Defensive concerns

[KNSD]

It's a bit early to sound the panic alarm, but that first TD pass from the Cardinals on the post between the two safeties has me worried. Not to mention the gashes up the middle by a poor running offense. I foresee a Charger defense very strong on the perimeter, but very soft straight up the gut.

1. DL - Liuget is the only solid DL on the roster, with Philon showing some very early flashes and Unrein sometimes looking like an immovable object.
2. Safety - The safety play has been very poor over the first two preseason games. Weddle looks old and Addai and Wilson, although active, look like they have no talent. The Charger safeties always seem to be a step late.
3. MLBs - Not sold on these guys yet.

[blueman]

I'm not all that concerned, it's preseason, we added some good guys to a D that didn't lose us any games last season. My only concern is health, losing Tourek is the biggest blow at this point, but losing a backup is better than losing a starter.

We're above the curve!

[BoltFan84]

I felt Addai had a very good game. Not too keen on diving in low when tackling, but he was very active and broke up a couple of passes. DL first stringers hardly played. I think only LBs were 1st string, but DL and DBs were 2nd/3rd string from practically the start, so that's a good sign of depth of the defense. But they're thin in ILBs group, and young but solid on outside.

[OhioBolt]

It's a bit early to sound the panic alarm, but that first TD pass from the Cardinals on the post between the two safeties has me worried. Not to mention the gashes up the middle by a poor running offense. I foresee a Charger defense very strong on the perimeter, but very soft straight up the gut.

1. DL - Liuget is the only solid DL on the roster, with Philon showing some very early flashes and Unrein sometimes looking like an immovable object.
2. Safety - The safety play has been very poor over the first two preseason games. Weddle looks old and Addai and Wilson, although active, look like they have no talent. The Charger safeties always seem to be a step late.
3. MLBs - Not sold on these guys yet.

Hopefully Carrethers can step up, in the middle.
Our LB have been underwhelming against the run.
I agree safety has looked shaky, but Weddle I think will be okay he hasn't even played that much, but the safeties playing opposite of him haven't shown much Wilson step slow, and Addae missing tackles going for the kill shot all the time. A guy who has suprised me in pre-season play is Craig Maeger do you switch him from corner to safety?

[KNSD]

"T-Rex" Mager has been freaking awesome so far. Great pickup by Telesco so far. Too early to move him to safety. Still learning NFL.

[Steve]

I am cautiously optimistic about the pass rush. I know we have done well on matchups, and most of the sacks are against guys who are not starters, but they have been against players with NFL starting experience and we have been pretty vanilla in our blitzing. Plus, you don't exactly get teams in obvious passing situations in preseason either.

Mager is obviously being groomed to move inside to slot CB. If they intended to move him to S, they would have done so by now, not give him more reps at outside CB. It is taking longer then I expected, but I still think they want him in the slot as a Gilchrist style CB/S hybrid guy, with the size to play the run, be physical with the new generation of TE and able to drop against WR. Mager still benefits by getting the technique work at CB, but will get more and more work in the slot.

As far as the rest of the S, I don't think a lot of S do look good in preseason. To play well at S, you have to spend a lot of time on film study, and make your reads quickly and know what to do against each play as it develops. In preseason, they don't spend a lot of time in film study. You do the bear minimum, and just study a few basic plays. Then the S just has to trust on knowing what their basic assignment is, but it doesn't put them in position to make a lot of plays.

Same thing with the running game. We don't have a game plan to stop another teams running game. Az had us dead to rights because they knew we not going to be ready for the extra TE formations they kept pulling out. And really the thing that has hurt us most in the run D is the poor tackling, which isn't exactly a problem that the Chargers are facing alone. Every team is struggling with tackling right now. One of the side effects caused by the pussification of football by the league and players association. The only times teams get to tackle people to the ground is in preseason games.