It’s bowl season College Bowl chart
L.A. can take over lead of AFC West with win vs. Chiefs in Kansas City
When the Los Angeles Chargers lost their fourth game of the season on Sept.
30 as the Kansas City Chiefs started
4-0, quarterback Philip Rivers stopped thinking about the AFC West race.
A four-game deficit that early in the year, Rivers figured, should be insurmountable. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe his Chargers could rally and find their way into the wild-card race. But it felt silly to think about catching the Chiefs, especially after Kansas City won the teams’ first matchup 24-10 in Los Angeles in Week 3.
“You didn’t see it coming. They went to New England and won. They beat the Eagles. They were just rolling,” Rivers said of the Chiefs. “So I didn’t know we could get to this point in the division race.”
Yet somehow the Chargers find themselves with the chance to take sole possession of first place in the AFC West Saturday should they beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. Both teams sit 7-6 after the rally Rivers was hoping for arrived with the current four-game win streak, which followed a with a threegame run in October. The Chiefs, meanwhile, had lost six of seven games before last week’s 26-15 win vs. the Raiders.
So how did the Chargers wind up here? It starts with Rivers, who is playing his way into the MVP conversation, but includes a hot streak from wide receiver Keenan Allen, a nasty pass rush tandem and a defense creating turnovers by the bunch.
Rivers in control: The 14th-year veteran is on pace for nine interceptions this year, which would tie his career low since he became the Chargers’ starter in 2006. He’s been largely mistake-free during Los Angeles' four-game winning streak, and three of his seven interceptions came against the Chiefs in Week 3. He ranks fourth in the NFL with 3,611 passing yards and is tied for fifth in touchdowns with 23. The numbers, along with with leading the Chargers back into the playoff race, have Rivers in the discussion for MVP. “Individual recognition and things come when teams have success. If that comes with us having a lot of success then I’d be grateful. But we got a good thing going and hopefully we can keep it going,” Rivers said.
Allen’s hot streak: In recent years, the story about Allen has been how serious injuries – a torn ACL, a lacerated kidney – had derailed promising seasons and robbed the Chargers’ of their top offensive weapon. Now the wide receiver is healthy and has 39 catches for 547 yards and four touchdowns in the Chargers' last four games, putting him over 1,000 receiving yards for the first time since his rookie year in 2013. Though Los Angeles has found success in moving Allen around, he’s been particularly dangerous out of the slot, where defenses typically don't expect to find a 6-2, 211-pound receiver not known for his speed. But Allen is among the NFL’s best receivers off the line, which has enabled him to get open all over the field.
Fierce pass rush: Defensive ends Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram have combined for 20 1/2 sacks, more than half of the Chargers’ team total of 37. With so much attention on Bosa and Ingram, defensive coordinator Gus Bradley is finding other ways to get pressure – including corner blitzes (rookie nickel corner Desmond King has four sacks) and from the interior defensive line (Corey Liuget was disruptive against Washington last week with with two tackles and a shared sack).
Takeaways: No stat better shows why the Chargers have made this lateseason surge better than turnover margin. At +13, the Chargers rank third in the NFL. Defensively, the takeaways are coming from each level of the defense, with four strip sack fumbles forced by Bosa (tied for third-most in the NFL) and 16 interceptions, which is tied for third. “That is the biggest correlation to winning. I’ve heard that my whole life: (not) turning the ball over and getting turnovers,” Rivers said. “I think that’s pretty clear. It always holds up. The last four weeks we haven’t turned it over and we’ve gotten a bunch of them, and we’ve won four in a row.”
Elimination-game approach: Because of their slow start, the Chargers have been playing for relevance since mid-October, with each loss pushing them further from playoff contention. The elimination-game mindset has prepared the team for these meaningful games in December, Rivers said. “We’ve been playing very free but at the same time very focused if that makes any sense. We know we’ve been in a position where we’ve had no more wiggle room, and we’re still there.”