The first game of the Los Angeles Chargers season has come and gone. And with it being a 38-28 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, fans will obviously be frustrated as the nine-game skid against the Chiefs continues. In the last couple of games, it had been mostly due to interceptions from Philip Rivers that the Chargers had lost. On Sunday, that was not the case. If anything, Rivers was the reason the score didn’t look a lot worse.
Philip Rivers Not to Blame for Los Angeles Chargers Losing
Some Struggles at Wide Receiver
Rivers finished the game with a stat line of 37-for-51, 424 yards, three touchdown passes, and just one interception. While that one interception was certainly his fault, almost half of the other incompletions were not. The vast majority of Rivers’ passes today were very accurate. However, a few wide open and perfect deep passes were dropped by receivers. Namely, Travis Benjamin and Tyrell Williams (although the latter caught a touchdown later). When one watches the game and sees just how few passes were inaccurate from him, it’s difficult to not recognize that he had a quite excellent performance.
Despite being down 31-12 at one point, Rivers didn’t give up that easily and actually almost led his team on a late rally. Their hopes were only truly dashed when the Chargers went for a field goal to make it a one-possession game, and then Caleb Sturgis missed it. Before that, he was spreading the ball around quite efficiently, particularly in the second half.
Making Use of a Diverse Passing Offense
Speaking of Rivers spreading the ball around… let’s talk about how he did that. There was the usual main target of Keenan Allen, plus Mike Williams finally having a breakout performance of sorts. But Rivers also targeted running back Melvin Gordon in the flats as a receiver quite a bit. Gordon had over 100 yards receiving. And he also threw to backup running back Austin Ekeler quite a bit when he actually went out wide. If Rivers can get a proper receiving rhythm going with two running backs (as he did in this game), that can only help the offense. Lots of offenses these days thrive because they have a good receiving back.
Last Word
If this game was any indication of what Rivers and the passing offense are going to look like, then that part of the team should be in pretty good shape. Despite some of the drops we saw, there are weapons everywhere and different ways to attack a given defense. There’s a lot to look forward to out of Rivers and the Chargers offense right now (even if there were a few perplexing drops by receivers).
Obviously, there are different issues for the team to sort out after the loss; namely the special teams. But the point is, Rivers cannot be blamed for the opening week loss. He did just about everything he could to put his team in a position to win. This is just the opposite from last year when six of Rivers’ 10 interceptions came in two games against the Chiefs. And it should be noted that in recent years, the Chiefs have been one of the Chargers’ biggest obstacles in general. Things are only likely to improve from here. Next week, the Chargers will play the Buffalo Bills. And if the Bills’ own game on Sunday was any indication, that matchup should be significantly easier than this one was.
