The Los Angeles Chargers are 5-2 coming out of their bye week. Originally, we expected that Joey Bosa would be back by now. But it is sounding like he will still probably be out on Sunday with a bad foot. They’ve generally been doing okay so far despite his absence, but without him, the pass defense will be on their own again and will have to make plays without much help from the pass-rushing. This weekend, they will be facing the Seattle Seahawks; arguably their toughest opponent in over a month.
Los Angeles Chargers Secondary Needs Big Day Against Seattle Seahawks
Inconsistency on the Pass Defense
As noted earlier, without Bosa on hand, the pass-rush has not been as deadly as normal even with Melvin Ingram still out there. As such, opposing quarterbacks have had longer to throw, thus leaving it to the cornerbacks and safeties to make plays. And this hasn’t been going quite as well as expected, considering they have Casey Hayward and Derwin James out there.
After oddly struggling against C.J. Beathard, the secondary looked a lot better against Derek Carr and Baker Mayfield. But then they regressed again a little bit against Marcus Mariota, who’s been having a pretty bad year. They’ll have to do better against Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, whose offense is probably the third best they’ve faced all year besides that of Jared Goff and Patrick Mahomes.
The Seahawks Offense
I wasn’t exactly expecting much out of the Seahawks this year, but the offense at least has been doing surprisingly well in the last few weeks, after another slow start. There are some new faces for Wilson this year, but he’s still been finding them; whether it’s veteran Doug Baldwin or newbie David Moore. He’s had three touchdown passes each of the last three games. The defense can’t allow Wilson to do whatever he wants, especially since they’ll be playing *in* Seattle and the offense will have to deal with the crowd noise.
Who Will Step Up?
Aside from maybe the rookie James, pretty much everyone’s been quite inconsistent out there in the secondary. Trevor Williams has had some good plays, including a critical interception in the San Francisco 49ers game, but he’s also gotten burned by opposing receivers quite a bit. Same goes for Jahleel Addae; he’s capable of some good hits, but he’s also taken some terrible angles on tackling here and there. Even Hayward hasn’t been quite as good this year, although he’s still the most dependable cornerback on the team. Desmond King has been another rare bright spot, but for some reason, they’re still only really letting him play nickel/slot corner.
Someone is going to have to step up out there. It’s fair to assume that whomever Hayward guards (maybe Baldwin) will not get a lot of looks. It’s everywhere else that’s a concern, especially since Moore has been breaking out the last few weeks. Williams may need to have one of his better days. And at some point this season, if he continues his inconsistency, the team should perhaps seriously consider putting King out there in his place instead. Regardless, Williams is probably the man who will need to do better on Sunday than he’s been doing.
Last Word
The Chargers defense is likely going to have coped without Bosa for at least another week. And while Philip Rivers could probably bail his team out if he has to (especially considering he may be having the best year of his life), that’s not something you want to necessarily depend upon when you’re playing in Seattle – one of the toughest places to play. You’d rather have it to where the defense bails you out instead.
This will probably be the toughest game the Chargers play in November. After that, they have the Oakland Raiders again, Denver Broncos, and the Arizona Cardinals. If they get past this game, they can probably breathe easy for a while until December, when the schedule will really heat up. I don’t know what the deal is with Bosa taking this long to recover, but they will definitely want him back by then at the very latest. Hopefully, the rest of the defense can hold on until then. In a reaction to an earlier game this season, I referred to them as “bending but not breaking.” While obviously domination would be preferable, the other option would still be acceptable under the circumstances.
