Welcome To The AFC West Recap!
Hey what’s up, it’s me, one of your favorite Big Time Movie Boys, Kenjac. As most LCB listeners and some stoolies that followed me from my 2 years as a Pardon My Take intern know, I am an avid Chargers fan. I’ll answer the first question outright: No, I am not famed commenter “Diarrhea”. I love me a Sierra Nevada, but I can’t claim to be such a legendary figure to Chargers lore. How did someone born and raised on Long Island become a fan of the least interesting franchise in the NFL, you ask? Simple, my parents didn’t give a rat’s ass about football and said to like whatever team I wanted. I started watching football during the rise of LT, and the way he anihilated defenses (along with SD having the best uniforms in football) gripped me and unfortunately never let go.
Miss you. Anyway, there’s obviously been a ton of let downs and terrible moments for us. But there’s also a lot of good! Thanks for this, Nathan Peterman. 
Point is, I love my terrible team. So I’ve decided to start blogging them and the rest of the AFC West late at night during the regular season and Sunday mornings now for 2 reasons.
1. Nobody gives a flying fuck about the Chargers. Not anybody in LA, and especially nobody in the Northeast. So including the rest of the division is a no brainer because some of you actually like those teams and I’ve been watching them as long as I have the Chargers.
2. I’m blogging them late at night (during the regular season) because the games run mostly on west coast time, and because these teams probably don’t deserve to take prime time blogging hours away from teams you’re actually interested in.
My beloved bolts had a heartbreaking start to the year in 2017, and they were essentially an average kicker away from making the playoffs. 2018 is already off to a hot start with injury after injury c0ming in before the preseason even started. Jason Verrett ruptured his achilles in a conditioning test, which may spell the end of his career. At 27, he’s already had a rotator/labrum tear in 2014, a partial ACL tear in 2016, and in 2017 hurt the same knee and went on the season ending IR. Hunter Henry tore his ACL, Joey Bosa is battling a foot injury, Trevor Williams had a near high-ankle sprain and Corey Liuget isn’t coming back until week 5 for foot surgery AND has a 4-game PED suspension looming.
The fucking season hasn’t even started yet! Fuck! Whatever, they made some solid FA acquisitions in Mike Pouncey and Virgil Green and I thought they had a great draft. Forrest Lamp is also coming back and might have a breakout year. Like the rest of the AFCW rosters, the Bolts are extremely heavy on offense. Rivers has Keenan, Tyrell Williams, Travis Benjamin, and Mike Williams to throw to, so the loss of Henry will see some of them getting more work. Melvin Gordon is an absolute stud, and Austin Eckler made a huge impact last year considering he is an UDFA from a small school. The one place I think they are very well suited compared to the rest of the AFCW is defense.
They come into the year as the 3rd ranked pass-rush defense according to PFF. The loss of Liuget hurts that, but Bosa and Melvin Ingram are absolutely elite pass rushers and are well complemented by Mebane and hopefully Uchenna Nwosu. Where they have been, and continue to struggle is run blocking. Straight up, the linebackers not named Jatavis Brown haven’t fleshed out in that area. Perryman has been outstanding when healthy, but he needs to stay on the damn field. Casey Hayward is an elite cornerback, and without Verrett I still expect great play from the secondary with Rayshawn Jenkins and Derwin James taking on big roles.
As for the game, they played very well and their depth shined through in a big way in the 24-14 win over Seattle. Rivers looked sharp, going 6/7 en route to a Melvin TD run. Special teams, an area they have sucked MAJORLY in for the last decade, shined as well.
The biggest “battle” is between Geno Smith and Cardale Jones for backup duty, and Smith made a big case for himself with an insane touchdown to Mike Williams in the 3rd quarter.
Both the first and second team offense played well, including a Melvin Ingram forced fumble at the goal line. Shit like that is what gets you excited for the season. Jaylen Watkins hurt his knee, however, which does NOT get you excited.
They played a great game in their 29-14 win over the Falcons and their first team offense looks damn scary. Tyreek Hill is maybe the fastest person on earth and Watkins is going to give them serious length alongside Kelce. Oh and let’s not forget they have a top-5 RB in football by the name of Kareem Hunt. Mahomes gave up a bad INT, and a Falcons CB dropped another one in the red zone as well, but he looks ready to let it rip. For your consideration, this 69-yard triple coverage touchdown to close out the half.
