Mathews

[Formula 21]

I now accept him as a player that is going to help us win rather than a mistake and loss waiting to happen. Go Ryan.

[BoltBacker]

RM deserves blame for a slow start to his career but I stand by what I said before, Norv was a frickin anchor to his development. Not standing behind and supporting young players leads to them not developing. Hated Norv doing that, RM knew ONE mistake and he was back to the bench, that is not a way to build confidence. Fans may hate McCoy but I bet the players like him. With Norv I always had a feeling only the Veteran players had his back, not a way to build a team and improve from year to year.

[Antonio's Gates]

i love all our running backs not named ronnie brown. if we can add one more guy that can get the tough yards up the middle and be insurance we'll be set.

[Beerman]

i love all our running backs not named ronnie brown. if we can add one more guy that can get the tough yards up the middle and be insurance we'll be set.

Completely agree on replacing Brown this offseason. Obviously not a high round RB.

I'm happy Matthews is having success and has really embraced the new scheme. He doesn't dance behind the LOS anymore and just hits that whole hard. This 2 game stretch has been by far his most impressive in my mind given the circumstances and the short turnaround.

[thelightningwill]

Earlier this year, I wanted Mathews cut. This cancels out everything I've been right about. Mathews has been the balls.

[MakoShark]

He's thriving in the this offense with these blocking schemes. I speaks volumns about the outdated scheme the previous regime was using, IMO. Does Ryan have themost 100 yard performances on the season? I think he does. He's certainly having a Pro Bowl caliber year.

[SFW]

He's thriving in the this offense with these blocking schemes. I speaks volumns about the outdated scheme the previous regime was using, IMO. Does Ryan have themost 100 yard performances on the season? I think he does. He's certainly having a Pro Bowl caliber year.

He is tied for the most. That is crazy to say that no RB in the NFL has more 100 yard running games than Mathews. Also, it was never mentioned here but last week he passed Chuck Muncie as the Chargers #4 all time rusher.

[zoom]

That cut on the touchdown was amazing. So decisive, quick and powerful. Really impressed with him this year.

[UtahBolt]

Did you hear them mention the stat that he is 8 of 9 on converting 3rd or 4th and 1 this season? That is pretty damn good. I will ask it again...where the hell was that against Washington?

I have always liked the way he runs, sometimes you can actually feel sorry for the defensive players that have to lower their head and tackle him. He runs really, really hard.

[SDFan]

gotta say I told you so on this one. I pointed out in the offseason this is the same transformation McCoy worked on Knowshit Moreno. The similarities were there: 1st round "reach" RB who fumbled a lot early on, missed significant time with injuries and had to split workload because previous coaches had no faith in him. Generally disappointing and borderline bust. McCoy & Whis decided to make RM the early down, tough yardage workhorse to get his confidence back with some success pounding the ball and then expanded his role and the success continued. The schemes and better OL in front of him have helped too.

[SDFan]

anybody looked at the Chargers win % when Mathews has 25 carries?

[Steve]

Did you hear them mention the stat that he is 8 of 9 on converting 3rd or 4th and 1 this season? That is pretty damn good. I will ask it again...where the hell was that against Washington?

We had no chance of running it in against Washington. The only thing Washington's D does well is getting low on short yardage situations. They can't seal the edge, but without a blocking TE, we can't run off-tackle or wide either. Our OL just doesn't get low and blow people out. The only bad thing about the Washington series is we should have thrown 3 times, that was the only reasonable chance we had to score. But Washington was going to clog the inside running lanes to force us to throw. Their DL are good at firing off, and our OL is not very good at getting low and getting under people.

Long term, we need a blocking TE who can help seal the off tackle and give us that element. The DL can't just choose to deny the inside without giving up the easy offtackle or outside pitch to the flag. Then we start converting TD instead of FG or no points (which happened a lot). IMHO, that has to be a pretty high priority in the offseason.