Los Angeles Chargers: Loss is not season defining but is concerning

The Los Angeles Chargers lost its ninth consecutive game to the Kansas City Chiefs and third consecutive week 1 contest.

There are a few things in the NFL that seem to be a guarantee. The New England Patriots will make the postseason, there is always one surprising sleeper team and the Los Angeles Chargers will get off to a slow start.

For most of the millennium, even when the team was playoff-caliber, the Los Angeles (then San Diego) Chargers were victims of a slow start. In most playoff cases, the Chargers would rebound from said slow start to still make the postseason.

Last season, the Chargers started 0-4 before going on a 9-3 streak to finish the year 9-7. Los Angeles missed out on the postseason due to a three-way tiebreaker and could have been an outright wild card if it was not for one missed kick against the Miami Dolphins in week 2.

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If anything, the Chargers have proven to the fans that a week 1 loss does not mean that much in the grand scheme of things and is not a fair representation of how the season will go. Even last year’s AFC Champion New England Patriots loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in week 1 in a blowout.

However, Sunday’s 38-28 loss to the Chiefs was worrisome. While it is unfair to jump to hasty conclusions on the entire season, it is also unfair to completely ignore what we saw in the matchup.

Granted, the team is not 100 percent, but what team ever is? The Chiefs were dealing with the same rust as the Chargers in week 1. And while the Chargers may have had some key injuries, such as Joey Bosa, the overall play was a bit concerning.

First and foremost, the dropped passes. This game could have been completely different if a few key catches were made early in the contest to flip the momentum.

That is a victim of rust. Whether it is week 1 jitters or the need to get back into the groove of things, chances are we will not see this many drops as the season goes along.

However, the drops were a part of a bigger issue that has been an issue with the Chargers for as long as I can remember as a fan, the team beat themselves.

J.J. Jones had a huge fumble on a punt return that eventually gave the Chiefs the final 38-point tally. With the way the offense was going, Philip Rivers and company easily could have made it a 31-27 game.

Heck, the Los Angeles Chargers had a chance for some late-game heroics even after this muffed point. Down by ten with a minute left in the game, Caleb Sturgis missed a 48-yard field goal that would have put LA down by seven.

The team still had all three timeouts as well. Even if the onside kick failed, the Chargers had to make just one defensive stop and Rivers would have had a chance to drive down field. Again, that would not have been a guarantee, but the offense was firing on all cylinders and could have made that push.

And let’s talk about Tyreek Hill, who had himself quite the showing. Hill had 169 receiving yards, two touchdowns as well as a punt return touchdown. To be fair, most of this does have to do with Hill’s freak ability and speed, we cannot take that away from him.

However, while the Chargers may not have been able to completely stop him, the team could have contained him. Some key missed tackles on the opening punt return and a huge missed tackle by Jahleel Addae on a slant gave the Chiefs 14 early points.

If the Chargers literally made two tackles this entire game could have been different. If Hill was stopped at the 30-yard line, the Chargers could have pressure Patrick Mahomes early and shaken his confidence.

This is all hypotheticals but that start did give the Chiefs the confidence to fire away at the Chargers. For the most part, it worked.

So while I am not hitting the panic button quite yet, I certainly am not happy with what I saw out of the Los Angeles Chargers. The defensive play calling was very questionable at times and the special teams unit is still very underwhelming.

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Those are things the team is going to have to iron out if it wants to reach full potential. While the talent alone on the Los Angeles Chargers should be enough to be a playoff team, LA can only go so far while shooting itself in the foot.

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