Time to stop fooling ourselves.

[Mister Hoarse]

McCoy had a pretty good explanation about what happened at the end of the half in his post game press conference. And as usual, he took responsibility and said he and the team will learn from this, which is good to hear.

So what was the explanation part of the explanation?

[Coachmarkos]

#1 This team is NOT a contender is Rivers can't throw accurately, I will concur with that.
#2 Having Mathews back will help, he showed much more burst than Oliver has. Don't let anyone kid you, losing Mathews and Woodhead in back to back weeks was a HUGE blow.
#3 The defense did look better. Mind you it was the Raiders, but they put up points and yards on the Patriots just a few weeks ago, and everyone is calling the Pats the top team in the League right now.
#4 It doesn't look good. The team needs Rivers to be accurate, and right now, he just isn't.

[Wheels]

You put too much importance on specific incidents, especially when it comes to McCoy.

The defense played awesome today and taken into consideration how poorly they played the last time against the Raiders, that's a great sign.

Just reading about Rivers dealing with the rib injury helps explain why the offense is looking out of sync.

Finally, a win is a win is a win and this is a week to week league. There are teams that look great or horrible now who will look completely the opposite at the end of the season.

The rib injury coincides with the offense regressing, so it explains a bunch.

[Mister Hoarse]

#1 This team is NOT a contender is Rivers can't throw accurately, I will concur with that.
#2 Having Mathews back will help, he showed much more burst than Oliver has. Don't let anyone kid you, losing Mathews and Woodhead in back to back weeks was a HUGE blow.
#3 The defense did look better. Mind you it was the Raiders, but they put up points and yards on the Patriots just a few weeks ago, and everyone is calling the Pats the top team in the League right now.
#4 It doesn't look good. The team needs Rivers to be accurate, and right now, he just isn't.

#5 Getting Butler off the field more helped.

[Coachmarkos]

#5 Getting Butler off the field more helped.

Which means having Te'o on it helped?

I thought he played well.

[SFW]

Which means having Te'o on it helped?

I thought he played well.

Yes, there is a big difference in the D overall when all the LBers are healthy (to include Te'o). Hopefully they can stay healthy and we can see what they can do over the next 6 games.

[Boltergeist]

Ingram's presence seems to make everyone better. I would love to see him stay healthy for a full season.

[Savage Lizard]

Stadium also 85% black jerseys.

Crazy how overstated this always is, usually by Raiders fans looking to lick themselves over it. The crowd noise was MUCH louder when the Chargers did something worth yelling about than it was when the Raiders did something worth yelling about. There is no way in hell there were anywhere near 85% black jerseys.

[Savage Lizard]

Watching the game, I really felt that the game plan was "if we don't turn the ball over and/or give up big plays, we will beat an inferior team." Especially once we were up two scores. It just didn't look like we were taking any risks, and presuming we would win if we didn't give it away. Yeah, it wasn't pretty, and there were other issues as well, but it was a W, a division W, and a conference W. As others have stated, there are no style points.

[UtahBolt]

This was definitely part of the game plan. And as bad as we looked on offense, we dominated the other two phases of the game, defense and special teams. When you dominate two of three, you are going to win most games against inferior opponents. I think the offensive game plan was to get Ryan moving again and also try and get the O-line blocking worked out and not do anything that would jeopardize how well the other two phases were working.

[SDFan]

This was definitely part of the game plan. And as bad as we looked on offense, we dominated the other two phases of the game, defense and special teams. When you dominate two of three, you are going to win most games against inferior opponents. I think the offensive game plan was to get Ryan moving again and also try and get the O-line blocking worked out and not do anything that would jeopardize how well the other two phases were working.

that's what it looked like to me too. I have to wonder how much emphasis there was on protecting Rivers too in the conservative offensive game plan. Obviously the team knows about his ribs, but he was getting hit a lot back there.

[richpjr]

that's what it looked like to me too. I have to wonder how much emphasis there was on protecting Rivers too in the conservative offensive game plan. Obviously the team knows about his ribs, but he was getting hit a lot back there.

If there was an emphasis on protecting Rivers, it surely didn't work out to well!