayed develop as new head coach Matt Nagy gets used to calling plays for the entire game and how to maximise the offence, but that is a question we will only find out the answer to in the coming weeks.

It’s too early to draw too much from the Kansas City Chiefs win over the LA Chargers but they looked very promising on offence. Patrick Mahomes has a ridiculous arm and didn’t throw an interception although the play calling and skills players had a lot to do with the points scored and the LA Chargers would have been a lot closer if players would stop dropping passes from Philip Rivers. The Chargers are still finding ways to lose games and the number of fans at their ‘home’ games is still a worry, the new stadium that the Rams are building and that the Chargers will be sharing once its open could be very empty and dominated by away fans if the situation remains the same.

The Oakland Raiders failed to win and I will be keeping an eye on them, but the signs are not good for this season and the questions about the Mack trade will only get louder if he builds on the promise he showed in the Bears’ opener. Meanwhile Jerry Jones avoided the media after the Dallas Cowboys opening loss to the Carolina Panthers and without a quick improvement on offence.

Now a lot of teams are in a position to turn around their single loss and I certainly wouldn’t panic if I was a fan of say the Steelers (although the display by Ben Roethlisberger was concerning), but there will be fans all over the league who will be that extra bit nervous during the upcoming games and to them I say this, there is a long season up ahead and 0-2 doesn’t necessarily mean your team won’t make the playoff but if your team loses a second game, well at that point you can definitely panic!

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AFC Preview

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

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18-09-04 AFC

With the new season only days away I thought I would take you through a whistle-stop tour of the league starting with an AFC preview and I’ll give the NFC teams their own post before the Philadelphia Eagle and Atlanta Falcons get things under way on Thursday.

I don’t particularly like making predictions as there are too many variables and injury luck is can be such a huge part of team success so I’ll be breaking the divisions up into favourites, competitive, and likely to struggle as I work my way round the division compass so without further ado let’s make a start on the .

AFC North

Much as it is painful for a Bengals fan to say it, the favourite to take the AFC North division is still the Pittsburgh Steelers. They may have questions at linebacker thanks to Ryan Shazier’s injury, but the defence still finished top ten last year by DVOA in and the options in their offence are still terrifying. Time is ticking for Ben Roethlisberger but as long as he doesn’t suffer a dramatic fall off then this is going to be one of the teams of the conference who should have their eyes on the Super Bowl.

The AFC North is always a tough division, and even when the Browns are struggling they are often a tough out, but not so much under Hue Jackson. However, with a defence that has looked good in pre-season and the additions of Jarvis Landy and Tyrod Taylor as well as new offensive co-ordinator Toddy Haley it at least feels like the infrastructure for success is more solid. In a position to let rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield develop and not rush him I think the Browns will be more competitive than last season, but whether their ill-discipline (they got penalised a lot in pre-season) will allow them to win games I don’t know. I think we’ll know a lot more about this team by the end of the first four games.

The Baltimore Ravens are another team who are perennially competitive but had to do it with defence and special teams last year. With a kicker like Justin Tucker you can mask a lot of deficiencies in offence but the thing the Ravens coaches might be most happy about having drafted Lamar Jackson this year is the fire it seems to have lit under long time quarterback Joe Flacco. He may also have been helped by better receiving options and being healthy in the offseason for the first time in two years but if the Ravens’ Super Bowl winning play caller can lead the offensive to a better ranking than twenty-first by DVOA the Ravens will be right in contention for the playoffs again.

I’ve written a fair amount about the Cincinnati Bengals this pre-season and it is telling that neither of the offensive tackles two years that they drafted to prepare for a transition of talent have worked out whilst Andrew Whitworth looked great for the LA Rams last year. With new playbooks on both sides of the ball there have been a lot of changes to coaching and the roster. Whilst the Bengals have another young team there seemed to be a lot to like and if the O-line gels, then Andy Dalton should have a much easier time finding his myriad of skill players. I’m not pencilling them into the playoffs, but I’m not ruling it out and I wasn’t sure that would be the case when it was announced the Marvin Lewis was coming back.

AFC East

Is this the year that the New England Patriots falter? For the first time Tom Brady was not ever present through the off-season, their first round offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn ruptured his Achillies after they let starting left tackle Nate Solder leave in free-agency, and this was a team that went to the Super Bowl with a defence ranked thirty-first in the league by DVOA so they can ill afford an offensive wobble. I think we’re all at the point where we’ll believe Tom Brady is done when he has signed his retirement papers, but what will help them is that none of the rest of the division are exactly standing up as challengers at the moment and so the Patriots look to be favourites still. This could finally change though.

