The Chargers march on this Thursday, visiting the Raiders in Las Vegas in a battle of unproven quarterbacks.
Here are four reasons to be concerned about a Chargers loss.
Stick shift
Easton Stick will get his first career start on Thursday following Justin Herbert’s finger injury and subsequent placement on injured reserve. Stick, a 2019 fifth-round pick, has only played in two career games. The second one was last week’s relief appearance.
It would be one thing if this happened a little closer to the start of the season. Stick played the majority of the snaps in the preseason, running Los Angeles’ offense to a reasonable degree against teams without many of their starters. But as the scout team quarterback, Stick has not run the Chargers offense in practice in nearly three months, and now has to prepare to do so in a primetime setting on a short week. That’s not a winning formula.
Add in the potential absence of Keenan Allen (heel) and the looming threat of Maxx Crosby – likely to play despite not practicing due to a knee injury – and it begins to look like a tall task for Stick to secure his first career victory.
Losing steam
Some teams are able to weather the storm of falling below expectations. The locker room stays together, they string a couple tough performances together, and morale stays relatively high.
That is not the vibe around this Chargers team. Players like Derwin James and Sebastian Joseph-Day have changed their normally very pro-coaching staff tune to a more neutral stance. Khalil Mack has been vocal about his frustration with the lack of contribution from younger players on the team. The entire organization seems to have an air of defeat around them.
Teams like that, fractured and limping to the end of the year, are not typically the kind to rally around a backup quarterback, or to get up for a big rivalry game, or to show up in primetime. Unfortunately for the Chargers, they have all three situations on Thursday. Las Vegas will be looking to deal a killing blow.
Big changes
When these teams met for the first time, Josh McDaniels was still the Raiders head coach. Dave Ziegler was still Las Vegas’ general manager. The vibes in Las Vegas were in a similarly low place as they are in Los Angeles now.
Vegas fired McDaniels and Ziegler a few weeks later, elevating Antonio Pierce to interim head coach and immediately earning buy-in back from the roster. They’ve stuck with Aidan O’Connell at quarterback, stabilizing what had been an untenable rotation between O’Connell, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Brian Hoyer. While the turnaround hasn’t come with a blazing record, they did win four of six games before embarking on their current three game losing streak.
Some of that goodwill has worn off during that streak, including a 3-0 shutout loss that star receiver Davante Adams called “embarrassing”. But Vegas has made adjustments to get their supporting cast more involved: Hunter Renfrow has returned from the bench in recent weeks and rookie tight end Michael Mayer is beginning to get out on more routes, even if his numbers haven’t caught up.
It’s a different Raiders team than the one Los Angeles saw in Week 4, and the Chargers – with Justin Herbert – needed three turnovers to beat that team by 7.
Split series
The Chargers and Raiders have split their season series each of the last three seasons as both teams have teetered between playoff contender and basement dweller. In those six games, the average margin of victory has been just over 6 points.
Los Angeles won the Week 4 game by 7 points, but that was with Justin Herbert (although he broke his finger in the middle of that game). It was also before the Chargers forgot how to run the ball – LA ran for 155 yards on the Raiders that day. Khalil Mack had six sacks, O’Connell lost two fumbles and threw an interception, and Herbert was only sacked twice.
Consider how many points the drop-off from Herbert to Stick is: probably about a touchdown per game, if not more. Now consider the likelihood of the Chargers having everything else go their way again, as it did in Week 4, given how competitive of a series this has been over the last three seasons. The odds are not in LA’s favor.
