This time last year this encounter would have been a mouth-watering meeting of a pair of quarterbacks on top of their game. Unfortunately one of those passers seems to have fallen into a funk while the other has only stepped it up further.
Somehow though the Chargers were able to keep pace in this shootout and actually managed to get themselves back to within striking distance of a tying score, only for this season’s Bad Rivers to make an appearance and throw the game away with a truly horrible interception down the sideline intended for Vincent Jackson.
The Packers stay undefeated but must be concerned the way the Chargers were able to move the ball on them all day, while the Chargers will be trying to figure out what has happened to Philip Rivers this season, if indeed he is healthy as they claim.
Green Bay Packers – Three Performances of Note
The Packers might have something in this quarterback named Rodgers
If you haven’t been paying attention much it seems this Aaron Rodgers (+6.1) kid might actually be pretty good. Rodgers came out of this game with a 145.8 QB rating, which isn’t quite perfect, but it’s not something you’d complain about. He threw four touchdown passes and completed 21 of his 26 pass attempts. What’s more, there was no facet of the game where his QB rating dipped below 100. When blitzed it actually went up a fraction, to 146.8, and even in the face of pressure he had a rating of 105.0 and completed 80% of his passes. Rodgers is on fire like few quarterbacks have ever been (in fact judging by his record setting pace in multiple statistical categories there’s a pretty goo argument to be made that he’s on fire like no other quarterback has ever been), and he is carrying the Packers thus far.
Has anybody seen a 337lb man?
Answers to the name B.J. Raji. Raji (-2.0) has been worryingly absent for the Packers this season, coming off the back of a fine 2010 season. In this game he notched just a single quarterback hit on 47 pass-rushes, and that came late in the 4th quarter when he beat left guard Tyronne Green (-0.2) to the inside. He was far from dominant in the run game as well and represents a growing concern for the Packers, who seem unable to generate the same level of play from their D-line that they had last season. That was just Raji’s 11th total quarterback pressure on the season whereas he had 35 in 2010, and seven of those were sacks.
Foil for Matthews emerging?
The Packers have been looking for a threat to pair with Clay Matthews at outside linebacker for a while now, and it is starting to look like Erik Walden (+4.4) could be that guy. Walden had a sack, two hits, four pressures and a batted pass in this game and showed all kinds of hustle at times, chasing down plays from the back side when other players would just jog through the motions. His sack with 6:44 to go in the third quarter shows this drive perfectly as he chases Rivers to the far sideline taking a good angle and sprinting the entire way to leap on the Chargers signal caller before he can unleash the deep ball he was looking for. Matthews only gets better with another viable threat on the other side of the formation, and Walden showed in this game he has the potential to do it.
San Diego – Three Performances of Note
Who broke Philip Rivers?
Since this refocused has something of a quarterback theme to it we might as well talk about the Chargers passer as well. Rivers earned himself a (+1.1) grade for this game on the back of some pretty poor throws at times, and even poorer decisions on occasion. There were some nice throws in there as well, but he’s making bad throws he didn’t make before. Last season he had just one game with a worse grade than the one he earned in this one, and that was in the opening week. In the three seasons before this year he had just five games graded at under -1.1, but this year alone he has already had three. The Chargers maintain that he is not carrying any kind of injury, but this is clearly more than simply a poor run of form. Rivers is making poor throws, and even worse decisions and they are costing the Chargers games. The interception he threw to give the Packers the ball back late in the fourth quarter when the Chargers had done the hard work of getting back within a score was a truly awful throw, one that the Rivers of old does not make.
Better pass protection would probably help
Rivers may be in a tailspin, but he’s certainly not helped by the pressure coming around the edge. In previous seasons Rivers has been able to play above the level of some awful O-line play, but not this year it seems. Jeromey Clary (-3.5) was beaten for a sack and four more pressures on the right side, and Marcus McNeil (-2.0) allowed a hit and five pressures from the left side. That adds up to a seriously unstable pocket and some understandable questions from Rivers about what is approaching his blindside with some speed as he tries to look downfield for a receiver. Maybe it’s time for the Chargers to start employing the services of a more conventional blocking tight end in addition to the wide-out play of Antonio Gates (-1.2).
You just don’t see him coming
Nothing about Mike Tolbert makes you think he’s going to be much of a factor in the game. Sure he’s quite big and looks like he might be a useful short-yardage or power back, but you just don’t expect him to have the moves, feet or ability with the ball in his hands that he does, or for that matter the speed. Tolbert’s (+3.8) grade came through some nice plays as a runner and a receiver, but if you’re looking for a play to demonstrate quite how surprising an athlete he is look no further than the first and 18 with 7:53 to go in the 3rd quarter. Tolbert took a simple dump off pass and outran A.J. Hawk to the sideline. Hawk had plenty of open field to catch him and couldn’t get within a despairing dive of the former undrafted free agent.
Game Notes
– Quentin Jammer (-0.5) entered this game with just 16 targets on the season so far. Green Bay went at him eight times and it yielded six receptions for 62 yards and a touchdown.
– It’s surprising they bothered going at Jammer at all because Marcus Gilchrist (-2.7) allowed all seven of the passes thrown at him to be caught, for 129 yards and two touchdowns.
– Despite the game pouring with rain and both sides airing it out, the two teams combined for just one dropped pass.
PFF Game Ball
I could easily have gone for Aaron Rodgers here, but we’ve come to expect it from him. But Erik Walden was in the face of Rivers all day and made more than his fair share of big plays.
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