Just heard that almost 75% of Rivers passing yards went to our running backs...WTF!

That is not good. A win is a win....lots of good things happened today, but that kind of stat honestly scares me. The WRs need to get more involved!

 So what. You take what they give you.  They sat back in a cover 2 alot.   I guess I understand your concern that Rivers and Meachem have not connected deep and it shows we miss VJ.  We will come across a team that sits in a cover two and has a better front 7 and we will be in trouble unless we can stretch the field.  I would take the win and think about how much better our defense is than last year.  Tough game in NOs who will be desperate next week.

Agreed. I said early on that the offense was not looking good. Even when we scored on the opening drive we had runs being stuffed, third-and-longs, and (thankfully) penalties on the Chiefs to extend the drive.

What happened to our offense????

+1

slammer8 wrote:  So what. You take what they give you.  They sat back in a cover 2 alot.   I guess I understand your concern that Rivers and Meachem have not connected deep and it shows we miss VJ.  We will come across a team that sits in a cover two and has a better front 7 and we will be in trouble unless we can stretch the field.  I would take the win and think about how much better our defense is than last year.  Tough game in NOs who will be desperate next week.

We didn't "take what they gave us". We had most of our runs stuffed - especially the first three quarters. We had far too many third-and-longs (and didn't convert most of them). We had Chiefs turnovers and penalties (which I guess you could say is taking what they gave us).

But - we did NOT have the consistent short routes and slants. We did not have an effective running game. And we did not have many four-receiver attacks (which is tough for us considering our OL deficiencies).

This is a huge concern for us. We can't simply smile it away with a whitewashing of what actually happened this game. 

Our offense didn't work.

chargers4life wrote: +1

slammer8 wrote:  So what. You take what they give you.  They sat back in a cover 2 alot.   I guess I understand your concern that Rivers and Meachem have not connected deep and it shows we miss VJ.  We will come across a team that sits in a cover two and has a better front 7 and we will be in trouble unless we can stretch the field.  I would take the win and think about how much better our defense is than last year.  Tough game in NOs who will be desperate next week.

Chargerhonk wrote: Just heard that almost 75% of Rivers passing yards went to our running backs...WTF!

That is not good. A win is a win....lots of good things happened today, but that kind of stat honestly scares me. The WRs need to get more involved!

It was a hyper conservative game plan to say the least.

We all know Rivers can hit 10 different receivers in any given game, he's not the cheap yardage sort.  I think the absence of Floyd and Meachem today was more to do with Norv being timid with a large lead than Rivers not seeing the field.  The same thing happened in the Tennesee game, the only real difference is Rosario got involved.

slammer8 wrote:  So what. You take what they give you.  They sat back in a cover 2 alot.   I guess I understand your concern that Rivers and Meachem have not connected deep and it shows we miss VJ.  We will come across a team that sits in a cover two and has a better front 7 and we will be in trouble unless we can stretch the field.  I would take the win and think about how much better our defense is than last year.  
Tough game in NOs who will be desperate next week.

Slammer I completely agree, I even said that in my original post, but as you said at the bottom of your post, that next weeks game in New Orleans will be tough...and that's my point. You can only survive in the NFL for so long if 75% of your passing yards come from your running backs not your wide receivers. Show me any other team in the NFL who has stats anywhere close to those...I don't think they exist.

With that said, my main point and concern is improving the passing game, with Rivers connecting on a more consistent basis with Meachem, Royal, and Floyd. What other WRs am I missing? I know we have a few riding the pine too, not to mention Gates and Rosario.

It's amazing the lack of chemistry between Meachum and Rivers. I'm just wondering why we don't have Meachum on easier routes JUST to get him the ball once or twice more in a game. he was targeted twice? and earned Rivers a forced int. Geez.

Good to have Gaither back. He was huge on the left side and it's wondrous how "normal" we look when we have a clean pocket. Normal as in all 29 other teams... well, except for the Browns.

