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Team: Los Angeles Chargers Record: 9-7, 2nd in the AFC West What Sucked: Woo boy the kickers they trotted out early were terrible. A large part of why the Chargers started 0-4 this year is because Younghoe Koo whiffed on, consecutively, a game tying and game winning FG in back to back weeks. They went through something like 4 last year due to performance & injury. None of that would've mattered as much if this team didn't poo poo themselves against the Chiefs both times. The Chargers finished last year only giving up the ball 15 times, good for 4th in the league and way better than in the last 3 years. The problem? 7 of them came against the Chiefs in both of those games. And it's not exactly like the Chiefs' defense was any good last year. Also they lost their first two draft picks to, in order, a back injury and a torn up knee. It sucks especially because i'm pretty sure if they drafted Lattimore - which they were well in position to do - instead of Mike Williams, that's probably the difference in making them a playoff team. The good: Anthony Lynn grew a lot as a coach over the year. He made a lot of fairly poor clock management errors that gradually corrected themselves as the season went on, and overall the team played a hell of a lot more motivated than they had under McCoy. Lynn and the coaching staff showed a lot of aptitude for adjusting over the season - forcefeeding the running game wasn't working out because of their weaknesses at the interior o-line, so they reoriented the offense more around Rivers to Allen and Henry and it worked out well. Gordon had his best season despite the o-line being overall not good at run blocking and made big strides as a receiver and pass blocker. Austin Ekeler showed a lot of flashes this year, and Henry is gonna be the next mainstay TE for the Chargers for a very long time if he stays healthy. As poor as they were at run blocking, the Chargers also had probably their best pass blocking o-line in a long time - Rivers was sacked a career low 18 times. Defensively they finally shifted to a 4-3 like they've needed to do for loving years and it paid off handsomely; Bosa and Ingram are one of the best pass rushing duos in the league, even if they wore down slightly toward the end. Chris McCain flashed quite a bit as a situation 3rd down rusher. There's room for improvement, of course, but overall this is by far the best pass rush they've had since the Merriman/Phillips days, and overall as a defense they were stout in the red zone. LBs were hit and miss due to Perryman battling injuries throughout the year but he played really well when he was on the field. The secondary played outstanding for most of the season - Hayward is a top 10 CB and when Jason Verrett went down again, they plugged in Trevor Williams and didn't miss a beat. Dez King flashed a lot as a nickle CB, Tre Boston played well as a FS. Even Addae, who I normally dislike a ton, put together a decent year. Best moment. probably shutting out the Broncos 21-0 after they've stomped on us for years, or shutting the Cowboys down completely on Thanksgiving. Both were the most complete games they've played in a long, long time. Draft needs: DT, LB, and RT. As well as the defense played last year, Mebane is on his last legs and Liuget is best suited for limited snap duty. They struggled against the run last year so if they can get a really solid run stuffing DT who can apply some heat on the QB - not even a ton, just a dude who's a threat to an opposing offense every so often - this defense is going to be one of the top groups in the league. Adding a 3-down LB couldn't possibly hurt anything either. Hopes for 2018 Wants are simple: get into the playoffs and beat the loving Chiefs for the first time in forever. Anything else is gravy.
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Apr 2, 2018 23:54
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 23:53 |
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