The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs for the first time in eighteen attempts last seasons, but they responded to this by cutting the quarterback that got them there, not signing the linebacker that led the league in tackles and trading their left tackle to the Bengals in the draft manoeuvres required to get their quarterback of the future. Have traded away AJ McCarron they have opted to go with rookie Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman as their QBs, but whilst Peterman has looked good in pre-season and Allen has flashed, the Bengals defensive line had a field day against Buffalo’s o-line and it could be a very long season for whoever starts. I was impressed with everything Sean McDermott did last season bar benching Tyrod Taylor but I don’t think this season’s roster is better than last years and I have a nasty feeling they will struggle for a lot of the season.

If you trade away your best offensive and defensive players for chemistry reasons, you had better have an awful lot of talent coming in and I’m not sure that Miami Dolphins do. I thought they had a good draft and I would say Adam Gase is a good coach but I’m not at all sure of the roster construction and this feels like the latest in a long series of make or break seasons for Ryan Tannehill. I believe that Gase can keep the locker room together and make them competitive but it would not surprise me if they fall into a difficult season. Nothing would make me happier than to be proved wrong, if only to cheer Dan through the season.

Finally we have the New York Jets, and I though Todd Bowles did an excellent job of coaching with a lack of talent on the roster last season and not sure many other coaches would have got as many wins. The most ready of the rookie quarterbacks fell into their laps in the draft and Sam Darnold looked good enough in pre-season that the Jets traded Teddy Bridgewater to the New Orleans Saints. I think it will take another or season or two to turn things round and I don’t know if Bowles will get the chance to complete the job, but I can see the Jets equalling their record of last season. There will be ups and downs with a rookie quarterback but the real question for this season is have the Jets finally got a franchise QB. Everything else after that can wait.

AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued to build their defence, stuck with Blake Bortles and their big free agent signing was a offensive guard. I thought that Bortles might have learnt a thing or two in last season’s playoff run but with the exodus at receiver and the injury to Marqise Lee this team will be as reliant as ever on their defence and the run game. The good news is that the defence will be no less scary and they should rightly be considered the favourites for this division.

The Houston Texans may have only won four games last season, but they revealed they could have a bright future as long as the young quarterback Deshaun Watson can recover his blistering form from last season before his knee injury. With the defence hoping a number of players stay healthy, including JJ Watt this could be really good team even if the offensive line looks to be a big problem. There are a lot of ifs there so whilst the Texans will start out competitively, how long they will remain so is the big question.

The Tennessee Titans ground their way into the playoffs with a run first offence and a defence that ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA. This was not enough to save Mike Mularkey his job and there rookie head coach Mike Vraebel is hoping that Matt LaFleur can revitalise the offence and fourth year quarterback Marcus Mariota. The coaches with links to Bill Belichick have not necessary flourished as head coaches and Vraebel has limited experience as the man with ultimate responsibility so I am very curious to see how he goes. The honest answer is I’m not sure so this is one of the teams we’ll need to follow closely through the start of the season.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled mightily with Andrew Luck being out injured but this also laid bare the problems with the rest of the roster and whilst there are signs that things are improving in the second year of Chris Ballard’s rebuild, a lot will depend on Andrew Lucks surgically repaired and extensively rehabbed shoulder. The good news is that he’s back to starting but new head coach Frank Reich will be hoping that he can get enough from his franchise quarterback that the season can be a success, but I have a feeling that being competitive would qualify as just that and would be a good place to start.

AFC South

The Kansas City Chiefs won the division last year and I have too much faith in Andy Reid to see this team as anything other than competitive and I would place them as favourites to win the division. That is despite trading Alex Smith to Washington to promote Patrick Mahomes as the starter after a season where the young quarterback sat on the bench. Mahomes has the arms to make use of the myriad of skills players the Chiefs can use in their offence that has borrowed liberally from college, whilst their defence was only ranked thirtieth by DVOA last year when they won the division. It wouldn’t take much to improve that ranking and with the potential of their offence the Chiefs could be one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

