The Chargers had a decent amount of good come against the Bills but it all happened to come via the defense who recorded a whopping five takeaways from Josh Allen and the league’s best offense through two weeks.
Unfortunately, the Chargers needed six or seven to apparently beat the Bills and earn their first win of the season because the offense was still just as lost and disconnected as they looked in Weeks One and Two.
Three weeks into the season, there’s still so many more questions than answers.
sigh….
Here are this week’s winners and losers.
Winners
S Genesis Smith
Smith rebounded from a rough outing against the Raiders to pick off one of the league’s best quarterbacks not once, but TWICE(!) on Sunday when the Bolts visited the Bills.
The first was a beautiful undercut of a slot post intended for wideout D.J. Moore and the second was a circus catch that started with Smith and Moore both ricocheting the ball off their hands at the catch point only for it to fall gently onto Smith’s stomach while he was still sliding on the ground. It was a tough break for Allen, but Smith still kept his head about him enough to clamp down on the ball before it could hit the turf.
Talk about a confidence booster for the rookie moving forward.
EDGE Akheem Mesidor
After recording a half sack in Week Two, Mesidor earned his first career full sack in emphatic fashion by winning cleanly against Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins (one of the best in the league) to bring down Josh Allen. The rookie has been showing more and more promise with each regular season game and it helps that Chris O’Leary is finding his groove earlier than we all initially thought.
Losers
QB Justin Herbert
Herbert and the offense looked like the same unit from their first two games despite the notion that they had their best week of practice going into Sunday. They were unable to capitalize much at all on their five takeaways by the defense and Herbert’s lone interception thrown was just plain ugly.
After looking at the defense before the snap, Herbert seemingly forgot that safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was hovering in the middle of the field when he fired a ball to Marquez Valdez-Scantling in the end zone. CGJ read it the whole way and grabbed one of the easier interceptions of his career.
It was an indefensible throw by Herbert and a real gut punch to his defenders frosixm the past two weeks. After a lot of wrong going on around him, Herbert only fanned the flames by making such a huge mistake in a pivotal point of the game.
RB Omarion Hampton
Hampton was stifled all day by the Bills top-10 run defense and it forced Mike McDaniel to try and get some going behind Keaton Mitchell and his speed. He finished with 56 yards on 15 carries (3.7 YPC) and no receptions on one target. On the other hand, Mitchell had 52 yards rushing for 52 yards (6.5 YPC) and received three targets (albeit he caught them all for -5 yards).
The interior of the offensive line was simply unable to get any movement Mitchell’s speed was the only thing working as the Bolts needed to get him on the edge fast with their edge players doing a good job of making their ball carriers bounce it back in.
Hampton only has a harder task coming with the Seahawks’ sixth-ranked run defense set to greet him in Week Four.
WR Quentin Johnston
Johnston left Sunday’s loss with season-highs in catches (three) and yards (40) but even with those middling stats, it was a much worse day in reality.
First, over half those 40 yards came on a play at the end of the half where the Bills defense lined up halfway down the field to allow anything underneath. It was the easiest 21 yards he’ll get in his entire career.
Secondly, he had another egregious drop on a perfect pass from Herbert. It was also on a third down during a drive the Chargers needed to cash in on.
I’m not sure what to think about Johnston now. We know what he looks like at his best, but this is a really, really unfortunate stretch for him. Part of it seems to be how he fits in McDaniel’s offense, but his fit doesn’t change how he catches and if neither of things are going well, then what in the world is going on?
If there’s anyone that needs a shot of confidence right now on the Chargers, it’s him.