I'm just wondering why we havent' sliced and diced in the passing game like we used to. A lot of that is on the OL and a lot of that is on Rivers forcing, and a lot of that is that Norv is way to freaking easy to gameplan for. Good thing we have tremendous talent. Gates was schooling Berry all game long. It's a shame he hasn't had a TD yet.

LadyLover wrote: It's amazing the lack of chemistry between Meachum and Rivers. I'm just wondering why we don't have Meachum on easier routes JUST to get him the ball once or twice more in a game. he was targeted twice? and earned Rivers a forced int. Geez.

Good to have Gaither back. He was huge on the left side and it's wondrous how "normal" we look when we have a clean pocket. Normal as in all 29 other teams... well, except for the Browns.

I'm just wondering why we havent' sliced and diced in the passing game like we used to. A lot of that is on the OL and a lot of that is on Rivers forcing, and a lot of that is that Norv is way to freaking easy to gameplan for. Good thing we have tremendous talent. Gates was schooling Berry all game long. It's a shame he hasn't had a TD yet.

Norv easy to game plan for? No....you don't understand, he's just setting other teams up in weeks 11 and 12 when he throws an unpredictable wrinkle into the offense.

LadyLover wrote: It's amazing the lack of chemistry between Meachum and Rivers. I'm just wondering why we don't have Meachum on easier routes JUST to get him the ball once or twice more in a game. he was targeted twice? and earned Rivers a forced int. Geez.

Good to have Gaither back. He was huge on the left side and it's wondrous how "normal" we look when we have a clean pocket. Normal as in all 29 other teams... well, except for the Browns.

I'm just wondering why we havent' sliced and diced in the passing game like we used to. A lot of that is on the OL and a lot of that is on Rivers forcing, and a lot of that is that Norv is way to freaking easy to gameplan for. Good thing we have tremendous talent. Gates was schooling Berry all game long. It's a shame he hasn't had a TD yet.

And how many big games did Vincent Jackson ever have against KC?  I would argue none.
And I don't remember seeing Floyd more than once today.
And Gates doesn't have a touchdown in 4 games yet....

Does all this mean Rivers has lost chemistry with guys who've been here longer than even him? 

I'm not worried about chemistry issues, I'm worried about how long it takes Norv to make adjustments.  The Falcons and Chiefs have shown the league how to slow our offense.

Thought it was hilarious today when Eric Berry -- who I used to think was pretty good -- kept on grabbing on Gates jersey in wide-open view.

That said, VJ had 100 yards and a TD today. I know most people here support AJ's decision to overplay the DUIs, but our GM did overplay the DUIs. VJ is no Pacman case and AJ treated him like one. Could've had VJ at a good price. AJ refused to take the risk. Terrible decision. We moved on. Picked up decent-level quantity to replace top-tier quality. Would work if we could put 14 men on the field. Three .270 hitters do not equal a .320 hitter.

I've been harping on this for years.

215 yards is 215 yards.  Doesn't matter who it's to.  

Let me preface this with I didn't see any of the game except a few look in's on the Red Zone, but you do take what the defense gives you.  If Norv and Philip had tried to go deep a couple of times and then got intercepted, a lot of you guys would be complaining about that.

Philip said he made a poor throw and a poor decision on the interception(I agree) but he only missed 4 other passes I believe.  Those little passes out to the running backs may only get you 6, 7 , 8 yards at a time, but it also wears the defense down and then you break a long one.  

Again I have only seen highlights, but the Chargers won fairly easily without a SUPERB game by the offense.  JUST WIN BABY!

I am only suprised by how high it was. This offense has always relied heavily on passes to RBs. If it's working keep doing it. When the opponent brings people up to stop it, make 'em pay with our other weapons. With Gaither in there, Philip doesn't seem in a constant state of panic so maybe we can start getting our WRs more involved. I would imagine that this percentage goes up yearly league wide. To me, this whole "the NFL has become a passing league" is just saying that running plays are not nesescarily direct hand offs.