The other potential favourite in this division could be the LA Chargers but it would require them to get out of their own way and they couldn’t quite manage that last season. The abiding image of Philip Rivers for me these days is a player somehow functioning as an effective quarterback despite minimal protection from his line. The defence was just outside of the top ten with a fearsome pass rush led by Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa and they should be competitive again this season. The problem is that they have a nasty habit of losing close games and their ‘home’ games in LA were frequently more like home games for the opposition thanks to fan turnout. I’d like to think they can improve but I’m not willing to just outright declare it, although I’d be very willing to be proved wrong again.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with the currently Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. The big move of the off-season would have been luring Jon Gruden out of the commentary booth nine years after he last coached except they have just traded Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league, to the Chicago Bears. The reasoning is that the Mack’s contract demands were just too big, and the Bears wasted no time in signing Mack to a six year deal with $90 million guaranteed days after Aaron Donald signed a contract with $87 million guaranteed. The difference between the three franchises is that the Rams still have a young quarterback on their rookie contract as does the Bears, whilst the Raiders have already signed Derek Carr to a five year extension. The issue is that Gruden has been out of the league for a while, even if he was staying plugged into the NFL through his media gig, and the defence his brother Jay Gruden [I appear to have gone made, too many ex-Bengal coordinators involved as it is in fact Paul Guenther who is the new defensive coordinator – Ed.] takes over was ranked twenty-ninth by DVOA with Khalil Mack. I’m really not sure what to expect out of the Raiders this year, and whilst I can see the salary cap argument to an extent (I don’t study it hard, maybe that’s a task for next off-season) the Mack trade amongst others does nothing to help the Raiders now and I think this club will be in for a very interesting time this year.

Last year’s AFC West strugglers the Denver Broncos will be hoping that the addition of Case Keenum at quarterback will be enough of an upgrade to the offence to give the still competitive if retooled defence a chance of winning games. In the one game I saw them this preseason the offensive line still looked to be a problem but after a good pre-season from Chad Kelly, the Paxton Lynch development plan has finally been shelved. It is way too soon to question a GM who has won a Super Bowl and given his history as franchise quarterback you would think that the job is John Elway’s as long as he wants it. However, whilst he’s made a number of sharp moves in free-agency, his record in the draft is a bit patchier and his choice of Vance Joseph as head coach didn’t exactly yield the early returns that Elway would have hoped for. Still, if either Keenum or Kelly can make the offence competitive then the Broncos will be a team no one will want to face, especially at home and that could be enough for them to be in the playoff race come December.

Broncos @ Chargers

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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Denver Broncos 13
San Diego Chargers 21

This week’s Thursday night game at least finished tensely, but in truth the Chargers were consistently better than the Broncos over three quarters, although they still had a couple of worrying moments that could have cost them.

The Chargers offence had a tale of the opening drive and then the rest of the game. The opening drive was not without incident, with a big gain for Dexter McCluster wiped out by a pass interference penalty on rookie tight end Hunter Henry but he made several other plays in the same drive that ended with the only touchdown for the Chargers’ offence when Philip Rivers stood in and delivered the ball to the rookie tight end. In fact Henry led the team in receiving yards in this game as Philip Rivers threw for a modest one hundred and seventy-eight yards although he didn’t turn the ball over. The Chargers did manage to gain just under a hundred yards on twenty-nine carries with Melvin Gordon running for ninety-four yards, but in truth they struggled to maintain drives for most of the game and kicked a series of field goals to keep eking out their lead, but they managed to win the time of possession battle and put up enough points to win.

After the opening drive, the Broncos were able to clamp down on defence, and whilst their pass rush was not particularly effect at getting to Rivers, although Von Miller got his customary sack, they were able to limit the Chargers for most of the game. However, the Broncos were behind the game flow for all of the game and the real problems were not on this side of the ball.

The Broncos offence wasn’t terrible, but they struggled to maintain drives all game against a Chargers team who seemed to have an effective game plan. They weren’t helped by a series of offensive line penalties of various holding calls and false starts which killed several drives. In fact they had a touchdown by CJ Anderson in the fourth quarter wiped out by a holding call against tackle Russell Okung after the running back had taken a dump off pass and turned it into a twenty yard touchdown play. Not only did a holding penalty cost the Broncos a touchdown, but another one in the end zone gave the Chargers a safety. When you give up eighty-three more yards in penalties than the opposition, and you have them at critical points in the game, then you are going to struggle and with the passing game not really taking off the Broncos fell well short of what they needed to win. It appears that Trevor Siemian is a good quarterback if you can keep the game flow on your side, but the big chunks of yards needed if you fall back to a first and twenty after a holding a penalty is going to really cause him to struggle. In fairness, without head coach Gary Kubiak who usually calls the plays it is perhaps not surprising that the offence struggled this week. When you run for eighty-four yards but only call sixteen run plays to fifty passing plays, you can see that the balance was off for what is usually a balanced attack and it was only late in the game that the Broncos were far enough behind that they had to throw.

That said, the Chargers defence did well enough against the Broncos, and held up in the fourth quarter to win the game with Rivers looking on nervously from the side-lines, whilst the defence withstood a late surge by the Broncos. They actually matched the Broncos defence for sacks and got two more quarterback hits whilst swatting away more passes. Rookie defensive end Joey Bosa got a couple of quarterback hits as he begins to settle in having missed all of training camp, but I am really not sure how much the Chargers limited the Broncos and how much the Broncos caused the problems to themselves. In fairness, the solitary field goal the Chargers gave up in the first half was only due to a special teams mess up on a punt return, which gave the Broncos the ball deep in the Charger’s half of the field, but we will have to see how they develop in coming games.

