Chargers game reactions

Another long TD to Reyonlds. Offensive line played decent all night. Sayles made some plays at the end.

Sketchy Refs , It seemed to me like the Chargers were headhunting the only one they called was that shot Reynolds took and held on. Then the announcers say it was a good call after the replay reversed it , no it was a horrible call, mistake that got corrected . Defense wise I’m glad that the ones didn’t play cause that was awful. Did anyone catch that shot of Goff talking to McVay during the FG and McVay looking perturbed? Watkins , Woods , Kupp, Austin and Reynolds whens the last time we had a WR corp like this?

Disappointment. But not bitter disappointment.

Forget the defense. That was second teamers and I don’t really count that last night. Although I am a bit worried about how this will all suddenly come together on week 1 when they haven’t been really playing together. But we’ll see.

Special teams. My main gripe here was some poor decisions on bringing the ball out of the endzone. The ball is spotted at the 25 yard line now. In most cases it’s just better to take that–unless you see a huge opportunity.

Offense.

I went to GamePass and slowed things down. First of all–Brown was not great at RG. He was inconsistent at best. He worries me a bit there. On the sack/fumble Brown is literally blocking NO ONE. Yes–Havenstein got beat but Brown is staring into empty space. He had other poor results earlier in the drive. Not impressed. By the way–Whitworth chased that defender who had the ball all the way to the endzomne. Great effort–even if he had no shot. Also–I originally thought Goff did not feel the pressure at all but he is sliding a bit to his left as Bosa approaches and he was just a second slow on throwing it. One note: on the play before when he overthrew Higbee in the endzone he could have had a wide open Robert Woods who was cutting across the middle toward the goal line. Goff never saw him.

On the second series after the fumble The Rams start out fine. A quick pass to Cooper for about 6 yards and Brown up the middle for the first down. After that Goff fakes the handoff and the pressure comes from the left side as #93 for the Chargers spins away from Saffold and has a clean line to Goff. Still, Goff has plenty of time to set and throw. It’s just a bad throw. Period. Two Rams receivers were in the area Woods was deep and Watkins(was wide open) shorter. I’m not sure who he was trying to hit because it ended up between them. Either way. Just a bad throw.

On the next drive–the Malcolm Brown drive–other than Havenstein–it was a second unit offensive line. For the record it was Williams, Havenstein, Blythe, Eldenkamp and Wichmann. Chargers were still playing starters. I have to give a high five to Watkins. Sammy is a really good downfield blocker as a receiver. A lot of receivers don’t do that but he blocking alone is an asset.

On the drive Goff throws high to a wide open Higbee, He had time. Bad throw. On a 3rd and 9 Goff hits Wood short of the sticks and takes a good hit to the turf in the process. Goff is done for the night. He finishes 5-8 for 56 yards and an int.

I wish that McVay would have sent Goff back with the first unit on the Malcolm Brown drive and let him throw. Sending him out there to hand off was a waste, IMO. Yeah–it’s great work for the run game but Mannion could have handed the ball to Brown.

It looked to me like Goff threw about 3 bad balls. The high endzone pass to Higbee(not sure if the threw it away or not but he had Woods open)the interception, and a high pass to Higbee on the last drive. Those were his three incompletions. Like I said–I would have liked to see one more drive where he got to throw the ball. I’m not sure if he’s ready for the season. I just don’t know.

Clearly McVay didn’t care about the game itself–and that’s fine–it’s pre-season. So hopefully he was able to see what he wanted to see. The Chargers certainly played more starters and longer. I do think that teams will believe that if you hit Goff you can rattle him and so I expect he will see a lot of exotic blitzes this year–until he burns teams on them. Or he shows the hits don’t matter.

That’s all I got for now.

I do think that Fouts is on to something about the Rams quarterbacks needing to get a better feel for the pressure(although I believe Mannion is better than Goff at that right now). That should come with time.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by PA Ram.

I’m encouraged about the defense. Basically a second team defense still held the Chargers to two TDs. That’s pretty damn good!