There was a certain sense of dread hanging in the air for much of the Chargers’ Monday night performance. Despite an early 14-0 lead buoyed by a fierce defensive performance, the game never felt truly in control.
Maybe that’s just the trauma talking.
Los Angeles kept their eye on the prize on Monday, eventually closing out a 27-6 win against a Jets team that has plenty of their own questions to answer going forward. The Chargers did not allow a touchdown on Monday for the second time in the Brandon Staley era.
Here’s what to take away from the game.
Triple threat
The Chargers put Zach Wilson on the turf eight times on Monday. Dean Marlowe was credited with one of those sacks in garbage time and Morgan Fox got half a sack earlier in the contest. The other six and a half came from Los Angeles’ three-headed monster on the edge: Khalil Mack, Tuli Tuipulotu, and Joey Bosa.
Of those six and a half, only one did not force a turnover or a fourth down. Bosa’s first sack was the strip sack that he recovered to set up LA’s second touchdown of the game. Tuipulotu’s first came on a 3rd and 10 and forced a punt. Mack’s first came on second down inside the Chargers’ 15, but the third-down sack the following play by Bosa and Fox pushed the Jets into a much tougher field goal. Bosa then got another third-down sack on the next drive. Tuipulotu ran down Wilson for a loss of 15 midway through the fourth quarter. Mack closed the game with a strip sack of Wilson with 3:28 remaining.
The Jets were starting a patchwork offensive line with a quarterback who’s been nearly completely unaware of impending doom all season. But it’s the way Los Angeles won on Monday that should make Chargers fans optimistic about this trio in the future. All three can win on islands, and the third down package with one of them on the interior frees up LA to run some exotic pressure packages and heat up any quarterback in the league.
Heat seeker
Alohi Gilman has been on fire this season despite a heel injury that kept him out for multiple weeks. The safety has forced a turnover in each of his last three games – a forced fumble against the Vikings in Week 2, a hit on Bears receiver Darnell Mooney that led to a Derwin James interception last week, and a forced fumble on Jets receiver Garrett Wilson on Monday.
That strip was crucial, too. LA had just taken the lead on a Derius Davis punt return touchdown, but the Jets were putting a drive together and had just been aided by a Joey Bosa roughing the passer penalty. Wilson caught a pass with plenty of room around him because of the off-coverage the Chargers were running, and Gilman’s strip, combined with James’ subsequent recovery, firmly placed the momentum in Los Angeles’ hands.
Gilman was also the one to pick up the fumble to end the game after Khalil Mack robbed Zach Wilson. He nearly converted a scoop and score, stepping out of bounds at the two-yard line and setting up Austin Ekeler’s second touchdown of the night. When he’s been on the field, the 2020 6th-round pick has proven he has a nose for the ball, something the Chargers made great use of on Monday.
Beyond the box score
The Justin Herbert stat line was not pretty – just 16 of 30 for 136 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions. Herbert was also sacked five times. This is not a “Justin Herbert can do no wrong” publication, either. We’ve been plenty critical of him when warranted, like after the Dallas game a few weeks ago.
Monday did not warrant criticism of Justin Herbert.
For starters, the Jets have one of the best defensive units in football. New York pressured Herbert 13 times, generating a quarterback hit on all 13 of those reps. That was also partly because the duo of Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed had things locked up on the back end – that’ll happen when your best receivers outside of Keenan Allen are Quentin Johnston and a debuting Jalen Guyton.
Los Angeles also could not run the ball effectively on Monday, so they abandoned it for large swaths of the game. When they did run, it was on early downs, putting the Chargers well behind the sticks and allowing that Jets defensive line to pin its ears back to get after Herbert. The Chargers officially dropped two passes but had at least two more that probably should have been caught and had at least one more fall incomplete due to miscommunication between quarterback and receiver.
Undoubtedly, Herbert made no big, flashy, game-winning throws on Monday. Perhaps his best highlight was Keenan Allen’s circus catch to go over 10,000 career yards, and even that ball was off-target by Herbert. The broken finger plays a part in this as well, albeit a small one. But when your run game doesn’t work, your offensive line can’t pass protect, and your receivers can’t get open, what more is a man to do?
Grind it out
All in all, Monday’s performance was exactly what many Chargers fans have been asking from this team all season. Los Angeles is a talented enough team to get away with playing a grimy brand of football every so often, especially against lesser opponents. We hadn’t seen that come to fruition yet this season, however.
Monday’s game was perhaps the closest LA has come to playing complementary football all year. The offense was stuck in neutral for most of the game, yes, but they turned two of New York’s three turnovers into touchdowns and whittled eight minutes off the clock at the start of the fourth quarter en route to a field goal. The defense forced three turnovers and held a bad Jets offense to just 6 points by limiting explosive plays in both phases of the game. (Most of New York’s explosive plays were called back for penalties.) The special teams chipped in – Derius Davis’ 87-yard punt return for the first touchdown set the tone and Cameron Dicker drilled a 55-yard field goal right before halftime.
Complementary football doesn’t always mean all three units play the most optimized game ever. Sometimes, it means that all three are somewhere between good enough and optimal. On Monday, the Chargers put the offense, defense, and special teams in that range for all sixty minutes for the first time in 2023.
