Wierd Ways

Let’s hear it for the Aztecs basketball team, who scored 104 points. Of course, it took them two games to score those points, but they won both games due to their traditionally awesome defense. One of the announcers commented that the Aztecs were shooting 27% from the field, and the other one said, “Yeah, and what’s weird is that they’re doing that and winning.” The shooting will come in due time, but the Aztecs always make us fans nervous in the early part of the season.

What was really weird is the impression of the San Diego U-T sportswriters that the Chargers have an offense that is close to being perfect; missing, perhaps, only a cigar. Kevin Acee describes how Malcom Floyd slowed momentarily while blocking for running back Matthew Ryan and then realized that him missing the block was all that prevented Ryan from scoring a touchdown. Acee uses that as an example of how close the offense is to being perfection.

My first thought was, “Yeah,and if the dog hadn’t stopped running he’d have caught the rabbit,” and my second was that close only counts in horseshoes amd hand grenades. The Chargers only scored six earned points in the game he described.

If Acee wasn’t so absorbed in drinking Koolaid, he would realize that the example he cites reveals just how badly flawed the Chargers offense is on two levels.

First is that Floyd’s “slowing down to see what the cornerback would do” is a defensive posture not an offensive one. An offense does not wait to see what the other team is doing and then react to it, an offense makes the other team react to what it is doing. It attacks. No wonder the offense is not scoring points or converting third downs.

The more severe problems is that Floyd’s assignment was to escort the running back downfield, following a specified route, and Floyd did not do that. If you are thinking about what you should be doing, you are not doing it. You should be doing your assignments because you know what to do, not because you are thinking about what would "be a cool thing to do." That is the Chargers' problem in a nutshell, and it is not a small thing. It is a major thing.

You have an assignment. Don't think about it. Don't wait to see what the opponent will do. Carry out your assignment. especially when your assignment is blocking ror a ball carrier. It doesn't matter what the cornerback is going to do, it matters what Ryan Matthews is going to do, and you know what Ryan Matthews is going to do. Floyd blew his assignment because he was thinking instead of carrying out his assignment, which is called a lack of discipline and is the crux of the problem.

The Chargers are insufficiently aggressive on both sides of the ball, and they are undisciplined. Either they do not know their assignments or they choose not to carry them out. In both cases, that is not close to being a championship team; that is a very long way from being a championship team.