It’s 4:15 here on Long Island. The playoffs are about to begin and the Bolts are nowhere to be found. The Titans are going into Arrowhead. But the Chargers knew when they took their shot in Kansas City that they wouldn’t win any tiebreakers. Nonetheless, they finished strong. At least they didn’t lose as I sat out in the cold to watch them Christmas Eve or against the fucking Raiders. I don’t think the Chargers can take credit for getting DelRio fired since it sound’s like Mark “Bucky Larson” Davis has been after Gruden for a while. But it still felt good to beat Oakland down even if it didn’t mean we’d be in the playoffs. Can you imagine if Tennessee and Cincy had lost and THEN we couldn’t beat the Raiders? If that Andy Dalton 4th down touchdown had been the reason we didn’t get in then that wouldn’t have been tough to take.
It still sucks that the Chargers didn’t get in, but I don’t think this season was a failure. It was bascially 2013 except we didn’t get the help we needed. If you look at that season and 2008 I don’t know if we can complain about other teams not winning the games we should have. Baltimore losing at Houston in 2014 should have been enough for the Chargers to finish the job. But after 4 seasons of McCoward, was that one playoff berth worth it? It felt like it at the time but we only beat Cincy, and while I am sure Bills fans are still sending Dalton charity money, that isn’t much of an accomplishment. Marvin Lewis getting to stay makes me think that we aren’t the most pathetic organization in the NFL after all. Speaking of Buffalo, I spent the four most successful years the Bills ever had attending college in Western New York. They could beat Jacksonville tomorrow and somehow upset a team in the next round. Maybe the Pats are really coming apart at the seams like that ESPN piece suggested. I don’t know about Bill B going back to the Giants, though.
My point is that Bills fans would be happy just having their season extended for one week, especially in the surprising fashion it did. I hope the Chargers wouldn’t be happy to just get in. People give Joe Flacco shit only having one championship season. He won a Super Bowl and I think that’s all that matters. Before Baltimore started winning a few just so Eric Weddle could be helplessly chasing the winning touchdown, Flacco said that there would be no reason to get into January if you aren’t going to win it all. I couldn’t agree more.
Why did the Bolts fall short? Koo’s two misses against Miami were certainly damaging. I’m not into all that win probability shit, but it wasn’t good to see the miss against the Dolphins listed as #1 on ESPN’s biggest swings of the season. Any time we lose a game because of field goal kicking, I always look to the plays we didn’t make that would have prevented it from coming down to one kick. The Chargers should have put both Denver and Miami away. Phil shouldn’t have thrown 6 of his 10 interceptions against KC. After watching that horrible safety against the Giants, I wrote that we were watching the worst Charger football I’d even seen. Honestly, they did look that bad. The coaches and the players looked completely overwhelmed. Was it partially due to the move? I have no idea. I know that Lynn seemed to become more comfortable as the season wore on.
But McCoy seemed to at least not be the giant impediment to winning that he became during his first season. I think Lynn is much better, but I’m still not sold on his in-game decisions. CBS’ Will Brinson, who was on the Chargers’ side all season, said midway through the year that Lynn cost the team 4 wins. That might be a stretch, but his clock management and decision making left something to be desired.
I guess I’m saying that I don’t know how to view this season. The most optimistic prediction I heard before the season started, when it was also being reported that the Chargers had the hardest schedule in terms of strength of opponents, was 10-6. So if you said they’d come up a game short, especially after going 0-4, you’d probably take it.
But you could also look at the fact that Rivers was kept largely upright and that besides Lamp, Perryman, Liuget, and Henry that the team was pretty healthy. Perryman’s injury at KC certainly made it harder to stop Hunt in the second half. But lack of injuries before that game made it seem like the Bolts didn’t take advantage of an opportunity. The two games against KC were their real shot. That’s where the playoffs were really decided. As I see the Chiefs score their first touchdown of the postseason, I really I need a break from football for now. I ‘m sure as shit not angry we beat the Raiders twice and I hope we can continue it when they announce their new/old coach next week. But we’ll only know whether this season was a success based on what they do NEXT season.
I’ll be back the week before the Super Bowl. Until then, have a happy 2018.
Yours in Justice,
RLW
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