This.

slammer8 wrote:  So what. You take what they give you.  They sat back in a cover 2 alot.   I guess I understand your concern that Rivers and Meachem have not connected deep and it shows we miss VJ.  We will come across a team that sits in a cover two and has a better front 7 and we will be in trouble unless we can stretch the field.  I would take the win and think about how much better our defense is than last year.  Tough game in NOs who will be desperate next week.

Besides the fact that they sat back in a cover two they also doubled Floyd alot.  That means the RBs, TE and other WRs should produce and they did.  Rivers had Meachem open for a long TD but the ball was underthrown. With Floyd covered  he burned them with passes to Gates and the RBs.  We did score 37 last time I checked.

slammer8 wrote: Besides the fact that they sat back in a cover two they also doubled Floyd alot.  That means the RBs, TE and other WRs should produce and they did.  Rivers had Meachem open for a long TD but the ball was underthrown. With Floyd covered  he burned them with passes to Gates and the RBs.  We did score 37 last time I checked.

I am not complaining, we won, you are right....some of those 37 points came from defensive turnovers too, so let's not forget that....but with that said, the question remains, if a team is throwing 75% of it's pass yards to running backs, not wide receivers or tight ends, is there a problem? I don't claim to have the answers, it's something to watch for, and I think it opens up a good debate, which I seemed to succeed in doing. Now, if we throw 90% of our passes to running backs, and keep winning games, and go to the playoffs and win the Super Bowl, I will shut up.....but until then, I think fans need to be aware of that stat, watch it closely, and see if it repeats or is a problem. Wouldn't you agree?

Wonder what Brady's ratio is?
  We won, put up some points when the opportunity was there and Rivers did what had to be done.
 3-1  and about to play a team that is certainly better than 0-4....and angry/hungry.

Chargerhonk wrote:

slammer8 wrote: Besides the fact that they sat back in a cover two they also doubled Floyd alot.  That means the RBs, TE and other WRs should produce and they did.  Rivers had Meachem open for a long TD but the ball was underthrown. With Floyd covered  he burned them with passes to Gates and the RBs.  We did score 37 last time I checked.

I am not complaining, we won, you are right....some of those 37 points came from defensive turnovers too, so let's not forget that....but with that said, the question remains, if a team is throwing 75% of it's pass yards to running backs, not wide receivers or tight ends, is there a problem? I don't claim to have the answers, it's something to watch for, and I think it opens up a good debate, which I seemed to succeed in doing. Now, if we throw 90% of our passes to running backs, and keep winning games, and go to the playoffs and win the Super Bowl, I will shut up.....but until then, I think fans need to be aware of that stat, watch it closely, and see if it repeats or is a problem. Wouldn't you agree?

Correction, Rivers threw for 209 yards...111 of them to running backs.

yeah it was a good win for the Bucs- oh nevermind....

HunterSTomlinson wrote: Thought it was hilarious today when Eric Berry -- who I used to think was pretty good -- kept on grabbing on Gates jersey in wide-open view.

That said, VJ had 100 yards and a TD today. I know most people here support AJ's decision to overplay the DUIs, but our GM did overplay the DUIs. VJ is no Pacman case and AJ treated him like one. Could've had VJ at a good price. AJ refused to take the risk. Terrible decision. We moved on. Picked up decent-level quantity to replace top-tier quality. Would work if we could put 14 men on the field. Three .270 hitters do not equal a .320 hitter.

I've been harping on this for years.

KingBolt wrote: Correction, Rivers threw for 209 yards...111 of them to running backs.

You are right, but that's what I heard on TV last night from Laz on Sportstalk after the game, maybe he meant over the past two games. I bet it is, which still shows that the RBs are getting more of the passing yards than the receivers. I don't have time to look it up right now, could you KingBolt? Thanks for pointing that out.