Their first team* defense, however, didn’t look great. Matt Ryan stomped down their throats for 90-yard drive en route to a TD on the Falcons first possession. It’s going to be interesting seeing how they function as a unit since losing some serious bedrocks in Tamba Hali, Derrick Johnson, and most of all Marcus Peters. Eric Berry didn’t play and is working on a sore heel, and starting LCB Steven Nelson got concussed in a collision with Austin Hooper.
Both the Rams and Raiders sat their first team offenses, so it was a pretty boring affair. It did hold a much higher significance though as it was the first Raiders outing in the LA Memorial Coliseum since 1994 and guess what, the one team that actually should have moved to LA got a ton of love.
I hate my team. The Raider’s offense was stuffed up in the first half with Connor Cook getting smacked around, throwing errant passes while their star from last game, Chris Warren III, was bottled up. They got a little looser in the second, with Warren busting loose for a 3-yard TD. Griff Whalen had an outrageous one-handed snag from EJ Manuel as well. A lot of their defense starters sat, but James Cowsey had a pretty nice INT off a horrific throw from Brandon Allen.
The offense has been gifted basically everything Derek Carr and his smokey, eye shadowed applied peepers could ask for this offseason. He has Cooper on one side and Jordy on the other, with a solid vet in Jared Cook at TE and both Marshawn Lynch and Doug Martin to grind out yards. Martavis Bryant, when “healthy”, might be one of the best deep ball receivers in football too. PFF also ranked their O-Line as the 7th best coming into the year which is promising. They might be the dumbest franchise in football if they don’t get the Khalil Mack holdout situation under control, though. A big key for them, regardless of that situation, will be if Maurice Hurst can deliver the amount of pressure they need to remain a top flight pass rush defense. He did have an outstanding pressure leading to a sack vs the Rams last week.
As for their offseason, you really can’t hate on bringing in Gruden. I mean, one look at these two gets me smiling from ear to ear. 
How do you not sort of root for these guys! They drafted with defense clearly in mind, taking 3 pass rushers to either compliment or replace Mack. Their free agency was a whirlwind, and they signed laundry list of dudes. Nelson, Bryant, Martin and Derek Johnson were good gets as long as they’re healthy/not suspended. Tahir Whitehead was an outstanding bargain, he’s above average at run defense and got over 100 combined tackles in each of his last two seasons with Detroit. Leon Hall is past his prime, and they got two 2011 Chargers draftees in Shareece Wright and Marcus Gilchrist, neither of which are very good. Frostee Rucker, while old, should make a decent rotation guy and an even better locker room mentor for the young team.
God I hate Denver so much. The Peyton era was my equivalent of Golden State getting Durant and I will never forgive them for it. The big signing in this offseason is Case Keenum. He quietly put together a proficient 11-3 record on MIN before getting his shit kicked in by the Eagles, but having a decent QB to throw to studs like Demaryius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders and possibly DaeSean Hamilton improves their offenses prospects immensely. As does the drafting of Royce Freeman, who was electric in college. Speaking of the draft, did you hear they got this fella named Bradley Austin Chubb? So now NFL offenses have him and Von Miller, who’s probably the best defensive player in all of football, bearing down on them along with Shaq Barrett, Shane Ray, Derek Wolfe, Chris Harris Jr. and Bradley Roby. That’s just objectively a beautiful damn defense.
As for their 24-23 loss, they blew 13 point lead after the starters essentially dominated Chicago for the first quarter. This includes Chubb FLYING in unprotected to snag Mitch Trubisky for a safety.
The next quarter, Royce Freeman got his feet wet, going right up the gut for 6.
Swag Kelly came in after that, throwing a dart to Courtland Sutton after Justin Simmons flipped the field on a great pick. Lynch came in after that and was unable to answer Chase Daniel, who was tearing them up. The bad news is that Will Parks fucked up his knee, and wasn’t able to return to the game. The big takeaway is that their defense looks primed to be one of the best in the league provided they stay healthy.
That’s all for this week. I wonder who on the chargers gets hurt by next Saturday, my money is on an O-Lineman. Don’t forget to subscribe to Lights, Camera, Pod, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Instagram and join in on the conversation on our Reddit.