The Chargers won’t be at their best when they face the Miami Dolphins on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium. But that doesn’t absolve their many backups, fill-ins and others who will be elevated into starting positions or enhanced roles to replace their many injured starters.
No illegal formations.
No holding penalties.
No jumping offside.
No false starts.
No late substitutions.
No misaligned formations.
The Chargers’ players and coaches demanded better this week, which would be a radical departure from two recent games. The Chargers were penalized 14 times during a 21-18 loss Sept. 28 to the New York Giants and 10 times in a 27-10 loss Oct. 5 to the Washington Commanders.
Mistakes happen. Football is an imperfect game played in an imperfect world.
The way things went in the past two games was unacceptable, as far as the Chargers and their coaches were concerned. They must clean up their act. They did a fine job of it during their three-game sweep of their AFC West opponents to start the season with a 3-0 record.
Injuries to key players don’t absolve their replacements from playing a cleaner game Sunday against the Dolphins. In fact, offensive coordinator Greg Roman all but demanded it when he spoke to reporters at midweek, as the Chargers began to refocus on the finer points of the game.
“For guys on the roster, we expect them to perform,” Roman said. “If his job is to block somebody, he needs to block ’em. Run around, catch the ball, throw the ball, whatever. We’ve just got to get better, clean up our operation to where we’re not hurting ourselves. In the NFL, you can’t win a game until you first don’t lose a game. That’s what we had a little too much of last week.”
There were too many penalties in each of the past two games, but the Chargers also had difficulty figuring out who should be on the field and who should be on the sideline during their loss to the Commanders. The Chargers weren’t lined up properly too many times to suit Roman.
“I have got to do a better job, you know, that’s my responsibility,” he said.
Nothing went as haywire as a 4th-and-2 play at the Commanders’ 39-yard line late in the third quarter, with the Chargers looking to keep a promising drive going in the hope of rallying from a 20-10 deficit. Trouble was, they had only 10 players in their huddle with the play clocking ticking down.
Finally, tight end Tyler Conklin sprinted onto the field in time to get the play off and avoid a delay of game penalty. Justin Herbert dropped to pass, delivering a throw to Conklin that slipped through his hands, landing incomplete and turning the ball over to the Commanders on downs.
“Those are just things we have to be better at and stuff we have to take a hard, long look at,” Herbert said of the operational issues that cropped up against Washington, including the botched fourth-down conversion attempt. “We have to address that. The game is tough enough already. We’re making it tougher on ourselves when we do that, so it’s stuff we have to fix.”
Herbert couldn’t say why things went so unexpectedly sideways in the past two games, especially in the loss to the Commanders.
“It’s out of character,” Herbert acknowledged. “So, it’s on us to watch the film, get better from it and continue to harp on those little details. I think that’s something we’ll talk about and communicate and address. It’s definitely not something that you want (in your play) moving forward.”
No question, the Dolphins have had a rough start to the season, losing games and key players during their first five contests. Miami’s 1-4 record shouldn’t automatically mean an easy afternoon for the Chargers, whose 3-2 mark doesn’t exactly set them up for a trip to the Super Bowl, either.
If anything, it means the Chargers must play crisp and clean football if they hope to end their two-game skid, according to safety Derwin James Jr. There can be no repeat of their clunkers against the Commanders and the Giants the past two weeks. They must be at their best Sunday.
Or else.
“Anybody in the NFL is a dangerous team,” James said. “If you don’t go out and prepare the way you need to prepare, I feel any team in his league is dangerous. We need to make it about us. Yes, yes, some of those mistakes are fixable. Clean up the mistakes. Look inward, look at myself. How can I get better?”
CHARGERS (3-2) at DOLPHINS (1-4)
When: 10 a.m. PT Sunday
Where: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla.
TV/Radio: Ch. 2; 640 AM/94.3 FM (Spanish)