This game was not the best spectacle, although it was tense late, but a very lopsided set of penalties probably sealed the game for the Chargers. The Chargers cut down on the mistakes, and you could see the relief when they got the win, but I don’t know how far they will go this season.

The Broncos have now lost two in a row, but they are at home for the next two games where they will hope to get their offence back on track and I suspect they will have the return match against the Chargers in week eight very much set in their sights.

Week 6 Amateur Adventures in Film

25 Sunday Oct 2015

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I decided to look back at the Chargers at Packers game for my week six adventures in film, which was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Both teams used more just the five linemen formations with their tight ends detached than I remember seeing before, and both teams were more effective on offence than defence. It is hardly a ground breaking insight that this game featured two of the best quarterbacks in the game, but they were impressive in different ways this week.

The only place I can start with in this game is the Chargers offence and the franchise record breaking performance of Phillip Rivers, who threw for five hundred and three yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He accomplished this with forty-three completions from a mammoth sixty-five attempts. The Chargers did a better job of protecting Rivers in this game, but this was because they spent virtually all of the game in shotgun formations allowing Rivers to survey the defence and get the ball out quickly. In the first half they used 12 personnel extensively, with tight ends Antonio Gates and Ladarius Green lining up in various spots as both receivers and tight end. In the second half they moved more to 11 personnel until Keenan Allen injured his ankle nearly ten minutes into the third quarter, when they returned back to 12 personnel. It is remarkable that in only forty minutes of game time, Allen amassed fourteen catches from fifteen targets for one hundred and fifty seven yards. However, Anotnio Gates and Malcom Floyd also chipped in with ninety-five yards each, whilst Danny Woodhead chipped in with sixty-three yards of his own through the air. The Chargers were unable to run the ball effectively through most of the game, so it is not surprising they had such high passing numbers, particularly when they were having so much success.

The Packers defence had been doing better this season, but whilst they stood up in the running game, their pass defence obviously struggled. They were unable to get their pass rush to Rivers in time, only getting three sacks despite generating seventeen QB hits, but Rivers was just getting the ball out too quickly. The coverage also struggled at times, on one play in the second quarter, the Chargers’ slot receiver dragged one of the two deep safties in to cover him, allowing Keenan Allen to catch a huge deep ball having got a step on Sam Shields. On the very next play Allen demonstrated more amazing body control to get two feet down so not all of the passing yards was due to coverage, but you don’t give up this much yardage if you are playing well. Going back to the pass rush, Clay Mathews flashed once as he split the left tackle and left guard, whilst Julius Peppers pressured from the right and having sent five the Packers got the sack as a team, but there were simply not good enough to disrupt Rivers sufficiently.

If the Packers defence really struggled, their offence was good if not as exceptional as you might expect. They used many more personnel groupings than the Chargers, and they were using Richard Rodgers, who is listed as a tight end, all over their formation as both tight end and full back. He may have only caught two balls, but he was heavily involved in their offence, but the real worry for this team is that they are banged up at receiver and the lack of Jordy Nelson is possibly beginning to show. They were able to rack up one hundred and thirty-three yards in the running game, but sixty-five yards of that came from the James Starks’s first quarter touchdown run. However, if you take that run out of the equation they still averaged four yards per carry, but they only ran the ball seventeen times in total. The real problem was that the Packers only had the ball for twenty-two minutes, and Rodgers threw an uncharacteristic sixteen completions form twenty-nine throws, gaining two hundred and fifty-five yards and two touchdowns. Neither team was good in the red zone in this game, which is surprising and tells its own story.

The Chargers defence did better against the pass than they have done in previous weeks, but were not inspiring. They did manage to get three sacks, but did not get a lot of other pressure and the sacks they did get was when they sent five rushers and were able to push the pocket up the middle. That said, defensive linemen Corey Liuget did cause some problems up the middle and was rewarded with a sack. The secondary may have done better in this game, but safety Jahleel Addae over committed to stopping James Starks’s run up the middle and got caught up by the line, which is why Starks was able to break it to the outside and get all the way to the end zone. In fairness it is hard to know how he is coached to play the run in this situation, but no one could get across to the side in time to stop the touchdown.

This was a very entertaining game to watch, and the Chargers came very close to tying the game up at the end of the fourth quarter, marching the ball down the field, but ultimately were unable to punch the ball into the end zone to force the game into overtime. They will do better against lesser opposition, but whilst the Packers may not be as dominant as they looked in the first couple of weeks, they are still unbeaten and look set to be amongst a handful of teams preparing to push deep into the playoffs.t