Los Angeles Chargers: Best and worst of Week 1 vs. Chiefs
By Tyler Schoon
Following their Week 1 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, here are a few of the best and worst performers from the Los Angeles Chargers.
Andy Reid owns the Los Angeles Chargers, and it’s not even close. The final score, 38-28, does not tell the full story of Week 1 against the Kansas City Chiefs, one filled with great individual efforts routinely marred by inexcusable errors made by others.
It’s hard to praise a team that just lost its ninth-straight game to a divisional opponent, but there were a number of commendable members of the team. At the same time, there were others who deserve to be called out for lackluster efforts.
Let’s take at some of those Week 1 performances.
Missed the cut
Best: Mike Williams finishing with five catches for 81 yards
Worst: Not giving Uchenna Nwosu more snaps
Best: No torn ACLs
Worst: Brandon Mebane’s zero tackles, zero sacks
Best: Running Backs
We knew the Chargers would have an effective duo in the backfield, and they delivered:
- Melvin Gordon: 24 total touches, 166 total yards, 6.9 yards per touch
- Austin Ekeler: 10 total touches,126 total yards, 12.6 yards per touch
When the offense wasn’t running obvious delayed hand-offs, each back was given a chance to shine. Gordon detractors should fall silent at his performance, showing off another balanced and effective game against the Chiefs.
Those who prefer Ekeler, I don’t blame you; he’s possibly the most fun player to watch on offense, even in limited snaps. They did everything they were supposed to against the Chiefs, and it’s disappointing that the defense and return game didn’t do enough to reward their performance.
Worst: Hands
Tyrell Williams? Miss. Travis Benjamin? Drop. J.J. Jones? Two fumbles on one punt return.
The latter is the most infuriating, and Jones is now competing with Benjamin’s punt return last year for worst special teams play I’ve seen in years. Williams is at least still very clearly a threat at least and got open on numerous occasions, but I would have liked to see him come down with two of those big catches.
Benjamin almost appeared lost as a receiver, and if he can’t even catch the deep ball, then he no longer has value on the roster. This unit, while overall performing well on the stat sheet, had a rough day.