Better to have these stinker issues now?

[Heatmiser]

Trying to look for positives in the loss to the Bears last night, I at least think the poor showing by the offense, defense, special teams, (coaches?) can be used constructively. No way do the Chargers act over confident, or take preseason success as an indicator of regular season success. They KNOW they have a lot to fix and they now have game tape to illustrate it and get it fixed. McCoy was hired because he is a whiz at masking and working around deficiencies, so now he needs to get to it.

On the other hand, was this loss demoralizing for the team? Will they start to question how much they "have bought in to what we're doing" to coin McCoy's phrase?

And I don't buy the "wait until the regular season because we haven't installed everything yet" excuse. Norv's teams always said that. And the Bears haven't installed everything yet, either.

On the Bears, it appears no matter who the head coach is, they will have a sucky offense that gets bailed out by defense and special teams and turnovers.

TG

[Coachmarkos]

the Patriots went 0-4 and looked terrible in one of their super bowl seasons in the pre-season, and Oakland went 4-0 in the preseason last year.

It doesn't matter. It's not gameplanned (not like a real game), and personell groupings are not what they will be.

My hope is the new coaching staff is just evaluating and figuring out what they want to do and when, with who.

[Steve]

Teams probably have most if not all of their offense/defense installed at this point. Now they are getting down to working against specific defenses and such.

To me it comes down to how much is Chicago game planning, which gives any team a huge edge.

The other thing that probably needs to be mentioned is how much has our base O been working against a 43 look on D? You tend to work most against your own D. Putting in a lot of extra work early just to look good in preseason game seems silly to me.

[SDFan]

we don't have tons of vet talent or depth across the board- so fielding a somewhat competent 53 man roster this year will be challenging. We are looking at a lot of guys and substituting a lot trying to find the best of what we have. Would not surprise me if they abandoned the normal "play your starters the 3rd PS game and rest them the 4th game" routine because they still hav so much evaluating to do.

Anybody else encouraged they didn't give up after the 4 turnovers and getting behind early- but kept fighting back to make it close?

[maurile]

The Chargers could go 4-0 during the preseason very easily if they wanted to. That's not their priority.

[oneinchpunch]

Anybody else encouraged they didn't give up after the 4 turnovers and getting behind early- but kept fighting back to make it close?

No. It's preseason and scrubs out scoring scrubs doesn't mean anything

[ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR]

I saw some positives on an individual level. CBJ and Sorensen had nice games. Geathers had a nice game. We're seeing the ups and downs of Fluker, but you can't help but be encouraged. To me, the positive of the night was the running of Mathews. He looked fantastic and the line was getting more push than I've seen since maybe 2009. Green continues to look like a guy that can contribute. I hope they have a role for him (with Norv you could bet he'd get some run in preseason and then do nothing once the year started). Meachem beat a man and caught a ball. Rinehart continues to look pretty steady. Vincent Brown is back on the field. Allen recovered from a shaky start with some nice catches. Liuget was looking great before the injury. I think he's ready for another step up. Shareece Wright seems to be pretty good in coverage. The Marshall TD was just tough to defend, but he was right there. On the long Forte run, he got knocked down and got up to chase him all the way down the field and prevent him from scoring. Nice hustle. Rivers looks decent when he gets any time at all. The D, I felt, played a pretty good game all things considered. Chicago was in our end the whole time. All the units made stops.

But overall, at a unit level, the team looks a little disorganized and needs tightening up. Some of it is the new systems and staff, some is new guys, some is inexperienced guys. ST is a real concern. But overall, I see the makings of something positive. Just going to take some time to gel.

[BoltBalls]

I saw some positives on an individual level. CBJ and Sorensen had nice games. Geathers had a nice game. We're seeing the ups and downs of Fluker, but you can't help but be encouraged. To me, the positive of the night was the running of Mathews. He looked fantastic and the line was getting more push than I've seen since maybe 2009. Green continues to look like a guy that can contribute. I hope they have a role for him (with Norv you could bet he'd get some run in preseason and then do nothing once the year started). Meachem beat a man and caught a ball. Rinehart continues to look pretty steady. Vincent Brown is back on the field. Allen recovered from a shaky start with some nice catches. Liuget was looking great before the injury. I think he's ready for another step up. Shareece Wright seems to be pretty good in coverage. The Marshall TD was just tough to defend, but he was right there. On the long Forte run, he got knocked down and got up to chase him all the way down the field and prevent him from scoring. Nice hustle. Rivers looks decent when he gets any time at all. The D, I felt, played a pretty good game all things considered. Chicago was in our end the whole time. All the units made stops.

But overall, at a unit level, the team looks a little disorganized and needs tightening up. Some of it is the new systems and staff, some is new guys, some is inexperienced guys. ST is a real concern. But overall, I see the makings of something positive. Just going to take some time to gel.

Good post, I pretty much agree with it all. Most of us have been focusing on the negatives but there were certainly positives to gather from last night's game as well.

It will be soon enough before the real doom and gloom starts anyways, let's try and have a little faith before the season even starts shall we? :laugh:

[SDFan]

I saw some positives on an individual level. CBJ and Sorensen had nice games. Geathers had a nice game. We're seeing the ups and downs of Fluker, but you can't help but be encouraged. To me, the positive of the night was the running of Mathews. He looked fantastic and the line was getting more push than I've seen since maybe 2009. Green continues to look like a guy that can contribute. I hope they have a role for him (with Norv you could bet he'd get some run in preseason and then do nothing once the year started). Meachem beat a man and caught a ball. Rinehart continues to look pretty steady. Vincent Brown is back on the field. Allen recovered from a shaky start with some nice catches. Liuget was looking great before the injury. I think he's ready for another step up. Shareece Wright seems to be pretty good in coverage. The Marshall TD was just tough to defend, but he was right there. On the long Forte run, he got knocked down and got up to chase him all the way down the field and prevent him from scoring. Nice hustle. Rivers looks decent when he gets any time at all. The D, I felt, played a pretty good game all things considered. Chicago was in our end the whole time. All the units made stops.

But overall, at a unit level, the team looks a little disorganized and needs tightening up. Some of it is the new systems and staff, some is new guys, some is inexperienced guys. ST is a real concern. But overall, I see the makings of something positive. Just going to take some time to gel.

add Mike Wilie to the guys who had good games. Coincidentally he plays a position we have a lot of injury history and potential. I hope they cut Goodman and keep Willie on the 53 instead as Goodman isn't enough of a WR to keep around and he still makes really questionable decisions on when to return KOs. I wonder if Rock Baker can return kicks and become another Sproles type for us.

#42 on defense was getting mauled out there.

[ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR]

Good post, I pretty much agree with it all. Most of us have been focusing on the negatives but there were certainly positives to gather from last night's game as well.

It will be soon enough before the real doom and gloom starts anyways, let's try and have a little faith before the season even starts shall we? :laugh:

Well, OK, pollyanna. If you insist ;-)

[ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR]

Oh sorry, I forgot to mention Jahleel Addae. Not sure what we have there, but I like what I'm seeing.

[Beerman]

Oh sorry, I forgot to mention Jahleel Addae. Not sure what we have there, but I like what I'm seeing.

Yea he seems athletic. They should of left Brandon Taylor on the PUP list. Doubt he's close to contributing. Don't know why they are rushing him back.